ms-seo

A seo helper package for meteor.js. Original posted as an article here: manuel-schoebel.com/blog/meteor-and-seo

Prerequisites

You need to add the Iron-Router package.

mrt add iron-router

Installation

This package is on meteorite.

mrt add ms-seo

Configuration

You can set some standard values. This will be set if nothing else is available.

Meteor.startup(function() {
  return SEO.config({
    title: 'Manuel Schoebel - MVP Development',
    meta: {
      'description': 'Manuel Schoebel develops Minimal Viable Producs (MVP) for Startups'
    },
    og: {
      'image': 'http://manuel-schoebel.com/images/authors/manuel-schoebel.jpg' 
    }
  });
});

As you can see a meta tag in the head area is defined by a key and a value and it works the same way for the Open Graph 'og' tags.

Static SEO Data

The SEO data for your static sites which do not have dynamic content are set in a collection called 'SeoCollection'. Every document must have a 'route_name' that relates to a named route of your Iron-Router routes.

SeoCollection.insert({
  route_name: 'aboutMe',
  title: 'About - Manuel Schoebel',
  meta: {
    'description': 'Manuel Schoebel is an experienced web developer and startup founder. He develops but also consults startups about internet topics.'
  },
  og: {
    'title': 'About - Manuel Schoebel',
    'image': 'http://manuel-schoebel.com/images/authors/manuel-schoebel.jpg'
  }
});

If a route changes, the SEO package automatically fetches the new data from this collection and sets all tags.

Dynamic SEO Data

Often times you want to set your SEO data dynamically, for example if you have a blog and you want that the documents title is equal to the blogposts title. You can do this easily in the Iron-Router after hook like this:

Router.map(function() {
  return this.route('blogPost', {
    path: '/blog/:slug',
    waitOn: function() {
      return [Meteor.subscribe('postFull', this.params.slug)];
    },
    data: function() {
      var post;
      post = Posts.findOne({
        slug: this.params.slug
      });
      return {
        post: post
      };
    },
    after: function() {
      var post;
      // The SEO object is only available on the client.
      // Return if you define your routes on the server, too.
      if (!Meteor.isClient) {
        return;
      }
      post = this.data().post;
      SEO.set({
        title: post.title,
        meta: {
          'description': post.description
        },
        og: {
          'title': post.title,
          'description': post.description
        }
      });
    }
  });
});

You can use the SEO.set(object) method and the object param looks the same as a document of the 'SeoCollection' but has no route_name.

Rel Author for Google Authorship

You can configure google authorship easily with

rel_author: 'https://www.google.com/+ManuelSchoebel'

The output in your header will be the rel author link like this:

<link href="https://www.google.com/+ManuelSchoebel" rel="author">

You can use 'rel_author' in the configuration, SeoCollection entries or in SEO.set as well.

##Multiple Meta Tags For example for og:image you might want to have multiple image meta tags for one site. You can do this now by simply setting the og.image value to an array like this:

SEO.set({
    ...
    og: {
      'image': ['http://www.your-domain.com/my-image-1.jpg', 'http://www.your-domain.com/my-image-2.jpg']
    }
});

// results in:
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.your-domain.com/my-image-1.jpg">
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.your-domain.com/my-image-2.jpg">

##Automatically set twitter and og meta tags like Title For a page you normally have exactly one title you want to use for the og:title and twitter:title meta tags. MS-SEO does this automatically for your title, url and descrption. For the description, just set the meta-description tag.

You can also disable this in the settings:

Meteor.startup(function() {
  SEO.config({
    ...
    auto: {
      twitter: false,
      og: true,
      set: ['description', 'url', 'title']
    }
  });
});

In this settings only the og metas are set automatically but not for twitter. The "set" array specifies what should be set. You could put any meta-tag in there and it will automatically be set for og or twitter as well.

You Need More?

If you have different needs regarding meta tags and seo, please add a feature request by adding a new Issue.