WordPress Hacks: Using Post Excerpts as Meta Descriptions

When you build a static website with a few separate HTML files you find it easy to optimize each page for search engines, load times and meta information. When using a template based application like WordPress, this kind of customization is a bit trickier. But with a few good hacks you’ll be able to easily optimize each page for your needs.

The Problem: WordPress uses the same meta data for each page. The solutions is simple, though:

<?php
//if single post then add excerpt as meta description
if (is_single()) {
?>
<meta name="Description" content="<?php echo strip_tags(get_the_excerpt($post->ID)); ?>" />
<?php
//if homepage use standard meta description
} else if(is_home() || is_page())  {
?>
<meta name="Description" content="whatever your blog/site is about goes here w00t!">
<?php
//if category page, use category description as meta description
} else if(is_category()) {
?>
<meta name="Description" content="<?php echo strip_tags(category_description(get_category_by_slug(strtolower(get_the_category()))->term_id)); ?>" />
<?php } ?>

Yup, that’s it! You can also do the same thing with tags. I’ll probably add an update or new post soon on how to use tags as meta keywords. If you come up with a solution let us know in the comments below!

Enjoy!