No Access to Metadata

[dnp]

Hi everyone, I recently started working with a client that runs a local business with several locations. Their website is built on Wordpress, but there isn’t any SEO plugin installed so I currently don’t have access to edit the metadata. I brought this up with the client and they checked with their dev team. They were told that installing an SEO plugin would come with a surprisingly high cost. I’m not entirely sure why that is and it’s probably outside my scope to figure that out.

So now what I’m trying to better understand is what’s realistically possible if the site stays the way it is and metadata remains out of my control. I've seen websites rank well with no issues even when their metadata isn't optimized, but I’m still interested in hearing from anyone who has run SEO campaigns under similar limitations. Were you still able to see progress without control over titles and meta descriptions? If so, what areas did you focus on, like on-page, backlinks?

Would really appreciate hearing about other people’s experiences with this. Thanks so much

 

[Conor Treacy]

If their web designer is saying that installing a plugin for SEO would be a high cost, they need a new web developer!

There is a cost to it - time to configure it - and then time to fill out the details on all the pages - but if you're contracted to do that, or an internal staff member, then costs can be kept much lower than a web developer's fees.

Since they're on WordPress, there are a few dozen SEO plugins out there, but the top 3 are:
RankMath (free, or paid $96/year)
YoastSEO (free, or paid $120/year)
AIOSEO -(free, or paid $50/year)

Each of these allows meta modification, but more importantly, Schema markup, configuring OpenGraph settings for sharing on Twitter and emails, etc.

You CAN do this individually. You could create your own plugin or add to the functions.php file in WordPress, then add information depending on the page that loads. It'd be re-inventing the wheel (an ugly wheel at that) but it can be done that way if needed.

Not having control of Meta means not being able to put your best foot forward in search results. It's the Title and Description that convince someone to click into the site. It's not so much a ranking factor as it is a conversion factor.

You can succeed without that access - Google will make up their own information based on the page - but ideally, you want to be the one controlling that information if you can.

 

[fisicx]

The page title is a key ranking signal. All you really need to do is change the page titles in the editor. But thet might make it less attractive to the reader of the page.

The description isn't a ranking signal but it can help generate clicks. Google doesn't always use the description in the snippet - all the depends on the search.

I suggest your client finds a new dev or gets full admin access to their own site. If the dev has blocked admin access they need a big slap and shown the door.

I build my own themes and add in an SEO function to edit page titles and descriptions. Most of the things SEO plugins provide make very little difference to ranking.