So how do we typically handle page titles in WordPress? Hopefully we are A) Using a theme that uses a pretty smart default page titling system or B) using a plugin that helps us with this same task automatically, as most SEO plugins at least attempt.

The problem with A is that it doesn’t afford any way to individually override any particular page with a special title. With B, it depends on which plugin you use, but not all of them allow for full control over the entire title, often just the slug that fits into the overall chosen method.

Finally fed up with both of these techniques, I rolled my own!

Step 1: Remove <title>

Whatever you have for the <title> tag in the header.php file, just get rid of it.

We’ll be inserting that automatically in the wp_head(); function, so that needs to be there.

Step 2: New stuff for functions.php file

We’re doing three things here.

1. Add a new input box to the admin pages for creating and editing new Posts/Pages
2. Save the the value of that input box when that Post/Page is saved
3. Echo out a new title as part of the wp_head() function

// Custom Page Titles
add_action('admin_menu', 'custom_title');
add_action('save_post', 'save_custom_title');
add_action('wp_head','insert_custom_title');
function custom_title() {
	add_meta_box('custom_title', 'Change page title', 'custom_title_input_function', 'post', 'normal', 'high');
	add_meta_box('custom_title', 'Change page title', 'custom_title_input_function', 'page', 'normal', 'high');
}
function custom_title_input_function() {
	global $post;
	echo '<input type="hidden" name="custom_title_input_hidden" id="custom_title_input_hidden" value="'.wp_create_nonce('custom-title-nonce').'" />';
	echo '<input type="text" name="custom_title_input" id="custom_title_input" style="width:100%;" value="'.get_post_meta($post->ID,'_custom_title',true).'" />';
}
function save_custom_title($post_id) {
	if (!wp_verify_nonce($_POST['custom_title_input_hidden'], 'custom-title-nonce')) return $post_id;
	if (defined('DOING_AUTOSAVE') && DOING_AUTOSAVE) return $post_id;
	$customTitle = $_POST['custom_title_input'];
	update_post_meta($post_id, '_custom_title', $customTitle);
}
function insert_custom_title() {
	if (have_posts()) : the_post();
	  $customTitle = get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), '_custom_title', true);
	  if ($customTitle) {
		echo "<title>$customTitle</title>";
      } else {
    	echo "<title>";
	      if (is_tag()) {
	         single_tag_title("Tag Archive for &quot;"); echo '&quot; - '; }
	      elseif (is_archive()) {
	         wp_title(''); echo ' Archive - '; }
	      elseif ((is_single()) || (is_page()) && (!(is_front_page())) ) {
	         wp_title(''); echo ' - '; }
	      if (is_home()) {
	         bloginfo('name'); echo ' - '; bloginfo('description'); }
	      else {
	          bloginfo('name'); }
	      if ($paged>1) {
	         echo ' - page '. $paged; }
        echo "</title>";
    }
    else :
      echo "<title>Page Not Found | Envision</title>";
	endif;
	rewind_posts();
}

The new input box we are putting on the page saves its value as a custom field on the Post/Page you are on. The key of that custom field is “_custom_title”, so it doesn’t show in the regular custom field list (custom fields that start with underscores don’t).

Now when any front-end page of the site loads, it checks that page to see if that custom field exists. If it does exist, it uses that value exactly for the page title. If it doesn’t, it defaults to a generically smart page title structure.

Result

This is the box that now is available when creating or editing a Page/Post:

And that is what will be used:

© 2010 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: functions, title

Let me note that this isn’t an absolutely comprehensive comparison of every single feature. For example, they both claim to be fast. I’m not techy enough to know which one is really “faster”. These are the features that are important to me.

Other little features

• You can disable All-In-One SEO without deactivating or uninstalling it.
• You can export and import settings with wpSEO. So if you have a specific setup you like to use, it’s easy to move that to other sites.

General thoughts

• wpSEO definitely has more features, but of course more isn’t always better. The settings page may be overwhelming for some.
• All-In-One SEO is free, and it does all the things I consider vital for a SEO plugin.
• On a pure features / functions / UI standpoint, I like wpSEO better.

© 2010 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: meta, SEO, title

1. Enter title without HTML

2. Create a custom field for the title with HTML

3. Output custom field on pages you want the HTML

For example, on the single.php page where you would have used

<h1><php the_title(); ?></h1>

Now you use

<?php

   $html_title = get_post_meta($post->ID, "HTML_title", true);

   if ($html_title) { ?>
                
      <h1><?php echo $html_title; ?></h1>
                
   <?php } else { ?>
                
      <h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
                    
<?php } ?>

This checks and sees if that custom field is set. If it is, it outputs that. If not, it uses the regular function.

