SEO Recommendations

Monogram includes several SEO-friendly features out of the box. Here how to make the most of them and ensure your portfolio ranks well in search engines.

#Install an SEO Plugin

Monogram works best with a dedicated SEO plugin for meta tags, sitemaps, and advanced SEO controls. Recommended options:

• Yoast SEO - the most popular WordPress SEO plugin, breadcrumbs fully integrated
• Rank Math - feature-rich alternative, breadcrumbs fully integrated
• SEOPress - lightweight option, breadcrumbs supported

The theme auto-detects which SEO plugin is active and uses its breadcrumb output in the page header.

#Built-in Structured Data

Monogram automatically outputs JSON-LD structured data on your pages:

Schema Type	Where It Appears
Organization	Site-wide
WebSite	Site-wide (with search action)
Article	Blog posts
CreativeWork	Portfolio items
FAQPage	FAQ archive and items

This structured data helps search engines understand your content and can generate rich results (FAQ dropdowns, article snippets, etc.) in search listings.

#Portfolio SEO Best Practices

Your portfolio items are the core content of your site. Optimize them for search:

1. Write descriptive titles - "E-Commerce Website Redesign for TechCorp" is better than "Project 12"
2. Fill in the summary field - this 3-4 sentence overview often appears in search snippets
3. Use portfolio taxonomies consistently - assign relevant industry, category, and tag terms to every item
4. Add content in the editor - the the_content() block below the hero section is fully indexed by search engines. Write detailed case studies here.
5. Set the project URL - linking to live projects signals relevance and provides backlink opportunities

#URL Structure

Use a clean permalink structure for the best SEO results:

1. Go to Settings > Permalinks
2. Select Post name (/%postname%/)
3. Save changes

This gives you clean URLs like yoursite.com/portfolio/project-name/ instead of yoursite.com/?p=123.

#Image SEO

Portfolio sites are image-heavy, and images can drive significant search traffic through Google Image Search.

• Use descriptive filenames - techcorp-website-redesign.jpg instead of IMG_4523.jpg
• Set alt text on every image - describe what the image shows in plain language
• Upload high-quality featured images - at least 1440px wide for social sharing previews
• Monogram generates responsive <picture> tags with multiple sizes, which Google recommends for mobile indexing

#Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs improve both user navigation and SEO by showing search engines your site hierarchy.

1. Open Appearance > Customize > Breadcrumbs
2. Enable breadcrumbs
3. If you have an SEO plugin active, the theme uses its breadcrumb output (which includes schema markup)

#Page Transitions and SEO

Monogram uses Barba.js for SPA-style page transitions. Search engines crawl the initial HTML (not JavaScript-rendered content), so all your content is fully available to crawlers on first load. The SPA behavior only enhances the experience for human visitors - it does not affect indexing.

#Quick SEO Checklist

• SEO plugin installed and configured
• Permalink structure set to Post name
• Breadcrumbs enabled
• Portfolio items have descriptive titles, summaries, and taxonomies
• All images have alt text and descriptive filenames
• XML sitemap submitted to Google Search Console
• Structured data verified with Rich Results Test

Last updated 6 Sep 2026