Set up your SEO defaults on SGEN

How to configure your site-wide SEO defaults on SGEN

Every page on your site inherits from a single set of SEO defaults. Get those defaults right once and the entire site starts with a solid search baseline — every page that does not override them will carry your brand title, your description, your OG image, and your sitemap configuration automatically.

This guide walks you through the six defaults that matter most: site title template, default meta description, default OG image, robots.txt rules, sitemap verification, and Google Search Console submission. You configure all six from one place: SG-Admin → Settings → SEO.

Every field value, screenshot, and checklist item in this guide reflects a realistic site configuration. Your values will differ, but the structure is identical.

By the end of this guide, every page on your site will have a non-placeholder title in search results, your OG image will render on social shares, your sitemap will be submitted, and Google will have the information it needs to begin indexing your site.

What is this for?

SEO defaults are the fallback values that SGEN applies to every page, post, and custom object on your site when that page has not been given its own per-page SEO settings.

There are five defaults you are configuring here.

Site title template — the pattern SGEN uses to build the <title> tag on every page. A typical template is {Page Title} | {Site Name} — so a page titled "Our Services" would produce Our Services | Your Site Name. Without a correct template, your pages show a bare title or, worse, the placeholder your site launched with.

Default meta description — the description search engines use for pages that do not have their own. It appears under the page title in search results. It is not a ranking factor, but a well-written default description does affect click-through rate. Under 155 characters is the practical limit.

Default OG image — the image that renders when any page URL is shared on social platforms (LinkedIn, Slack, Facebook, iMessage). Sharing a link without an OG image gives you a blank card or a random in-page image. A branded OG image means every shared link presents the same visual identity.

Robots.txt rules — the instruction file search engines read before they crawl your site. The default configuration tells search engines which pages to crawl and which to skip. In most cases, the SGEN default is correct and you do not need to change it. This guide covers when you might, and what to leave alone.

Sitemap.xml — SGEN generates your sitemap automatically. This guide confirms the sitemap URL, verifies it is resolving, and walks you through submitting it to Google Search Console so Google knows where to look.

Good use cases

Use this guide the first time you set up a new SGEN site, when you rebrand and need to update every page's title and OG image at once, or when you notice default placeholder titles appearing in search results.

New site SEO baseline. You launched on SGEN, your domain is connected and your pages are live, but every page is showing "SGEN Site | SGEN" in search results because no one set up the SEO defaults. This guide gets you from placeholder titles to branded titles across the entire site in under twenty minutes — without touching a single individual page.

Post-rebrand SEO update. Your site rebranded and every page title template still carries the old name. Updating the site title template in SEO defaults fixes every page at once — no per-page edits required.

Fixing default placeholder titles. The most common sign that SEO defaults were never configured: a Google search for your brand shows results with the title "SGEN Site" or the domain as the page title. That is the placeholder from the SGEN installation. This guide resolves it.

Before launching a Google Ads campaign. Before spend begins on a paid search campaign, confirm that organic results look correct and OG cards render on every landing page being shared. Configuring SEO defaults is a pre-launch check you can close in one session.

Preparing for a press feature. A publication is running a story that will drive readers to your site this week. When readers click the link, the page URL will be shared in messages and on social platforms. You want the OG card to render your branded image and description — not a blank card or a random product photo.

What NOT to use this for

SEO defaults are site-wide fallbacks. They are not the right tool for every SEO task.

Do not use SEO defaults as a substitute for per-page SEO. The default meta description is a fallback — it is not a replacement for writing a specific description on each important page. Your homepage, your top product pages, your blog posts, and your key landing pages each need their own SEO title and meta description. SEO defaults are the floor, not the ceiling.

Do not configure SEO defaults to manage per-page OG images. If you need a specific OG image on your product page — one that shows the product, not your brand banner — set it per page in the page editor's SEO panel. Changing the default OG image changes every page that does not have a per-page image set. Use that use carefully.

Do not use this guide for schema markup (structured data). Schema markup — JSON-LD for products, articles, events, FAQs — is not configured in SEO defaults. It lives in the page editor or in Custom Codes. This guide does not cover it.

