SEO essentials
A light, built-in SEO layer: control how pages appear in Google (title + meta description) and on social media (Open Graph), keep pages out of the index with noindex/canonical, and manage the XML sitemap.
Turning it on#
SEO is a suite feature (the Settings tab, key seo), enabled by default. Turn it off if another SEO plugin (Yoast, Rank Math, All in One SEO) already handles metadata. As long as one of those plugins is active, the front-end output does nothing regardless of the feature toggle: no duplicate tags.
Per page: the SEO metabox#
Every post and page has an SEO metabox with:
- SEO title: the
<title>tag. Empty falls back to the post type's title template. - Meta description: the search-result snippet. Empty falls back to the template, or an automatic excerpt.
- Canonical URL: override the canonical URL (empty uses the permalink).
- Social share image: a dedicated Open Graph image for social shares.
- Noindex: keep this page out of search engines.
A live Google preview and a social preview show exactly how the page will look, with character counters guiding on length (title around 60 characters, description around 155). Empty fields show the template value as a placeholder.
Global settings (Ultivo Toolkit → SEO)#
- General: the title separator (
-,–,|,•,») plus an overview of the available template variables. - Title templates: a title and description template per post type.
- Archives & special pages: a template for archives, plus an option to noindex search results and 404 pages.
- Social sharing: a default Open Graph image (fallback) and an X/Twitter username.
- XML sitemap: an on/off switch, plus a link to the sitemap.
Template variables#
Usable in title and description templates:
| Variable | Meaning |
|---|---|
%title% |
Post/page title |
%sitename% |
Site name |
%tagline% |
Site tagline |
%sep% |
The separator |
%excerpt% |
Excerpt (auto-generated from content when none is set manually) |
%category% |
First category |
%archive_title% |
Archive title |
%search_term% |
Search term |
%page% |
Page number (for pagination) |
Unknown variables and stray separators at either edge are cleaned up automatically: an empty %title% never leaves a dangling " - Site name".
What's printed on the front end#
On every page (unless another SEO plugin is active):
<title>viapre_get_document_title: the theme doesn't need to output its own title tag; the plugin adds one if needed.<meta name="description"><meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">when noindex is set (or on search/404 when that option is enabled).<link rel="canonical">- Open Graph:
og:type,og:title,og:description,og:url,og:site_name,og:locale,og:image. - Twitter:
twitter:card(summary_large_imagewhen an image is set, otherwisesummary),twitter:title/description/image, andtwitter:site(the configured @handle).
The Open Graph image falls back in order: the per-post image, then the featured image, then the global default from settings. If none of the three is set, no og:image tag is printed.
The whole block is wrapped in an <!-- SEO by Ultivo Toolkit --> comment, so a glance at the page source tells you which plugin printed which tag.
Your homepage#
There is no separate homepage section in the settings, because in most cases there is nothing separate to configure:
- A static page as your front page (Settings → Reading) is an ordinary page, so it uses its own SEO fields: title, description, canonical URL, social image and noindex. Edit that page and use the SEO box like anywhere else.
- Your latest posts as your front page has no page to edit, so Ultivo Toolkit falls back to your site title and tagline (Settings → General).
XML sitemap#
Built on WordPress's own sitemap (wp-sitemap.xml, available since WP 5.5). The plugin adds an on/off switch and excludes noindex posts from the sitemap. Requires pretty permalinks. If the sitemap link 404s, re-save the permalink settings once.
Coexistence with other SEO plugins#
If Yoast, Rank Math or All in One SEO is active, Ultivo Toolkit's front-end SEO output is suppressed entirely, even with the seo feature turned on, so there's no conflict from having both installed. Turn the feature off in Settings once you've confirmed the other plugin covers what you need.