Jekyll > Managing SEO

Given a record object, you can obtain its title, description, OpenGraph and Twitter card meta tags with the .seo_meta_tags method:

# dato.config.rb
dato.blog_posts.first.seo_meta_tags
# => [
#   { tag_name: "title", content: "Bike Pannier - Alban Bike Bags" },
#
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { name: "description",         content: "Lorem ipsum..." } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { name: "twitter:card",        content: "summary" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { name: "twitter:description", content: "Lorem ipsum..." } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { name: "twitter:image",       content: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/123-image.png" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { name: "twitter:site",        content: "@AlbanBikeBags" } }
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { name: "twitter:title",       content: "Bike Pannier" } },
#
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { property: "article:modified_time", content: "2017-01-26T09:11:19Z" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { property: "article:publisher",     content: "https://www.facebook.com/AlbanBags/" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { property: "og:description",        content: "Lorem ipsum..." } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { property: "og:image",              content: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/123-image.png" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { property: "og:locale",             content: "en_US" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { property: "og:site_name",          content: "Alban Bike Bags" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { property: "og:title",              content: "Bike Pannier" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta",  attributes: { property: "og:type",               content: "article" } },
# ]

Meta tags are generated merging the values present in the record's SEO meta tags field together with the Global SEO settings you can configure under Content > Settings:

If the record doesn't have a SEO meta tags field, the method tries to guess reasonable values by inspecting the other fields of the record (single-line strings and images).

Your page title will be composed concatenating the title of the record together with the Title suffix setting. If the total length of the title exceeds 60 characters, the suffix will be omitted.

Favicon meta tags

Under the Content > Settings section you can also configure your website favicon:

You can get desktop, iOS, Android and Windows Phone favicon meta tags with the dato.site.favicon_meta_tags helper:

# dato.config.rb
dato.site.favicon_meta_tags
# => [
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "16x16", type: "image/png", rel: "icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=16&h=16" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "32x32", type: "image/png", rel: "icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=32&h=32" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "96x96", type: "image/png", rel: "icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=96&h=96" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "192x192", type: "image/png", rel: "icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=192&h=192" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "57x57", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=57&h=57" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "60x60", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=60&h=60" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "72x72", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=72&h=72" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "76x76", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=76&h=76" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "114x114", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=114&h=114" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "120x120", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=120&h=120" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "144x144", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=144&h=144" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "152x152", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=152&h=152" } },
#   { tag_name: "link", attributes: { sizes: "180x180", rel: "apple-touch-icon", href: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=180&h=180" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta", attributes: { name: "msapplication-square70x70logo", content: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=70&h=70" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta", attributes: { name: "msapplication-square150x150logo", content: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=150&h=150" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta", attributes: { name: "msapplication-square310x310logo", content: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=310&h=310" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta", attributes: { name: "msapplication-square310x150logo", content: "https://www.datocms-assets.com/72/favicon.png?w=310&h=150" } },
#   { tag_name: "meta", attributes: { name: "application-name", content: "Alban Bike Bags" } }
# ]

How to use meta tags in your Jekyll website

In your dato.config.rb file you can dump the meta tags in the frontmatter of your Jekyll posts or as data files:

# dato.config.rb
# Create a YAML data file to store global data about the site
create_data_file(
  "src/_data/settings.yml", 
  :yaml,
  favicon_meta_tags: dato.site.favicon_meta_tags
)
# Dump all the blog posts
dato.blog_posts.each do |article|
  directory "_posts" do
    create_post "#{article.slug}.md" do
      frontmatter(
        :yaml,
        title: article.title,
        seo_meta_tags: article.seo_meta_tags
      )
      content(article.content)
    end
  end
end

And in your Jekyll views, transform the data into proper HTML tags:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <!-- ... -->
  {% for tag in site.data.settings.favicon_meta_tags %}
    {{ tag | tagify }}
  {% endfor %}
  {% for tag in page.seo_meta_tags %}
    {{ tag | tagify }}
  {% endfor %}
</head>
<body>
  <h1>{{ page.title }}</h1>
</body>
</html>

Where tagify is a custom liquid filter you can put inside your project _plugins directory:

# _plugins/tagify.rb
module Jekyll
  module TagifyFilter
    def tagify(input)
      name = input["tag_name"]
      content = input["content"]
      attributes = input.fetch("attributes", {}).
        map { |k, v| %Q(#{k}="#{CGI::escapeHTML(v)}") }
      if content.nil?
        "<#{[name, attributes].flatten.compact.join(' ')}>"
      else
        "<#{[name, attributes].flatten.compact.join(' ')}>#{content}</#{name}>"
      end
    end
  end
end
Liquid::Template.register_filter(Jekyll::TagifyFilter)