Because the RSS templates use the regular the_title() function, your titles are same from being weirdified in feed readers.

Example

The example used here was from my new blog layout, where I’m trying to have as much control as possible for doing interesting post layouts.

© 2009 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: custom-fields, title, tricks

The one I was really hoping to see is the “plugin notes” (add a text field to each plugin on manage plugins page to add notes as to why it’s being used) idea, but no bites yet.

© 2009 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: title

Subtitle

I think it would be a cool format for a blog to have a title and a subtitle for every single Post. You could easily do it with Custom Fields, but this plugin would alter the Admin screen for writing posts to insert an additional text area underneath the title and above the content area.

Then there would be a special function for displaying the subtitle like:

<?php the_subtitle(); ?>

Rich Text Titles

Speaking of titles, it would be cool if we were able to use HTML tags in titles sometimes. For example, just being able to add <em> tags to a word in the title would be cool, but that causes problems currently. It might display OK on your site, but it may cause validation problems (since the tags will show up inside title attributes and such) and may come across screwed up in feed readers. This plugin would alter the the_title() function to automatically strip the HTML tags, but create a new function like the_title_html() that would retain the tags for display anywhere you want to make sure they persist. This would ensure the RSS feed remains unscathed.

Plugin Notes

Ever look through your list of plugins and forget just exactly what one of them does? I know they have descriptions next to them, but that doesn’t always speak to exactly what you are using it for and why. This plugin would just put a text field in each plugin field you could type some notes in there, theoretically to keep information about why and how you are using this plugin.

You’d probably have to also add buttons/links for adding & removing notes.

Notify All Admins

On this blog we have two admins: me and Jeff. When I write and publish a post, and someone comments, I get an email about it (but Jeff doesn’t). When Jeff writes and publishes a post, and someone comments, he gets an email about it (but I don’t). Since this is both of our sites, I wouldn’t mind getting ALL comment notifications. But I’m not sure if Jeff feels the same way. So this plugin would just add an extra user option (only active for full site admins):

Title Un-Widower

There is a pretty robust plugin called WP-Typography that covers widows in post titles. I give it props, but my personal preference is to handle 90% of what it does on my own. What I can’t do on my own is add non-breaking spaces to the last two words in a post title (one of the things it does). I currently do this with jQuery on some sites which is OK, but would be better done with PHP so it happens before the page renders no matter what.

So if there are already plugins out there that do this stuff, I apologize. I admit I didn’t launch a giant manhunt to find existing plugins that did these things.

© 2009 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: hacking, plugin, title

• sep – a string value indicating the separator displayed before the title
• echo – a boolean value determining whether or not the title is displayed
• seplocation – specifies the position of sep string, either left or right of the title

Here is the basic format for this tag:

<?php wp_title('sep', 'echo', 'seplocation'); ?>

..which is typically combined with the bloginfo('name') tag and used in the header.php file as follows:

<head>
<title><?php wp_title(' | ', 'echo', 'right'); ?><?php bloginfo('name'); ?>
</head>

This would produce the following output for each of the following page types:

• The Home page – outputs the name of the site
• Individual pages – page title | name of site
• Single post views – post title | name of site
• Archived post views – outputs the name of the site
• Date-based archives – year and/or month | name of site
• Category archives – category title | name of site
• Author archives – public username | name of site
• 404 error pages – outputs the name of the site
• Search results – outputs the name of the site
• Tag archives – tag name | name of site

For the average blog, this works fine; most pages include the title as well as the blog name, while those without specific page names simply output the name of the site instead. To go above and beyond, however, a little more preparation is needed. For example, rather than output only the blog name for search and tag pages, why not specify the exact tag or search term being displayed? And what about archive pages? We can customize those as well using the following code:

<title>
<?php
if (is_category()) {
	echo 'Category: '; wp_title(''); echo ' - ';

} elseif (function_exists('is_tag') && is_tag()) {
	single_tag_title('Tag Archive for &quot;'); echo '&quot; - ';

} elseif (is_archive()) {
	wp_title(''); echo ' Archive - ';

} elseif (is_page()) {
	echo wp_title(''); echo ' - ';

} elseif (is_search()) {
	echo 'Search for &quot;'.wp_specialchars($s).'&quot; - ';

} elseif (!(is_404()) && (is_single()) || (is_page())) {
	wp_title(''); echo ' - ';

} elseif (is_404()) {
	echo 'Not Found - ';

} bloginfo('name');
?>
</title>

When used in place of the default WordPress wp_title() tag, this code will produce clear, informative page titles for tag, search, date, author and other archive views, as well as for the dreaded 404 page. Further, this code may be modified to elaborate the various page titles however you wish, and also may be enhanced further, as explained in our book, Digging into WordPress.

© 2009 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: header, tags, title