Do not use this guide for paid search (SEM) campaign setup. Google Ads, Meta Ads, and other paid campaign configuration are outside the scope of SGEN's SEO settings. Your ad platform manages its own tracking tags and landing page parameters.

Do not use this guide for a full technical SEO audit. Core Web Vitals, page speed, structured data coverage, crawl budget, canonical tag conflicts — these are technical SEO concerns that go beyond the defaults configuration. If you need a full audit, engage your SEO partner and use tools like Google Search Console's Coverage report and the URL Inspection tool alongside what you configure here.

Do not edit robots.txt unless you know what you are blocking. The default SGEN robots.txt is correct for almost every site. Editing it incorrectly can accidentally block all search engines from crawling your site. Only edit it if your SEO team has given you a specific instruction and you understand the change.

How this connects to other features

SEO defaults are the foundation. These features build on them or interact with them.

Per-page SEO (overrides defaults) — Every Page, Blog Post, and Custom Object in SGEN has an SEO panel with fields for SEO Title, Meta Description, and OG Image. Values set there override the defaults. If a page has its own SEO title, the title template default is not used for that page. Per-page SEO is covered in a separate guide.

Pages — Your static pages (Home, About, Services, Contact) all inherit from SEO defaults if they have no per-page SEO set. After you configure defaults, review your top pages and add per-page overrides on the ones that matter most for search.

Blog posts — Blog posts inherit the same defaults as pages. The SEO fields in the blog post editor sidebar override the default for that specific post. Because blog posts are indexed individually and accumulate over time, filling in SEO fields per post is one of the highest-return content habits you can build. The default is a fallback for posts you have not gotten to yet.

Custom Objects — Custom Object entries (products, team members, events, case studies) also inherit from SEO defaults. If your Custom Object type has many entries, filling in SEO fields on each one is important work — but the default provides a branded baseline while you work through the backlog.

Sitemap — The sitemap SGEN generates automatically includes all published Pages, Blog Posts, and Custom Objects. Submitting it to Google Search Console tells Google where to discover your content. This guide covers that submission.

Before you start

Have these four things ready before you open Settings → SEO.

Domain connected. SEO defaults apply to the live domain. Confirm your domain is connected and your site is live before configuring defaults. If your site is still on an SGEN staging subdomain, configure the defaults now — they will transfer when you connect the live domain — but do not submit the sitemap to Google until the domain is connected.

Site title decided. Know the exact name of your site as it should appear in search results — and keep it consistent. If you are mid-rebrand, decide the final name before setting the template — changing it later updates every page that uses the default, but if the old name has been indexed it takes Google several weeks to catch up.

Default description written. Write your default meta description before you open the settings panel. Keep it under 155 characters. It should describe what the site is and for whom. Example: "Handcrafted goods made locally weekly and shipped direct — wholesale for cafes, restaurants, and subscription orders." Clear, specific, and written for the reader who finds it in a search result.

Default OG image prepared. The recommended size is 1200 × 630 pixels. Export it as a JPG or PNG. The image should include your logo and a brand visual — a product photograph, a clean background, or a designed banner. The text on the image should be readable at the preview size (roughly 500 × 260 pixels in most social feed views). Have this file ready to upload.

Where to go

Go to Settings in the left sidebar of your SGEN dashboard. Select SEO from the settings sub-navigation. The SEO settings page opens with sections for Site Title, Meta Description, OG Image, Robots.txt, and Sitemap.

If you do not see an SEO option in Settings, confirm your user account has Admin access. SEO settings are admin-only. Contact your site owner if the option is missing.

Steps — Set up your SEO defaults

These steps take you from opening the SEO settings page to submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console.

1. Set your site title template

In the Site Title section, enter your title template. The standard SGEN format uses {Page Title} and {Site Name} as placeholders. A standard template looks like this:

{Page Title} | {Site Name}

For a site named "Green Path Studio", that produces results like: "Our Work | Green Path Studio" or "Services | Green Path Studio" in search results.

If your brand name is long, consider using a short form for the site name portion. "Green Path Studio Design | Green Path Studio Design" is redundant. "Our Work | Green Path Studio" is cleaner.

The separator between the page title and site name is a matter of preference. A pipe character | is standard. An em dash — is common on editorial sites. Choose one and stick with it.

Save the section before moving to the next field.

