How to add meta description in WordPress and Shopify, with Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO, Wix and Squarespace

How to add a meta description in WordPress depends on what you run: core WordPress has no field for it, so the answer is a plugin, WordPress.com’s SEO tools, or a few lines of code. Shopify, Wix and Squarespace have the field built in, each in a different place. This guide gives the exact steps for each, taken from every vendor’s own documentation as read on 11 October 2026, plus the templates that fill descriptions in bulk and the mistakes that stop them showing.

The steps put text in the field. To decide what the text should say, use our guide to writing a meta description, or let the free meta description generator draft three options from the page.

Where the field is, platform by platform

Whatever a field allows, Google cuts the snippet to fit the screen, roughly 150 to 160 characters on desktop. Our post on meta description length shows what Google actually cut on live results, so treat the vendors’ numbers as field limits, not targets.

WordPress without a plugin

WordPress’s own documentation is plain about it: meta tags “are stored within the head of your header.php template file. By default, they are not included in WordPress, but you can manually include them”. It adds that custom fields or plugins from the official directory can do the job^[1]. So a fresh WordPress install sends no meta description at all, and Google writes a snippet from the page, which is what it does most of the time anyway^[28].

On WordPress.com

WordPress.com has its own SEO tools, available “on sites with our WordPress.com Premium, Business, and Commerce plans”^[3]. For a post or page:

1. While editing, click the Jetpack icon (a lightning bolt on a green circle) in the top right corner.
2. Under the SEO section, type an SEO Title and SEO Description.
3. Click Publish or Save.

The front page has a separate setting: go to Jetpack, Settings, then the Traffic tab, and in the Search engine optimization section click the option to expand and edit your front page meta description. WordPress.com asks for “a brief description (up to 160 characters)” and notes that this setting applies to the front page only. There is also a “Generate metadata” button that writes the fields with AI^[3].

On a self-hosted site, with code

If you don’t want a plugin, a theme can print the tag through the wp_head hook, which “Prints scripts or data in the head tag on the front end”^[2]. Here is a minimal version that uses each post’s excerpt. It is our example, not WordPress documentation, and you should not use it on a site that also runs an SEO plugin.

<?php
// In a child theme's functions.php, or a small site plugin.
// Prints one meta description on single posts and pages, from the excerpt.
// Do not use this alongside Yoast, Rank Math or AIOSEO: you would get two tags.
add_action( 'wp_head', function () {
    if ( ! is_singular() ) {
        return;
    }
    $text = get_the_excerpt();
    if ( ! $text ) {
        return;
    }
    $text = wp_strip_all_tags( $text );
    printf( '<meta name="description" content="%s" />' . "\n", esc_attr( $text ) );
} );

Write the excerpt as the description: the Excerpt box in the post settings becomes the text. Posts without an excerpt get WordPress’s automatic one, the opening words of the post, which is often good enough if your first paragraph answers the question.

Meta description in Yoast SEO

Yoast’s check counts characters: its length assessment “measures whether your description is too short (less than 120 characters) or too long (more than 156 characters)”^[4]. It does not measure pixels, so a description in capitals can pass the bar and still be cut. Check wide text in the SERP preview.

Yoast templates and variables

For pages you will never edit one by one, set a template. In the Yoast SEO menu go to Settings, then Content types (or Categories & tags, Archive pages, Special pages, Media pages). Each type, such as Homepage, Posts, Pages or Products, has a Search appearance section where you edit the SEO title and meta description templates. Click Insert variable to add standard elements, then Save changes^[5].

Useful variables, in Yoast’s own definitions:

• %%excerpt%%: “Replaced with the post/page excerpt (or auto-generated if it does not exist)”
• %%excerpt_only%%: the excerpt without auto-generation
• %%title%%: the title of the post or page
• %%primary_category%%: the post’s primary category
• %%sitename%% and %%sitedesc%%: the site title and tagline from Settings, General

One detail most guides miss: “For meta descriptions, the default is blank”^[6]. Installing Yoast does not give your pages descriptions; you have to write them or set a template. And avoid %%sitedesc%% on its own, which puts the same tagline on every page.

To fix many existing posts by hand, Yoast’s guide points to the Tools page: click “Bulk editor”, then the “Description” tab. It warns that there you “won’t get warnings if your description is too short/long”^[4].

Meta description in Rank Math

Open the post or page and click the Rank Math icon at the top right. In the block editor, the description is in the General tab: “Click on Edit Snippet and enter your description in the Description box”. In Elementor, it is the Description section of the Rank Math panel^[8].

