Essential SEO

A simple SEO WordPress plugin that provides just the essentials.

Features

• Custom meta description per post and page (falls back to excerpt, then to site default)
• Category, tag and custom taxonomy descriptions used as meta description when set
• Noindex option per post and page — excluded from the WordPress sitemap automatically
• Open Graph meta tags
• Configurable title separator
• Free-form header scripts field (GA4, GTM, etc.) with automatic preconnect hints and GTM noscript fallback

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher

Installation

1. Download the latest essential-seo-v*.zip from the Releases page
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
3. Upload the ZIP and click Install Now
4. Activate the plugin
5. Go to Settings → Essential SEO to configure

Once installed, the plugin checks for updates automatically — future updates appear in the WordPress dashboard like any other plugin.

Development

Source files are in the source/ folder. CSS is written in SCSS and compiled via CodeKit.

Structure

source/
├── essential-seo.php
├── assets/
│   ├── banner-772x250.png
│   ├── banner-1544x500.png
│   ├── banner-1544x500.psd
│   └── screenshot-*.png   # must match the current UI — re-shoot in the same release as any UI change
├── css/
│   └── style.scss
├── js/
│   └── script.js
├── includes/
│   ├── functions.php
│   ├── html_header.php
│   ├── meta_boxes.php
│   └── plugin-update-checker/
└── languages/

Releases

1. Make your changes in source/
2. If the settings UI or any documented screen changed, re-shoot the affected source/assets/screenshot-*.png and update their captions in source/readme.txt. Screenshots ship in the same release as the change they document — never as a separate commit afterwards, or the released tag won't match its own UI.
3. Bump the version in source/essential-seo.php and source/readme.txt
4. Build with CodeKit
5. Double-click create-release-zip.command to generate the ZIP
6. Push commits to GitHub
7. On GitHub: Releases → Draft a new release → set tag to v1.x.x → upload the ZIP as asset

The plugin update checker picks up the new tag automatically and notifies WordPress sites with the plugin installed.

License

GPLv2 or later — see LICENSE