2. Write your default meta description

In the Default Meta Description field, paste or type your prepared description. The field will show a character count — keep it under 155. At 156 characters or more, search engines may truncate the description in results, cutting off the end of your sentence.

Write in plain sentences. No keyword stuffing. No marketing superlatives. Write it as if you are telling a potential customer what the site is about in one sentence.

"Handcrafted goods made locally and shipped direct — wholesale for cafes, restaurants, and subscription orders."

That is 100 characters. Specific. Accurate. Written for the reader, not for the algorithm.

Save the section.

3. Upload and set your default OG image

In the Default OG Image section, click Upload Image or Choose from Media. Select your prepared 1200 × 630 image. After uploading, confirm the preview renders correctly in the section — it will show a thumbnail of the image at roughly the social card preview dimensions.

If the image upload succeeds but the preview looks stretched or cropped incorrectly, the image dimensions may not match the 1200 × 630 ratio. Export the image at the correct ratio and re-upload.

After setting the OG image, test it using a social card preview tool (LinkedIn's Post Inspector, Facebook's Sharing Debugger, or any third-party OG preview tool). Paste your homepage URL and confirm the image renders. If it shows a cached previous image, use the debugging tool's "Scrape Again" or "Force Refetch" option.

Save the section.

4. Review robots.txt rules

In the Robots.txt section, read the current configuration. For most sites, the default looks like this:

User-agent: *Allow: /Disallow: /sg-admin/

This tells all search engines: crawl everything except the admin panel. That is the correct setting for the vast majority of SGEN sites.

Only change robots.txt if you have a specific, confirmed need. Common legitimate reasons:

• Blocking a staging subdirectory from indexing
• Preventing a duplicate content path from being indexed
• Adding a Sitemap: directive pointing to your sitemap URL

(covered in the next step)

Do not add disallow rules for your main site content. Do not copy disallow rules from another site without understanding exactly what they block. If you are unsure, leave the default unchanged.

Save the section only if you made a change.

5. Verify your sitemap resolves

In the Sitemap section, SGEN displays the URL of your auto-generated sitemap — typically https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.

Open a new browser tab and navigate to that URL. The sitemap should load as an XML file listing your site's URLs. If you see a page of well-structured XML with your page URLs listed, the sitemap is working correctly.

If the sitemap URL returns a 404 error, confirms that your site is live on a connected domain (not a staging subdomain that has not been published), and try reloading the page. If the 404 persists, see the troubleshooting section below.

The sitemap URL is what you will submit to Google Search Console in the next step. Copy it now.

6. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console

Open Google Search Console at search.google.com/search-console. Select your property (your domain). In the left sidebar, click Sitemaps under the Index section.

In the Add a new sitemap field, enter the path portion of your sitemap URL. If your sitemap is at https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml, enter sitemap.xml in the field. Click Submit.

Google will show the sitemap as "Pending" initially. Within a day or two, it will either show "Success" with a count of discovered URLs, or show an error. If it shows an error, see the troubleshooting section.

Once submitted successfully, Google will begin crawling and indexing your site using the sitemap as its discovery guide. New pages added to SGEN appear in the sitemap automatically — you do not need to resubmit the sitemap each time you publish content.

What success looks like

When SEO defaults are configured correctly, these things are all true at the same time.

• Every page on your site that has no per-page SEO title set

shows your title template in the browser tab and in search results — "Page Name | Site Name" — not "SGEN Site" or a blank title.

• Sharing any page URL on LinkedIn, Slack, or iMessage

renders your branded OG image. The card does not show a blank image or a random in-page photo.

• Navigating to yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml in a browser

returns a well-formed XML file listing your site's URLs.

• Google Search Console shows your sitemap with status

"Success" and a URL count that matches your published page count.

• Within two weeks of submission, Google's URL Inspection

tool (in Search Console) shows your homepage as "URL is on Google" when you inspect it.

• A search for your exact brand name returns your site in

results with the correct title and description — not a placeholder.

What to do if it does not work

Still showing "SGEN Site" in search results after saving the title template. Search engines cache page titles. After you update the template, it may take Google several days to re-crawl and re-index the affected pages. To speed this up for your most important pages, use Google Search Console's URL Inspection tool — inspect the page URL, then click Request Indexing. This queues a fresh crawl. It takes a few hours to process, not seconds.

