How To Create Unique Content On Every WordPress Tag And Category Page.

In my last post I described a solution to the duplicate content problem. This post follows up on the idea of solving the duplicate content problem by providing valuable unique content on your tag and category pages. This way, instead of excluding those pages from being listed in the search engines, you can add even more valuable content to your blog, on theme focused pagesTheme focusing your blog is a critical optimization strategy that is as simple as choosing a sound category and tag structure that groups your posts intelligently and sticking to it., for the search engines to index. This will also give readers more avenues to find your content based on a wider variety of semantically related search terms.

Warning Real Work Ahead. This May Not Be For You.

Right up front, let me say that if you aren't willing to invest some time and effort into your blog posts, if you are looking for push button solutions, if you are looking for the easy automated path to success, this post is going to greatly disappoint you. What I'm about to describe is not even a little bit automated. I can't even think of a reasonable way that it could be automated. It means putting in the effort to take a couple extra minutes with each post and create from a couple to several whole new descriptions and titles for each post you add to your blog. I honestly don't expect more than five or ten percent of people who seriously read and consider this method to even try it, let alone adopt it.

That's actually great news for those few who do take the time. The benefits are great, and there is no simple way for the rest to automate and duplicate it, so you will gain and keep a true advantage over the vast majority of other bloggers out there.

The Problem With WordPress Out Of The Box

It's not really a problem with WordPress, since the theme architecture of the software itself is what actually makes it possible for us to do this. The real problem is in the approach that most bloggers and theme designers take to tag and category pages. In the worst cases they just display these valuable semantic keyword pages with the index.php template and you end up with several posts displayed in full text views, completely duplicating several of the single post view pages on every tag and category view. This can be somewhat mitigated by using the <!--more--> tag which will suppress the remainder of the post on page views other than the single post page.

At best many themes will include tag.php and category.php templates that explicitly make use of the post excerpt instead of the full post. But this means that the excerpt is being displayed on a number of pages depending on how many categories and how many tags you have placed the post in. This definitely is not ideal from an SEOSEO - Search Engine Optimization - The Practice of optimizing web pages in ways that make them accessible and indexable by Search Engines. standpoint. It is also disastrous from a VEOVEO - Visitor (reader) Enhanced Optimization - The practice of optimizing web pages to increase reader usability and friendliness. point of view.

Why Unique Content Tag And Category Pages Are Better For Everyone.

Displaying Unique Titles And Descriptions on Tag And Category Pages is better for all involved. For the Search Engines, this will generate more pages they can use in their indexes and provide them with more clues to the semantic relationship of content on your blog. For the readers, more opportunities to find your single post pages with valuable content are presented across a wider semantically connected selection of possible search terms. And for you, the blogger, it means more traffic, more readers and more potential for conversion to actions. Ahh, the sweet smell of blog success. :)

The Unique Tag And Category Page Process

The process involved to make this work utilizes the Get Custom Field Values pluginRegular readers will know that this is among my favorite plugins. I use it extensively on my blogs to do many things.. For each post you write you will enter a custom title and a custom description for each tag and each category used. For each tag you will create a custom title with the field name "%tag name% t" and a custom description with the field name "%tag name% d" for each category you will do the same with the fields names "%cat name% t" and "%cat name% d".

So if the post were filed in the category "optimization" you would have the fields "optimization t" and "optimization d". Then you would do the same for each tag name. Here is a screen shot of the custom fields from my last post that illustrates this step. Each of these custom fields is either a tag title or a tag description.

The Code That Makes It Work

In your tag.php template, you need to locate the section of the code that displays the title and post or the title and excerpt and replace it with this code.

[php]
< ?php $tagv = single_tag_title( '', false ); //tag name
if (c2c_get_custom($tagv. ' d')) : //tag extra field value
$tagt = c2c_get_custom($tagv . ' t'); //tag title
$tagd = c2c_get_custom($tagv . ' d'); //tag description
elseif (c2c_get_custom('tag d')) :
$tagt = c2c_get_custom('tag t'); //default tag title
$tagd = c2c_get_custom('tag d'); //default tag description
else :
echo 'no tag value passed';
$tagt = NULL; //Or just use the title
$tagd = NULL; //Or just use the excerpt
endif;
?>

< ?php if($tagt) :
echo $tagt;
else :
the_title();
endif;
?>

< ?php if($tagd) :
echo $tagd;
else :
the_excerpt();
endif;
?>
[/php]

for the category.php template you'll want to use this code.
[php]
< ?php $catv = single_cat_title( '', false ); //tag name
if (c2c_get_custom($catv. ' d')) : //tag extra field value
$catt = c2c_get_custom($catv . ' t'); //tag title
$catd = c2c_get_custom($catv . ' d'); //tag description
elseif (c2c_get_custom('tag d')) :
$catt = c2c_get_custom('cat t'); //default tag title
$catd = c2c_get_custom('cat d'); //default tag description
else :
echo 'no tag value passed';
$catt = NULL; //Or just use the title
$catd = NULL; //Or just use the excerpt
endif;
?>

< ?php if($catt) :
echo $catt;
else :
the_title();
endif;
?>

< ?php if($catd) :
echo $catd;
else :
the_excerpt();
endif;
?>
[/php]

In both cases the code will check to see if there is a custom field for the current tag or category with a " t" for the title and a " d" for the description. If there is it will use that value. If not it checks to see if there is a generic "tag t" and "tag d" for the tag page and "cat t" and "cat d" for category pages and displays that. If neither exist is will display the regular post title and the post excerpt. So if you forget to include a title or description it will degrade gracefully and not break your blog.

You can test this out with this post. Just click on one of the tags and check out the listing for this post. Then come back and click on another tag and you will see a different title and description. Same if you click through to the category view. On the front page I'm using the_content(), but the use of the <!--more--> tag means that only the first paragraph of the post is actually displayed. On my category page I'm actually displaying the excerpt instead of an additional category description, and I also use the excerpt as a meta description tag.

Usually I explain the code line by line, but this post is already pretty long, so I've foregone that. If you need me to add in a line by line explanation, leave a comment and I'll add it in for you.

I also want to mention that I do custom theme designs for reasonable rates that include lots of little extra goodies like this if you want them. hit me up on my contact form if you are interested in having a custom theme done.