SEO Plugin

This plugin allows you to easily manage SEO metadata for your application from within your admin panel. When enabled on your collections and globals, it adds a new meta field group containing title, description, and image by default. Your front-end application can then use this data to render meta tags however your application requires. For example, you would inject a title tag into the <head> of your page using meta.title as its content.

As users are editing documents within the admin panel, they have the option to "auto-generate" these fields. When clicked, this plugin will execute your own custom functions that re-generate the title, description, and image. This way you can build your own SEO writing assistance directly into your application. For example, you could append your site name onto the page title, or use the document's excerpt field as the description, or even integrate with some third-party API to generate the image using AI.

To help you visualize what your page might look like in a search engine, a preview is rendered on page just beneath the meta fields. This preview is updated in real-time as you edit your metadata. There are also visual indicators to help you write effective meta, such as a character counter for the title and description fields. You can even inject your own custom fields into the meta field group as your application requires, like og:title or json-ld. If you've ever used something like Yoast SEO, this plugin might feel very familiar.

Core features

Adds a meta field group to every SEO-enabled collection or global
Allows you to define custom functions to auto-generate metadata
Displays hints and indicators to help content editor write effective meta
Renders a snippet of what a search engine might display
Extendable so you can define custom fields like og:title or json-ld
Soon will support dynamic variable injection

Installation

Install the plugin using any JavaScript package manager like Yarn, NPM, or PNPM:

1yarn add @payloadcms/plugin-seo

Basic Usage

In the plugins array of your Payload config, call the plugin with options:

1import { buildConfig } from 'payload/config';
2import seoPlugin from '@payloadcms/plugin-seo';
3
4const config = buildConfig({
collections: [
  {
    slug: 'pages',
    fields: []
  },
  {
    slug: 'media',
    upload: {
      staticDir: // path to your static directory,
    },
    fields: []
  }
],
plugins: [
  seoPlugin({
    collections: [
      'pages',
    ],
    uploadsCollection: 'media',
    generateTitle: ({ doc }) => `Website.com — ${doc.title.value}`,
    generateDescription: ({ doc }) => doc.excerpt
  })
]
28});
29
30export default config;

Options

`collections`

An array of collections slugs to enable SEO. Enabled collections receive a meta field which is an object of title, description, and image subfields.

`globals`

An array of global slugs to enable SEO. Enabled globals receive a meta field which is an object of title, description, and image subfields.

`fields`

An array of fields that allows you to inject your own custom fields onto the meta field group. The following fields are provided by default:

title: text
description: textarea
image: upload (if an uploadsCollection is provided)
preview: ui

`uploadsCollection`

Set the uploadsCollection to your application's upload-enabled collection slug. This is used to provide an image field on the meta field group.

`tabbedUI`

When the tabbedUI property is true, it appends an SEO tab onto your config using Payload's Tabs Field. If your collection is not already tab-enabled, meaning the first field in your config is not of type tabs, then one will be created for you called Content. Defaults to false.

`generateTitle`

A function that allows you to return any meta title, including from document's content.

1// payload.config.ts
2{
3  // ...
4  seoPlugin({
5    generateTitle: ({ ...docInfo, doc, locale }) => `Website.com — ${doc?.title?.value}`,
6  })
7}

`generateDescription`

A function that allows you to return any meta description, including from document's content.

1// payload.config.ts
2{
3  // ...
4  seoPlugin({
5    generateDescription: ({ ...docInfo, doc, locale }) => doc?.excerpt?.value
6  })
7}

`generateImage`

A function that allows you to return any meta image, including from document's content.

1// payload.config.ts
2{
3  // ...
4  seoPlugin({
5    generateImage: ({ ...docInfo, doc, locale }) => doc?.featuredImage?.value
6  })
7}

`generateURL`

A function called by the search preview component to display the actual URL of your page.

1// payload.config.ts
2{
3  // ...
4  seoPlugin({
5    generateURL: ({ ...docInfo, doc, locale }) => `https://yoursite.com/${collection?.slug}/${doc?.slug?.value}`
6  })
7}

`interfaceName`

Rename the meta group interface name that is generated for TypeScript and GraphQL.

1// payload.config.ts
2{
3  // ...
4  seoPlugin({
5    interfaceName: 'customInterfaceNameSEO'
6  })
7}

`fieldOverrides`

Pass any valid field props to the base fields: Title, Description or Image.

1// payload.config.ts
2seoPlugin({
// ...
fieldOverrides: {
  title: {
    required: true,
  },
  description: {
    localized: true,
  },
},
12})

TypeScript

All types can be directly imported:

1import {
2  PluginConfig,
3  GenerateTitle,
4  GenerateDescription
5  GenerateURL
6} from '@payloadcms/plugin-seo/types';

Examples

The Templates Directory contains an official Website Template and E-commerce Template which demonstrates exactly how to configure this plugin in Payload and implement it on your front-end.

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