Lovable SEO Plugin in WordPress: Yoast or Rank Math

What an SEO plugin does here

In Lovable, page metadata lives in code. Newer apps set it per route in a head() function. Older apps set it once in index.html, or not at all.

In WordPress, metadata lives in the database and is edited per page. A block theme does not output a meta description by itself. That is the job of an SEO plugin, and it is why every converted site needs one.

Any of the three classic plugins works. Yoast, Rank Math and SEOPress all do the same core jobs on a site this size.

Title tag and meta description per page and per post, editable without touching code.
Canonical URLs, so one page does not compete with its own variants.
XML sitemap at a fixed URL you can submit to search engines.
Open Graph and Twitter tags, which the converter does not carry over from older Lovable apps.
robots directives, so you can keep a draft page out of the index.

Pick one plugin and install it

Install exactly one. Two SEO plugins on the same site produce duplicate title tags and duplicate sitemaps. If you already have one active, disable it before adding another.

The choice matters less than the setup. Pick the one you are willing to open every time you publish a page.

In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New and search for Yoast SEO, Rank Math or SEOPress.
Click Install Now, then Activate.
Run the plugin's setup wizard. Set the site name, the site type and the organisation or person behind it.
Skip any upsell steps. Nothing on a converted Lovable site needs the paid tier to get indexed.
Open Settings → Permalinks and confirm the structure is Post name. Converted pages use clean slugs, and this keeps them.

Check what came across from Lovable

If your Lovable app was created on or after 13 May 2026, it uses TanStack Start and has a head() per route in src/routes. Our converter reads those and writes the title and description into Yoast, Rank Math or SEOPress, plus any JSON-LD it finds. You still verify, because the plugin field is now the single source of truth.

If your app is React + Vite, with pages in src/pages and routes in src/App.tsx, there is usually no per-page meta to carry. Open Graph tags and per-page meta of older apps are not converted. You will be writing them yourself, once.

Either way, walk the page list before launch.

Open Pages → All Pages and list every page the theme created on activation.
Edit each page, scroll to the SEO plugin box below the editor, and open the search preview.
Set a title that is unique and describes the page. Keep it readable rather than stuffed.
Set a meta description of one or two sentences. Write it for a human scanning results.
Check the slug. Short, lowercase, hyphenated, no dates.
Save, then repeat. A typical converted Lovable site is five to ten pages, so this is one sitting.

Settings that matter on a fresh install

Most defaults are fine. A handful are not, and they are the ones that quietly cost you traffic.

Work through this list once, right after the setup wizard.

Indexing switch: go to Settings → Reading and uncheck "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" when you are ready to launch. Leave it checked while the site is on a staging URL.
Homepage title: set it in the plugin, not just in Settings → General. Set the front page itself under Settings → Reading → "Your homepage displays".
Sitemap: open the plugin's sitemap URL in a browser and confirm your pages are listed. Yoast uses /sitemap_index.xml, Rank Math uses /sitemap_index.xml, SEOPress uses /sitemap.xml.
Archives you do not use: if the converted site has no blog, set author and date archives to noindex. They are empty pages competing with real ones.
Attachment pages: redirect them to the file or to the parent. Images copied into the theme do not need their own URLs.
Social image: upload a default Open Graph image. Older Lovable apps had none, so link previews will be blank until you do.

JSON-LD and structured data

JSON-LD from a TanStack Start head() is converted. It lands on the page it belongs to. Before you add more, check what is already there, or you will publish two conflicting schema blocks.

SEO plugins also emit schema of their own: an Organization or Person block, a WebSite block, and a breadcrumb trail. That is usually enough. Add product or FAQ schema only where the page really has products or a FAQ.

If you run WooCommerce on the converted site, the product schema comes from WooCommerce and the plugin together. Leave it alone unless something is missing. Our supported features page lists what the converter emits so you can compare.

What a plugin cannot fix

An SEO plugin writes tags. It does not create content, and it does not repair layout. Two things are worth checking by hand on a converted site.

First, headings. Lovable sometimes styles a heading with a div and Tailwind classes. In the converted theme that becomes a styled paragraph, not an h2. Open the page in the Site Editor and promote it to a real heading block. One h1 per page, then h2 for sections.

Second, images. Alt text does not exist in most Lovable markup, so it does not exist in the theme either. Add it in the Media Library or in the block sidebar, on every image that carries meaning. Decorative images can stay empty.

Third, internal links. A Lovable landing page often links only through the navigation. Add body links between related pages. That is plain editing work, and it does more than any setting in the plugin.

For how Lovable itself is seen by crawlers before any conversion, see Is Lovable good for SEO?.

Where the converter fits

Our Lovable to WordPress converter runs in the browser. You give it the Lovable ZIP or a GitHub repository, and it builds a WordPress block theme: templates, template parts, one pattern per page, theme.json with your palette and fonts, and your images.

The SEO-relevant part is that per-page titles and descriptions from TanStack Start heads, JSON-LD, redirects from public/_redirects, page language and hreflang are written into the theme or into your SEO plugin. You install the plugin first, then activate the theme, and the fields arrive filled in.

Conversion, review and download are free, and every account includes two free AI-fix attempts. How it works walks through the review screen, where you see the converted site next to the original inside WordPress Playground.

FAQ

Which SEO plugin should I use on a converted Lovable site?

Yoast, Rank Math or SEOPress all work, and the IQDesk converter writes imported titles and descriptions into whichever of the three it finds. Install only one of them, because two active SEO plugins produce duplicate title tags and sitemaps. Pick the interface you prefer and run its setup wizard.

Does Lovable have an SEO plugin of its own?

No. Lovable is a React and TypeScript app builder, so metadata lives in code rather than in a plugin. Newer Lovable apps set a title, description and JSON-LD per route in a head() function. Once the site is a WordPress theme, a WordPress SEO plugin takes over that job.

Will my Lovable page titles and descriptions transfer to WordPress?

They transfer if the app was created on or after 13 May 2026 and uses TanStack Start, because each route has a head() the converter can read. Older React and Vite apps have no per-page meta, so there is nothing to carry over and you write the titles yourself. Open Graph tags of older apps are not converted either.

How do I stop a converted site being indexed while I test it?

Go to Settings, then Reading, and tick the checkbox "Discourage search engines from indexing this site". Leave it ticked for the whole staging period. Untick it on launch day, then check the SEO plugin sitemap loads and submit it to search engines.

Why are some of my headings not real headings after conversion?

Lovable sometimes styles text with a div and Tailwind classes instead of a heading tag, so the converted theme produces a styled paragraph. Open the page in the WordPress Site Editor and change those blocks to heading blocks. Keep one h1 per page and use h2 for the sections below it.

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