Help:SEO

SEO Summary

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important to set properly so that search engines can find help users find the content they want. SEO also includes setting the primary pictures for an article. The primary method of setting up SEO is using the article template.

Usage

For an example, edit at the Booster page. Near the top is the article template in use.

{{article
|image=Boosters-Module.jpg
|title = Booster:  This is the page title
|seotitle = Boosters for DCC send data and power to trains. (This will appear in the tab or window header)
|seodescription=The booster combines power from the power supply with commands from the command station and delivers the resulting digital signal to the track and layout accessories.
|keywords=booster, power supply
}}

The template above sets the meta tags for the primary image as Boosters-Module.jpg, the title displayed on search result pages as 'Booster'. The description is use for the caption to display to users under the title. Keywords help search engines narrow down the content to display.

It's important to select an image the represents the page. This image will also be used by social media sites to display a 'card'. For example, if this link to a DCCWiki article is posted on twitter, this image will be included in tweet.

Image

The best image size is 2:1 ratio. From Twitter: Images for this Card support an aspect ratio of 2:1 with minimum dimensions of 300x157 or maximum of 4096x4096 pixels. Images must be less than 5MB in size. JPG, PNG, WEBP and GIF formats are supported.

It will look different if you view the tweet in a browser instead of an app.

Tools

To see what a twitter post would look like after the template has been configured for a page, use: https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator

This will allow you to enter the URL of a saved article to see what the included twitter card would look like.

See Also

Template:Article/doc has the default template.