Along with the visible text in your story, search engines access metadata contained in your story code that can help to better categorise and index your content.
You can add this data from within the story editor (without needing to edit any code yourself).
To easily change this metadata, click on the SETTINGS icon in the top-left of the story editor.
Title, Description, and Authors
The TITLE field will be added to the <title> HTML tag and social sharing <meta> tags. DESCRIPTION will be added to the description <meta> tag (e.g. <meta name="description" content="Combine large, bold images with the beautifully crafted words of your story.">) and social sharing meta tags.
By default, the TITLE and DESCRIPTION fields in the STORY SETTINGS panel will be auto-filled from the text you've entered in the Title Section of your story - so if you don't necessarily need to add or change anything in the panel. However, the title you add to the SETTINGS panel does not need to match the text title within your story. This enables you, for instance, to have a more descriptive title that will be indexed by (and show up to readers on) search engines, social sharing, screen readers, etc while using a shorter or more eye-catching title within the story itself. You could even use a graphical title in the story, and add a text version of the title in the panel. Shorthand also uses the version of the story title from the panel to display titles for your stories on the Shorthand dashboard.
Do note that once you've added a custom title in the STORY SETTINGS panel it will no longer stay in synch with the text in your Title Section (as the editor doesn't know whether or not you'd like them to differ or stay the same from that point), so you may need to then make updates in both places. It will re-synch if you remove the custom title in the panel. This is also true if you copy a story that has custom title text in its STORY SETTINGS panel: it will retain the custom text from the panel, and you'll need to open the STORY SETTINGS panel in your new copy to either alter the text or remove it if your copy has a new title. If you find that a story on your Shorthand dashboard doesn't have the same title you see when you open the editor or preview the story, that's probably why: a different, custom title has been added in the SETTINGS PANEL.
The AUTHORS field allows you to enter a comma-separated list of names that will be added to the author <meta> tag, e.g. <meta name="author" content="Jane Doe, John Doe">
For more SEO tips, click here.
Note: There is a TAGS field included in the same section of the story settings as the fields above. Tags added here are only used as an organisational tool for you and the other Shorthand users in your workspace. Tags are not not added to any metadata for the story. See here for more info on tags.
Adding metadata from the custom head field
If your plan has access to custom code fields, there will be a CUSTOM HEAD field in the story or project settings where you can add your own HTML meta tags and they will be injected into the <head> of the page.