If individual pages are still showing "SGEN Site" after a week, check whether those pages have a conflicting per-page SEO title set to "SGEN Site" explicitly. Per-page values override the default template. Open each affected page in the page editor, go to the SEO panel, and clear the SEO Title field if it is set to a placeholder value.

OG image is not rendering on social platforms after uploading. Social platforms cache OG metadata aggressively. Uploading a new OG image does not immediately update cards that have already been generated. To force a refresh:

• LinkedIn: Go to linkedin.com/post-inspector, paste the

page URL, and click Inspect.

• Facebook/Meta: Go to the Facebook Sharing Debugger, paste

the URL, and click "Fetch new scrape information."

• Slack and iMessage typically clear their cache within 24 hours.

If the OG image is not rendering at all on a fresh URL, confirm the image was saved (reload the SEO settings page and verify the OG Image field shows your upload), and confirm the image file is publicly accessible (try loading the image URL directly in a browser).

Sitemap URL returns a 404 error. First confirm your domain is connected and the site is live at the main domain — not a staging subdomain. The sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml is only available at the live connected domain.

If the domain is connected and the 404 persists, navigate to the admin → Settings → SEO and confirm the sitemap URL shown in the settings panel. If the URL shown is correct but still returning 404, contact SGEN support with the domain and the sitemap URL — this is a platform-level issue, not a settings configuration problem.

Google Search Console shows the sitemap with an error instead of "Success." The most common reasons:

• The sitemap URL was entered with the full domain in the

field instead of the path (sitemap.xml). Remove the domain prefix.

• The site is not yet verified in Search Console as a

property. You must verify domain ownership in Search Console before submitting a sitemap.

• The sitemap returned a non-200 HTTP status when Google

fetched it. Check that the sitemap URL resolves correctly in a browser before resubmitting.

Google is not indexing the site after two weeks. Two weeks is a reasonable window for initial indexing of a small site. If pages are still not indexed after that, use Search Console's URL Inspection tool on your homepage. It will show the last crawl date, the crawl status, and any issues Google encountered.

Common blockers: the domain is not returning a 200 status (redirect or server error), the robots.txt has an accidental Disallow for the entire site (Disallow: /), or the site has a noindex meta tag that was added during development and never removed. Check all three before opening a support request.

Sub-pages are ignoring the title template and showing only the page title with no site name. This means those pages have a custom SEO title set that does not include the {Site Name} placeholder — or were created before the template was configured and carry an old value. Open each affected page in the editor, go to the SEO panel, and either clear the SEO Title field (which lets the default template take over) or update it manually to include the site name in the format you want.

Tips for strong SEO defaults

A few decisions that compound over time.

Write the default description for the reader, not for the keyword. The meta description is not a ranking factor — Google has confirmed this. It is a click-through factor. Write it so the person reading it in a search result wants to click. A specific, honest one-sentence description of what your site is for outperforms a keyword-dense list every time.

Review your top ten pages individually after configuring defaults. The default is a floor. Your homepage, your top product or service page, and your most-visited blog posts should each have their own SEO title and description. Open each one in the page editor, go to the SEO panel, and fill in the fields. Fifteen minutes of per-page work on your ten most important pages returns more search visibility than any amount of default tuning.

Keep the OG image simple and readable at small sizes. OG cards render at roughly 500 × 260 pixels in most social feeds. Text on the image needs to be large to be legible. A logo, a brand color background, and a short site name in large type works better than a densely designed banner that looks great at full size and is unreadable at card A centered logo on a brand-color background with your tagline in large contrasting type works better than a densely designed banner that reads fine at full size but not at card size.

Update the default OG image when the brand identity changes. The default OG image is what shows up on shares of pages that do not have their own image — including pages you forgot about from two years ago. When you rebrand, updating the default is a one-change fix for every one of those pages simultaneously.

Submit the sitemap once and let SGEN keep it current. You do not need to resubmit the sitemap to Google when you publish new content. SGEN updates the sitemap automatically. Google re-reads it on its own schedule. The only time to resubmit is if you see an error status in Search Console or if you change domains.