AI Summary
Plenty of people come looking for a box in WordPress where you type your keywords.
Adding keywords in WordPress means setting a focus keyphrase and writing a meta description in an SEO plugin like AIOSEO. Google and Bing stopped reading the old meta keywords tag more than a decade ago.
Following an older tutorial will have you switching on a feature AIOSEO deliberately ships disabled. The two fields that genuinely affect how your page shows up in search sit on the same screen, a few inches away.
This guide covers both halves of that, starting with where keywords actually belong now. Then I’ll walk through setting a meta description and focus keyphrase on your posts, pages, and homepage.
How to Add Keywords in WordPress
We’ll start with where keywords actually belong, then work through the three steps for adding them with the AIOSEO plugin.
Do Meta Keywords Still Work in WordPress?
Google and Bing ignore the meta keywords tag completely, and AIOSEO ships it switched off by default for exactly that reason.
AIOSEO’s own documentation puts it plainly, noting that the meta keywords features are disabled because meta keywords hold no value in today’s SEO.
Yandex is the one narrow exception, because it still reads the tag even though Google and Bing do not. If Russian search traffic matters to your site, switch the feature on under All in One SEO » Search Appearance » Advanced.
Set Use Meta Keywords to Yes. The same screen offers Use Categories for Meta Keywords and Use Tags for Meta Keywords, which build the tag from a post’s categories or tags.
For everyone else, adding keywords in WordPress means putting your target phrase where search engines genuinely look:
- Focus keyphrase: The phrase you want the post to rank for, entered in AIOSEO so it can score your content against it.
- SEO title: The headline that shows in search results, with the phrase near the front.
- URL slug: Short, readable, and containing the phrase.
- Headings: Your H2 and H3 text, wherever it fits without forcing.
- Body copy: Used at whatever density the writing can carry naturally.
- Image alt text: Descriptive first, keyword second.
- Meta description: Written to earn the click rather than to hold keywords.
Plenty of AI SEO tools will suggest phrases and score your drafts these days, and AIOSEO handles most of this list inside WordPress on its own.
Step 1: Install and Activate the All In One SEO Plugin
All In One SEO (AIOSEO) is a beginner-friendly plugin and recommends best practices to optimize your website content for search engines.
AIOSEO offers plenty of features that you need to optimize your WordPress site:
- TruSEO on-page analysis: scores your draft against your focus keyphrase and gives you specific fixes for the title tag, meta description, canonical URL, and social media data.
- SEO health check: a site-wide report that flags problems in plain language rather than jargon.
- Smart tags for metadata: insert the year, title separator, or site title automatically so your titles and descriptions stay current on their own.
- WooCommerce SEO tools: help you optimize product and category pages on a store.
To know more about AIOSEO features, check out our full AIOSEO review.
In order to begin adding keywords and meta descriptions in WordPress, you’ll first need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin.
If you want to learn how to install the AIOSEO plugin, check out this article on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Please note that we will use the premium version of the AIOSEO plugin as it offers more features. You can try out the free version too.
The free version covers everything in this guide, including the meta description and one focus keyphrase per post. AIOSEO Pro adds the Additional Keywords field, which holds up to 10 more phrases per post, plus keyphrase suggestions pulled in from Semrush.
With the advanced features of AIOSEO Pro, it is easier to optimize posts and pages comprehensively.
After purchasing an AIOSEO Pro license, you can download your copy of the AIOSEO plugin. To begin this process, go to the Downloads section of your AIOSEO account and click Download AIOSEO.
You’ll get a zip file of the plugin. Now, let’s head over to your WordPress dashboard. After downloading the AIOSEO Pro plugin, you’ll need to install and activate it.
To install the plugin, go to Plugins » Add New in your WordPress dashboard and click on Upload Plugin.
Choose the zip file of the AIOSEO Pro plugin you downloaded from your AIOSEO account. Then, click on Install Now button to install the plugin on your site.
Once the file is uploaded, you need to activate the plugin.
In the next step, activate the AIOSEO Pro account using your license key. To get your license key, go to the downloads section of your AIOSEO account and copy the license key.
Go to All In One SEO » General Settings on your WordPress dashboard and paste the key in the License Key section.
After you paste the license key, click on Connect to activate your AIOSEO Pro account. Congrats! You have successfully installed and activated your AIOSEO Pro account.
Let’s move on to adding meta descriptions and keywords to your WordPress posts and pages.
Step 2: Add Meta Description and Keywords to Your WordPress Posts and Pages
Start by going to the edit screen of your post or page, where you want to add keywords and meta descriptions. Whether you use WordPress Block Editor or Classic Editor, AIOSEO works best for both.
To go to the edit screen, look for Pages or Posts in your WordPress dashboard. Then, search for the post/page you want to edit and click on the edit option below the title of the post/page.
On your post or page edit screen, scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings panel, where you’ll find the SEO details for that page.
By default, AIOSEO adds your post content in the meta description. To manually add your meta description simply type into the text box.
AIOSEO indicates the number of characters for your meta description along with the maximum recommended characters. This way, you can always write a perfectly optimized meta description that’s safely under the maximum limit.
If you want to make sure your meta description has the most impact, consider using a tool like SEOBoost’s content optimization feature.
