Change the Title of a WordPress Blog in Seconds
Have you ever wanted to change the title of a blog post or a page in WordPress, only to discover that the CMS doesn’t allow it? Chances are, you’ve encountered this scenario more than once. Maybe you’ve even tried to use some free WordPress tools only to realize they don’t provide all the features you need. Or perhaps you’ve tried to customize the appearance of your blog using widgets and sidebars only to discover that the theme you’ve chosen isn’t fully compatible with WordPress.
No matter what the case may be, you’ll soon discover that there’s a simple way to change the title of a blog post or a page in WordPress. That way is to use the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin, which I’ll tell you more about in a bit.
Introducing the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) Plugin
The Advanced Custom Fields plugin provides developers and designers with a versatile set of tools for creating their own custom fields. These tools are ideal for use in blogs and websites because they allow content to be populated with various information (e.g., the title of a blog post or a page, the featured image for a blog post, or any other piece of content-related information).
To demonstrate how this plugin works, let’s dive into a tutorial on creating a custom field and using it to change the title of a WordPress blog post. We’ll also use a third-party service (iContact) to provide us with a contact form to allow users to get in touch with our support team directly from the website.
Creating the Custom Field
To create a custom field, you’ll first need to visit the plugin’s settings page, located at Settings ‘‘‘‘ Edit Fields ‘‘‘‘‘. From here, you can rename the field to something more descriptive (e.g., blog post title) and click on the Add New button to create a new field. Don’t worry — you don’t have to enter any content into this field yet; we’ll get to that in a bit.
Adding Content to the Custom Field
After clicking on the Add New button, you’ll be brought to a screen where you can enter the content that will be stored in this custom field. This content will be accessible by authors, editors, and other users with appropriate permissions. If you enter a title into this field, that title will be displayed whenever the post or page is referenced in another place on the website. Additionally, this title will be used as the suggested title for the next piece of content added to this same field.
To add a title to the custom field, simply click on Add New again, enter the title you wish to appear, and then click on Save. Don’t worry — you don’t have to enter any content into this field yet.
Now that we have a field set up for storing the blog post title, we can add an image into this same field using the Image widget. This allows the content to be seen in a visually appealing format (e.g., a blog post with an accompanying image). After clicking on the Add New button, click on the Image widget in the Available Widget Areas section. Enter a title for the image (e.g., featured image) and then click on the Add Image button.
As you add more and more content to this field (e.g., a description for the image followed by a longer piece of text), you’ll notice that the title for the post or page begins to vary. This is because the content you enter into this field is used as the suggested title for the next piece of content added. As a result, the title for this field will become more and more extensive as you add more and more content to it. For example, say you’ve added a short description for the image and then added a couple of paragraphs of text. The suggested title for the post or page will include everything you’ve added — the image, the description, and the text. Essentially, the title for this field will become the full post or page content when used in conjunction with another piece of content added later in the same field. This makes it easy for content to be consistently linked to throughout the website.
Accessing the Custom Field
To make things easy for our website visitors, we’ll create a small dropdown menu directly above the title input field. This menu will allow visitors to easily choose an option from a list of choices (e.g., the title of a blog post) while also providing a succinct description of the content they’ve selected.
To do this, navigate to Appearance ‘‘‘‘ Edit Theme Options ’’’’ ‘. From here, you can select the Option Menu widget and then make multiple changes to the widget (e.g., the description, the location of the visible options, and the order of the options).
After you’ve made your changes, click on the Save button to save your adjustments.
Now that we have our title input field and a dropdown menu above it, let’s add some more content to our website. To add some content to our website, navigate to Dashboard ‘‘‘‘Edit Content ’’’’‘ and then click on the Add New button. A blank content page will appear.
To add content to this page, enter a title into the title input field and then click on Add New again.
What if we wanted to add a little more content into our post or page? To do this, return to the Dashboard and then click on the Add New button a third time to bring you to a screen with the post or page content pre-populated into the text area. Simply start typing and then click on the Update button to save your changes.
Using the Custom Field To Change Blog Post Titles
Now that we have a working custom field, we can begin to use it to its advantage. To set this up, return to the Settings ‘‘‘‘Edit Fields ‘‘‘‘‘ page and then click on the Use This Field button. In the resulting screen, you’ll see a dropdown menu with two options: Page and Post. Choose Post and then click on the Use This Field button.
If you then go back to the Dashboard and open up a post or page, you’ll see that the title input field now contains the value from the custom field. Because we added the title for this field as the suggested title for the next piece of content added, the CMS will use that value whenever someone is trying to search for a post or page with that exact same title. Additionally, if you go to the post or page, you’ll see that the content is now correctly linked to the custom field.
To make sure this all works as expected, let’s add a little more content into the post and then check out the results. To add content, go back to the Dashboard and then enter your email address into the contact form. The site will then send you an email with a confirmation link. After you click on the confirmation link, you’ll be brought back to the Dashboard, where you can see your updated post.