How to Set the Homepage, Shop, and Archive Title & Description

How to Set the Homepage, Shop, and Archive Title & Description

This guide explains the several places SureRank stores title and description settings, and which one actually controls your homepage.

The Short Answer

Check WP Admin > Settings > Reading > “Your homepage displays.”

These two are mutually exclusive. 

Where Title/Description Settings Live

• Page-level SEO meta. Set per individual post, page, or product in the SureRank meta box on the editor screen. Always wins for that specific page if filled in.
• Meta Templates (Settings > General > “Meta Templates” tab). The site-wide fallback template (for example, %title% – %site_name%) used for any post or page that has no page-level title or description set. This is also the template used to generate default titles for author, date, and custom-post-type archive pages (see “Archive Pages” below).
• Home Page (Settings > General > “Home Page” tab). A separate set of fields that only apply when there is no static front page, meaning Reading Settings is set to “Your latest posts.”

Setting the Homepage Title & Description

Case A: Static page as homepage (most common, includes WooCommerce Shop-as-homepage)

• Go to wp-admin > Pages and find the page assigned as your homepage. Settings > Reading tells you which one.
• Edit that page, open the SureRank panel, and go to the SEO tab.
• Set the Title and Description fields there. This is what appears in Google search results for your homepage.
• If you leave these blank, SureRank falls back to the Meta Templates, not the Home Page tab.

Case B: “Your latest posts” as homepage

• Go to SureRank > Settings > General > Home Page tab.
• Set the Title and Description fields there. There’s no page to edit in this case, so this tab is the only control.

WooCommerce Shop Page Set as Homepage

When a store’s Shop page is also the homepage, SureRank treats it exactly like a static page, not as a product archive. To change its title or description:

• Go to wp-admin > Pages and edit the actual Shop page (the one WooCommerce created; check WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Shop page to confirm which one).
• Use the SureRank SEO meta box on that page, same as Case A above.
• The Home Page tab and the Archive Pages tab don’t apply here. Only that page’s own SEO fields matter, falling back to Meta Templates if left blank.

WooCommerce Shop Page NOT Set as Homepage 

When the Shop page is normal, not your homepage, WordPress renders it as the “product” post type archive, not as a singular page. 

Because of this, SureRank does NOT read the Shop page’s own SEO meta box in this case. 

Editing the Shop page directly has no effect on its live title or description unless it is also set as the homepage (see the section above).

Instead, its title and description are generated the same way as any other custom post type archive:

• By default, from the sitewide Meta Templates > Title & Description template, with %title% replaced by the archive’s label (for example, “Products”).
• If you have SureRank Pro, use the post-type-specific archive template under Meta Templates > Post Types, if one is configured for the Product post type.

To change the Shop page’s title/description in this case, edit the Meta Templates template (or the Pro post-type template), not the Shop page itself.

Archive Pages (Category, Tag, Date, Author, Custom Post Type)

These are separate from your homepage entirely, and are not all controlled from the same place:

• Category and tag archives: edit the specific term directly under Posts > Categories or Posts > Tags. Each term has its own SureRank SEO fields, the same as an individual page.
• Date and author archives: title/description default to the sitewide Meta Templates template, with %title% replaced by the archive label (for example, the author’s name or the date). Go to SureRank > Settings > General > Archive Pages only to toggle whether these archives are removed and redirected to the homepage; that tab does not set their title or description.
• Custom post type archives (for example, a Products archive, when Shop is not the homepage): same mechanism as date/author archives: sitewide Meta Templates, or a Pro post-type-specific template if configured.

If left blank, all of the above fall back to the general Meta Templates.

Precedence Summary

Troubleshooting Steps

• Check which option is selected at Settings > Reading > “Your homepage displays.”
• If it’s a static page (or Shop page) set as the homepage, edit that specific page’s SureRank SEO fields directly.
• If it’s “Your latest posts,” use SureRank > Settings > General > Home Page tab.
• If it’s a category or tag page, edit that term directly under Posts > Categories/Tags, not a global tab.
• If it’s an author, date, or custom-post-type archive (including a non-homepage Shop page), use Meta Templates (or the Pro post-type template). 
• Meta Templates is a fallback used only when the more specific field (page-level, term-level, or Home Page) is empty. It is not itself an override.

If That Doesn’t Work

• Clear all caching (page cache, CDN) and re-check in an incognito window. Stale cached HTML is the most common false positive here.
• Confirm no other SEO plugin is active and competing for the same tags.