Set up meta tags in WordPress
Browsers and search engines use meta tags to gain information about your website. Follow the steps below to manually add meta tags to your WordPress site by editing theme files.
Note: If you want to add only a meta title and description, here's how to do it with a plugin without the need to edit theme files.
Required: Making changes to your theme directly will become problematic if your theme developer updates the theme. To ensure your changes survive an update, you must set up a child theme.
- Connect to your site with FTP or File Manager.
- Go to the wp-content/themes folder.
- Find and enter the folder with your active theme.
- Open the header.php file.
- Under <header> tag, place the meta tags you want to use on your site. You can find examples of the most commonly used meta tags here.
- Save the file.
- (Optional) To check if the meta tags were added successfully, visit your site in a browser and Press Ctrl+U for Windows (or Command+Option+U for macOS) to view the source code.
More Info
- If you need help with setting up a child theme on your site, our WordPress Premium Support team can do it for you.
- Add a meta title and description to individual posts or pages in WordPress
