SEO tools for ApostropheCMS

Add useful meta fields to all pages and pieces.

Roadmap

Feature	Status
SEO Meta fields for pages and pieces	✅ Implemented
SEO Page Scanner	🚧 Under development

Installation

npm install @apostrophecms/seo

Use

1. Initialization

Configure @apostrophecms/seo in app.js.

require('apostrophe')({
  shortName: 'MYPROJECT',
  modules: {
    '@apostrophecms/seo': {}
  }
});

Setting the baseUrl

It is important to set the baseUrl option on your ApostropheCMS application for various reasons. In the SEO module, it contributes to building the correct canonical link tag URL, so in production search engines and web crawlers will register the correct link. The baseUrl can be set multiple ways:

With the APOS_BASE_URL environment variable

How you set the variable will depend on your hosting setup.

As part of an environment configuration in data/local.js

This method is if you are using stagecoach or a similar system for deployment.

  module.exports = {
    baseUrl: 'https://mysite.com',
    modules: {
      // other module env configuration
    }
  };

Via the multisite module if using Apostrophe Assembly

See the multisite documentation for details.

2. Module configuration

SEO fields for pages

SEO fields are enabled automatically for any page-type module. The following modules disable SEO field enhancements by default by setting the seoFields option to false:

• @apostrophecms/global
• @apostrophecms/user
• @apostrophecms/image
• @apostrophecms/image-tag
• @apostrophecms/file
• @apostrophecms/file-tag

module.exports = {
  extend: '@apostrophecms/page-type'
  options: {
    label: 'Personnel',
    seoFields: false
  }
};

The @apostrophecms/seo module adds a new tab labeled SEO to the document editor. This tab contains fields for setting the title, description, robots tag, and canonical link meta data to the head section of the page.

SEO fields for pieces

SEO fields for pieces are automatically enabled unless you disable them by setting the seoFields: false optino for that piece type.

Unless disabled, a new SEO tab will be added with fields for title, description, and robots tag meta fields.

module.exports = {
  extend: '@apostrophecms/piece-type'
  options: {
    label: 'Article',
    // Turn SEO fields *off* (the default is to turn them on)
    seoFields: false
  }
};

Canonical links

"Canonical links" are useful when a piece or page should not be considered the official version of a document, and you would prefer that search engines look elsewhere. This feature is always available for pages.

If you wish to have this feature for a piece type, you will need to specify the seoCanonicalTypes option to that piece type module, as an array of types that the editor can choose from. For example:

module.exports = {
  extend: '@apostrophecms/piece-type'
  options: {
    label: 'Article',
    // allow the editor to select a published page or a `topic` piece as the
    // "canonical" version of this article
    seoCanonicalTypes: [ '@apostrophecms/page', 'topic' ]
  }
};

This adds additional fields in the SEO tab for choosing a canonical document for search engines to consider instead.

Note that you cannot link to specific page-types, only all pages through @apostrophecms/page, but you can link to specific piece-types.

Add Google Analytics (GA)

Setting seoGoogleAnalytics: true in @apostrophecms/global will add a Google Analytics tracking ID field to your Global configuration:

require('apostrophe')({
  shortName: 'MYPROJECT',
  modules: {
    '@apostrophecms/seo': {},
    '@apostrophecms/global': {
      options: {
        seoGoogleAnalytics: true
      }
    }
  }
});

Add Google Tag Manager (GTM)

Setting seoGoogleTagManager: true in @apostrophecms/global will add a Google Tag Manager ID field to your Global configuration:

require('apostrophe')({
  shortName: 'MYPROJECT',
  modules: {
    '@apostrophecms/seo': {},
    '@apostrophecms/global': {
      options: {
        seoGoogleTagManager: true
      }
    }
  }
});

Add Google Site Verification

Setting seoGoogleVerification: true in @apostrophecms/global will add a Google Site Verification ID field to your Global configuration:

require('apostrophe')({
  shortName: 'MYPROJECT',
  modules: {
    '@apostrophecms/seo': {},
    '@apostrophecms/global': {
      options: {
        seoGoogleVerification: true
      }
    }
  }
});

Add robots.txt to Your Site

By default, the SEO extension will add a route to your site for /robots.txt that will return a string that allows for all search engines to index your site.

User-agent: *\nDisallow:

Within the global configuration you can choose to change this to disallow search engine indexing:

User-agent: *\nDisallow: /

You can also select to add a custom string for your robots.txt. This can allow you finer control over what sections of your site can be indexed and by which bots.

Note that if you allow search engines to index your site, you can still set noindex and/or nofollow on a per-page basis from the SEO tab of the individual page editing modals. If you disallow indexing of your site, settings for individual pages will be ignored.

A physical robots.txt file in public/robots.txt, or sites/public/robots.txt in an Assembly project, will override any settings made in this module. If you don't want a one-size-fits all policy for all sites, don't use a physical file.

Notes

Canonical URls

The canonical link field on a page or piece allows an editor to select another page that search engines should understand to be the primary version of that page or piece. As described on Moz.com:

A canonical tag (aka "rel canonical") is a way of telling search engines that a specific URL represents the primary copy of a page. Using the canonical tag prevents problems caused by identical or "duplicate" content appearing on multiple URLs. Practically speaking, the canonical tag tells search engines which version of a URL you want to appear in search results.

For pages, this link can be to any published page. For pieces, this can be either a published page or another piece-page-type show page.

Custom Google Analytics Event on 404

Optionally add the following include to your notFound.html view. If the app has a Google Tracking ID value entered, this will send an event to Google Analytics tracking the 404 response, the URL on which it happened, and, if applicable, the page on which the bad URL was triggered (helping you identify where bad links are located).

{% block extraBody %}
  {{ super() }}
  {% include "@apostrophecms/seo:404.html" %}
{% endblock %}

If you already have an extraBody block in the notFound.html view file, you'll only need to add the {% include "@apostrophecms/seo:404.html" %} statement somewhere in that.

{% block extraBody %}
  {# ...Other templating... #}
  {% include "@apostrophecms/seo:404.html" %}
{% endblock %}

Field Reference

The following are the fields that can be added to pieces, pages, and the global doc, as well as what module option enables them.

Name	Description	Module Effected	Module Option
seoTitle	Title attribute, populates <meta name="title" /> tag	@apostrophecms/doc-type	Enabled by default
seoDescription	Description attribute, populates <meta name="description" /> tag	@apostrophecms/doc-type	Enabled by default
seoRobots	Robots attribute, populates <meta name="robots" /> tag	@apostrophecms/doc-type	Enabled by default
_seoCanonical	Canonical URL, populates <link rel="canonical" /> tag	@apostrophecms/page-type	Enabled by default
seoGoogleTagManager	Google Tag Manager Container ID	@apostrophecms/global	seoGoogleTagManager: true
seoGoogleTrackingId	Google Analytics ID	@apostrophecms/global	seoGoogleAnalytics: true
seoGoogleVerificationId	Google Verification ID, populates <meta name="google-site-verification" />	@apostrophecms/global	seoGoogleVerification: true