The Title and Description fields “support variables, and you can access these variables by clicking the down arrow in the right corner of the field”. The common ones are %title%, %excerpt% (auto-generated if there is no excerpt), %excerpt_only%, %sep% and %sitename%^[9]. Site-wide templates live under Rank Math SEO, Titles & Meta, with fields such as Single Post Description, Single Page Description and Single Product Description^[10]. For WooCommerce products, Rank Math falls back in this order: SEO description, product short description, single product description, product description^[11].

Rank Math checks both units: it “limits the meta description to 160 characters” and “to 920 pixels”, and recommends 50 to 160 characters^[12].

Meta description in All in One SEO

Edit the post or page and scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings. You will see a SERP preview and the Title and Meta Description settings. You can type, or click one of the smart tags shown above the field, or type the hash character (#) to list them all. What you set here “will override the format set under All in One SEO » Search Appearance”^[13].

For a site-wide format, click Search Appearance in the All in One SEO menu, then the Content Types tab. Each content type, such as Posts, has its own Meta Description format that applies to every item unless overridden^[14]. If your home page shows your latest posts, its description is in the Home Page Settings section of Search Appearance; if it is a static page, edit that page and use its AIOSEO Settings^[15]. AIOSEO’s own blog recommends 155 to 160 characters^[16].

Shopify meta description: products, collections, pages, posts

Shopify has the field built in on every content type, in a section called the search engine listing. The steps below are from Shopify’s help center as read on 11 October 2026.

Sources: products^[17], collections^[18], pages^[19], blog posts^[20], home page^[21].

On length, Shopify’s own pages disagree. For products, collections and blog posts it says that if you enter “more than 320 characters for a description, then your text might get cut off in search engine results”^[17][20]. The pages article gives 160^[19]. Google’s cut is by width and nearer the lower figure, so write for about 155 and treat 320 as the field’s ceiling, not a target.

Blank fields and bulk edits in Shopify

If you leave a product’s field empty, Shopify fills it: “When these fields are blank, SEO information is automatically generated based on your product title and description.” The catch is in the next line: “If you manually edit SEO fields and later update the product description, then the SEO Description won’t automatically update”^[23]. A description written once can go stale while the product changes.

For many products at once, use a CSV import. The SEO description column “can be alphanumeric and include up to 320 characters. If you leave this column blank, then the product Description is used”^[22]. Export your products, fill the column in a spreadsheet, and import the file back. We found no SEO column documented for Shopify’s in-admin bulk editor, so the CSV route is the documented one.

Wix

For a page in the Wix Editor: click Pages & Menu, click the More Actions icon next to the page, click SEO basics, and enter your text under Meta description (description in search results), then Publish. Studio and Harmony editors reach the same field through the page’s SEO settings. Wix advises 50 to 160 characters^[24].

For templates, go to SEO in your dashboard, then SEO Settings, pick the page type and click Edit next to Basics & social share. The Meta description field takes static text, and “+ Add Variable” adds dynamic values. By default Wix adds no variables to it, and Wix says an empty field flagged by audit tools “is not an issue” because Google will create a description^[25]. Store products default to the product description, with a maximum of 156 characters for a custom one^[26].

Squarespace

For a page: open the Pages panel, hover over the page, click the gear icon to open page settings, click the SEO tab and enter the SEO Description, then Save. For blog posts and events, hover over the item and click Edit (on version 7.1, then the gear icon); for products, double-click the product; then use the same SEO tab. The home page description is the SEO site description, in the SEO panel’s Search appearance area under the Home tab^[27].

Squarespace says search engines cut descriptions around 160 characters, advises 50 to 300, and enforces a 400-character limit. Without a description, it says search engines use excerpts for blog posts and events, and product descriptions for products^[27].

Common mistakes, and how to spot them

Yoast’s help page on the topic lists the same causes: the tag missing or more than one, a meta robots tag with nosnippet, a page Google has not recrawled, and, most often, Google preferring its own snippet “for that search, for that user”^[7]. That last one is not a platform problem at all; our post on why Google ignores your meta description covers it.

After any change, check the live page, not the editor:

// Paste into the browser console on the live page
[...document.querySelectorAll('meta[name="description" i]')].map((m) => m.content)
// One entry: good. Zero: nothing is printing a description.
// Two or more: a theme and a plugin (or two plugins) are both printing one.

Questions people ask

Sources