Meta Tags: What You Need To Know For Search Engine Optimization
Meta tags are an integral part of Search Engine Optimization. They ensure that your site’s pages have a solid foundation of optimisation. But what are meta tags? Well, they are the tags that you add to each of your website’s pages. These are meant to help describe the page and its content in a way the Google algorithm can easily understand. Many people may overlook the practice of writing meta tags in favour of other aspects of SEO such as content or links. However, meta tags can significantly help in terms of allowing Google to understand your page. This can mean the difference between poor website performance in search results and better website performance. However, it is also all about how you are using your meta tags.
Meta-tags: the basics
Meta-tags are able to provide information about the website they are on in the code (the HTML) of the page. Search engines will use this to determine what the page is about, and how relevant the page is to the keyword being searched. This data isn’t always visible to visitors and it doesn’t really need to be, as it is mostly for your search engine. The two most important meta tags you will want to focus on are the page title and the meta description.
Meta title
This is the page title that most search engines will show in search results. Titles are critical in giving users a quick insight into the content of a website so that they can see whether it is relevant to their query. This is often the primary piece of information that a user will use to decide which website to click on. Thus, it is incredibly important to use high-quality titles on your web pages. In order to make the most of your meta titles, you should ensure that you have a unique title tag for each page with a brief description of the content of that page. Try to avoid generic titles or anything too vague. You should also ensure that your target keyword is present in the title while keeping it under 60 characters for brevity.
Meta description
The meta description summarises the content of a page. Search engines often use this as a snippet for a page’s listing in search results. This tag is therefore one of the best ways to inform and interest users who may be interested in what you have to offer. In order to make the most of this, it is best if you ensure that you have written a unique description for each page, with an accurate summary of what this page is about. You should also include your keyword in a way that is relevant while keeping the description under 160 characters. Even though Google doesn’t have a limit to the length of the meta description, it does usually snip anything that is too long.
Robots meta tag
The robots meta tag is used to inform search engines which pages should be indexed. This meta tag is generally used in order to prevent search engines from indexing individual pages. With a robots meta tag, you can instruct search engine crawlers not to index a page or to follow any links on it, or instruct them to index and follow your page. If you do not add this meta tag, the default response of crawlers is to index and follow your page. You might need to use this meta tag if you have some pages on your site that are necessary but do not add much value in terms of content. Since you won’t want some of these pages to be indexed, you can add a no-index tag so they do not appear in search results.
Alt-text
With websites nowadays full of images, image optimisation has also become an important element of modern SEO. However, your images are not automatically accessible to search engines. Alt-text can provide a text alternative to images which search engines can read, but that will also be displayed in the case that the picture doesn’t load or if the website is being read out by a screen reader for someone who is visually impaired. You can include your keyword in the alt-text, but remember that you should only do this if it actually makes sense. If you are keyword tagging for the sake of it, it can end up harming user experiences, which is the last thing you want.
Canonical tag
If you have pages on your site that are practically identical to each other (for instance; product listings that are very similar), you can inform search engines which ones to prioritise. This can also happen if you have content on your site republished elsewhere. In order to ensure that you do not get a duplicate content penalty, you can use a canonical tag. This can guide crawlers to the URL which counts as the ‘main’ one, placing emphasis on the right URL and ensuring other sites cannot take away from your SEO.
Header tags
Header tags are another important aspect of meta tags that are a part of your content. These are often used in order to structure your page. They start with an H1 (heading 1) tag going down all the way to H6, and help to highlight the importance of each section. The h1 tag will often denote the page title or article headline, while h2 and below work as subheadings to break up your content into bite-size pieces. This can help to improve the user experience and ensure ease of reading as all your content is kept within headings and sub-headings. However, in terms of SEO, these tags can help search engines understand exactly what your content is about. Remember that while these tags are important, you shouldn’t overuse them. Always focus on quality content, not quantity. Using only one h1 tag is usually suggested, while you can use more than one h2 or h3 tag.
Leave your SEO to a search engine optimization expert
With how competitive SEO has become as more and more businesses start coming online and fine-tuning their online presence, finding the time to do search engine optimization can be a difficult task, especially if you don’t really know what you are doing. While you may be capable of performing some of the basic SEO, in order to ensure that you are staying competitive, you will need to invest your time and effort into more technical SEO. This includes perfecting your meta tags. SEO Consultant is an SEO expert who can help prioritize your SEO and ensure that everything from meta-tags to content is perfectly optimised so that you can rank high on the search results. This, in turn, will help you get better traffic and net more conversions. At SEO Consultant, we understand that every business is different and comes with different requirements, so we ensure that we fully understand your needs to deliver a customised SEO solution with results-based strategies that adhere to global standards.
So leave your search engine optimization to us—contact SEO Consultant today!