It provides AI-powered suggestions to help you make sure your keywords and meta descriptions are aligned to improve search engine visibility.
Another genuinely useful AIOSEO feature is that it lets you drop smart tags into your titles and meta description.
These tags automatically plug in your Author Name, Current Date and Day, Page Title, and plenty more. You don’t have to edit the field by hand every time something changes.
To add a smart tag to your meta description, type # in the field to bring up the list. You can also use the smart tag buttons sitting just above it.
Next, let’s add a focus keyphrase to your WordPress posts and pages.
To optimize your content for a particular keyphrase, scroll down to the bottom of your post or page to find the General tab of AIOSEO Settings.
Enter your focus keyphrase in the text box and press the Add Focus Keyphrase button.
AIOSEO now runs its TruSEO analysis and lists suggestions for working your focus keyphrase in more effectively.
These suggestions are based on time-tested SEO best practices and play an important role in improving your keyword rankings.
Whenever possible, you should aim to apply these suggestions (AIOSEO will mark suggestions with a green checkmark if you’ve already applied them).
Though your primary aim should be to produce helpful content for visitors, so it’s completely fine to avoid those suggestions which may not make the best sense in your scenario.
If you have AIOSEO Pro, the Additional Keywords field just below lets you track up to 10 more phrases on the same post. Connecting your Semrush account pulls keyphrase suggestions straight into your WordPress dashboard.
Next, we’ll show you the steps for adding a meta description and keywords to your WordPress homepage with the All In One SEO plugin.
Step 3: Add Meta Description to Your WordPress Homepage
Your homepage works a little differently, and the screen you need depends on whether it shows your latest posts or a static page.
If your homepage shows your latest posts, go to All in One SEO » Search Appearance and open the Home Page Settings section.
Older AIOSEO versions filed this under a Global Settings tab, so that is the label you’ll still see in some screenshots.
There you’ll find Home Title and Meta Description fields, which behave exactly like the ones on an individual post.
If your homepage is a static page instead, AIOSEO hands you off to that page rather than handling it on this screen.
Edit the page itself, scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings panel, and fill in the Page Title and Meta Description fields there.
Again, exactly as you did on a post or page, you can drop smart tags into your homepage meta description. Congrats! You have successfully learned how to add keywords and descriptions in WordPress.
FAQs on Adding Keywords and Meta Descriptions in WordPress
Need to know more about using keywords and meta descriptions in WordPress? Take a look at some of the commonly asked questions below.
Are keywords important for SEO?
Keywords are important for SEO, but not in the form of a meta keywords tag.
Google and Bing ignore that tag entirely, so the value sits in your focus keyphrase and in how naturally the phrase turns up in your title, headings, and body copy.
Smart keyword placement in your articles can play a big role in improving your rankings on SERPs.
So it’s highly advisable to spend some time doing keyword research and incorporating relevant keywords wisely within your content.
What is the optimal length for a meta description in WordPress?
We recommend keeping your meta descriptions to around 120-150 characters.
A description longer than 150 characters can get truncated depending on the user’s device, the total width of the characters in terms of pixels, and the nature of the search query.
If you want to optimize for mobile, then you should aim for an even lower length (about 105 characters) at max.
Can I automate the process of adding meta descriptions in WordPress?
Yes, AIOSEO can write meta descriptions for you with AI. Since version 4.8.4 it runs on built-in AI credits rather than an OpenAI API key you supply yourself.
Click the robot icon in the AIOSEO meta box and pick from the suggestions it returns. Treat them as a starting draft rather than something to publish unread.
Can meta descriptions and keywords in WordPress improve my site’s click-through rate?
Absolutely. If the keywords you’re using in your post title and meta description accurately match the user intent, then people are much more likely to click through to your post.
But make sure you’re writing user-first content, which means the keywords are there only to support your overall messaging rather than being stuffed aggressively throughout your meta description and content.
How do I add keywords in WordPress without a plugin?
You can add keywords in WordPress without a plugin by editing what WordPress already controls. That means your post title, the URL slug, your headings, your body copy, and your image alt text.
What you cannot do without a plugin is set a meta description or run a keyphrase analysis, because WordPress ships no built-in field for either one.
How many keywords should I add to a WordPress post?
One focus keyphrase per post is the right target, since a page competes for a single main query.
AIOSEO Pro lets you add up to 10 additional keywords alongside it for tracking and analysis. Those earn their keep on close variants, not on bolting extra topics onto one page.
What are some common mistakes to avoid when adding keywords in WordPress?
Keyword stuffing is a common mistake that many sites make. The meta description is a small space and using too many keywords can make your text seem robotic and written for the search engines rather than addressing the user’s actual queries.
This can really hurt your clickthrough rates. So always try to write helpful meta descriptions that accurately reflect the contents of your page.
Next, Improve Rankings With WordPress SEO
SEO requires a lot of guesswork and trial-and-error if you do it manually. The good thing is that there are some great SEO plugins for WordPress that can enhance your SEO game with minimal manual effort.
Once your metadata is in place, it helps to track how those pages actually perform rather than guessing at it. And if the page you’re optimizing exists to capture leads, a dedicated form landing page gives you one clear conversion goal.
That makes the title and description much easier to write. WPForms is the most beginner-friendly WordPress form builder, so that form can be live before you finish tweaking the meta description.
Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
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