Custom Fields
Custom fields are additional areas that can be added to a website created with WordPress. Through these fields, additional meta information or other functions can be added.
How it works
Custom fields can be created individually in the backend of WordPress by administrators for each product or page. The custom field is then given a unique name. In order for the box to be displayed, the corresponding PHP file must be adjusted within the loop. The custom field is then output at the desired location in the frontend. In addition to plain text, images or other HTML elements can be entered in the custom field. Moreover, several sections can be inserted into a field.
Applications
Custom fields for WordPress have many different applications.
- Use of different meta-information such as titles or descriptions for different purposes. Custom fields can be used to store different titles, such as for the product itself, for output in the RSS feed, and for storage in the archive, adapted for each case.
- Using HTML formatting for item titles
- Insertion of e-commerce features
- Display of individualized thumbnails
- Display of additional information as meta tags in blog posts
- Display of other meta-information about the article such as weather information
- Control of the image display in blog posts
- Display of customer testimonials or reviews
These are just some of the many different applications provided by custom fields.
Benefits for SEO
The display of content can be individualized with custom fields using the WordPress system and automated at the same time. The expansion options for a website are virtually unlimited. A blog optimized in this fashion provides more usability such as extended blog post displays. The increased visual appeal can encourage visitors to generate more clicks on the website, thereby increasing their length of stay on the site. A positive signal is sent to Google, indicating that the visited website or blog post provides interesting content because users spends a long time on it.
More authenticity and thus trust may be created by inserting Google Plus, Facebook, or Twitter author profiles into custom fields. Users can thus see who created the post for the website and have more trust in the content. Profiles linked with posts are also beneficial to Google, because the expertise of an author can be strengthened externally and from the perspective of search engines. This would result in better rankings for all posts of that author on his special subject. At the same time, linking to a social media profile will generate more potential in terms of content syndication, which in turn can create more traffic and backlinks.
A blog system extended with custom fields provides options to accommodate more content on a page. This content can be quite diverse. Whether it is automatically displayed hotel reviews, additional graphics or routes, through custom fields a webmaster has the opportunity to strengthen the USP and thus the uniqueness of their website. These are clear signals for Google that this domain is a carefully maintained project. If several other indicators of quality match as well, then custom fields may also lead to better rankings in the long term. Especially when it comes to sectors of strong competition, where a lot of related content already exists on the web. Small changes to the content or appearance can make a big difference as far as Google is concerned.
It is important for search engines such as Google how relevant a web page is to a particular topic. Relevance can be increased with custom fields and adjusted individually for each post. A good example is a travel blog, which is extended with additional reviews, route maps, or location descriptions including images.