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Meta tags are snippets of code to the HTML code on a website. Search engine crawlers use meta tags to find and index the website. They also provide information about the company, products, services, contact information, etc.
Meta tags have been around for quite some time now. However, they have recently started gaining traction with Google’s latest algorithm updates, such as Panda and Penguin. These updates have made it more critical than ever for companies to ensure that their meta tags are up-to-date to be found by potential customers online.
A meta tag is a snippet of code you place on your website that lets search engines know what information to put in their indexes. The code typically contains meta descriptions, keywords, and robots-directives.
Search engine crawlers use these code snippets to find out more about a website, specific pages on the site, what products you are getting, and much more.
Since they inform search engines about a page’s topic, meta tags are crucial for SEO. Consider these to be all search engines’ opening statements.
Meta tags are HTML components that describe your page’s contents to website visitors and search engines. The only place where the meta tags are available is in the code for the page, which is accessible through a site’s open-source code.
Though not all meta tags are equally significant for SEO, they all matter. Throughout this post, I’ll go through the critical meta tags you should pay attention to.
Types of Meta Tags
Meta tags are snippets of text that provide information about the web page in a short, concise format.
Meta tags are snippets of code that provide information about the page to search engines. They describe the page and tell search engines what keywords it is relevant for. There are two types of meta tags: meta description and meta keywords. The former describes the page, while the latter specifies its relevance for particular keywords or key phrases.
Search engines use the meta description to provide a page summary in the form of a snippet of text. In addition, you can also write it in the form of an HTML tag with specific parameters. It should contain between 160 and 255 characters and follow a standard structure.
The parameter to use depends on whether you want your meta description to appear in search results. You can use keywords, phrases, or complete sentences.
Why Your Site Needs Meta Tags and How to Create a Proper One?
Meta tags are a crucial part of Search Engine Optimization. Meta tags are the snippets of code that describe your site in a way that search engines can understand. They provide keywords and other relevant information to Google and other search engines, so they can better index your site.
A proper meta tag should be concise, keyword-rich, and easy to read. Here is an example of a meta tag for a website: This meta tag tells search engines what the page is about, which in this case is jobs in construction.
Meta Tags That Are Important For Your SEO
It would help if you focused on meta tags for your SEO, which is as follows.
- Title Tags
- Meta Description
- Canonical Tags
- Alternative Tags
- Robots Meta Tags
Let’s take a look at all of them in detail.
Title Tags
Title Tags are the first HTML Tags that describe the subject of your webpage. Because they are shown in browser tabs and on the SERP, title tags are crucial for visitors and SEO.
In addition to being extracted to appear as a label link or anchor text, a title in social sharing is crucial since it displays in the search results.
Your title tag must be brief, descriptive, and frequently no more than 50-60 characters as a consequence.
Example Of Title Tag:
<head>
<title>10 Best SEO Tools For Website</title>
</head>
Writing a good title is not easy. You can make your title more effective by adding long-tail keywords, starting with the title tag with the main keyword. Also, remember that every webpage’s title tags should be different/ unique.
Meta Description
Meta descriptions, in simple terms, are the content of your page. It should be between 155-160 characters.
The meta description appears in the search result after the title tag.
Meta Description should include an accurate summary of your web page’s content. Spending work on SEO is crucial since it frequently decides whether consumers would click on your website.
<head>
<meta name=”description”content=’Here is sample of meta description.”>
</head>
Utilize the meta description and the opportunity to offer more details about your content. Make it interesting, concise, and relevant.
Google does not utilize the meta description as a ranking factor. However, as it appears in search engine results and informs users about your website’s purpose, it still substantially influences your web page’s click-through rate.
Canonical Tags
To inform search engines that a specific URL is a page’s master copy, use the ” rel canonical tag.” Difficulties result when the same or “duplicate” material appears on numerous URLs. You can avoid this by using a canonical tag. Technically speaking, the canonical tag instructs search crawlers which variation of a URL you want to appear in searches.
It is how a canonical tag looks in HTML:
<link rel=canonical”href=”http://example.com/” />
Altertnative text/ Alt text
Visual content or Images are essential aspects of any website. But can search engines read that image? No, search engines cant. Now how to solve this issue? Here is where ALT Text or alternative tags come in.
All you have to do is, add proper alt text on your images for search engines to understand what the image is about.
It will enable you to add attractive visuals to the website without harming its SEO.
<img src=”girl playing with ball.jpg” alt=”Adorable girl playing with ball catch” />
Follow some tips to write the alt text.
Use descriptive filenames
Be concise and direct.
Make a visual sitemap.
Add 50-60 characters (maximum 16 words)
Choose an average or modest file size to speed up page loading, but don’t skimp on the image’s pixel resolution.
Robots Meta Tags
Search engine spiders are given instructions on whether and how to index your website in the Robots Meta Tags.
For search engine spiders, the Robots Meta Tags have the four fundamental values:
Follow:- The search engine spider will follow every link on that page
Index: The search engine spider will include the entire webpage in its index.
No follow: Neither the page nor any of its links will be followed by the search engine crawler.
No index: That page won’t be indexed by the search engine spider
<meta name=” robots” content= ”noindex, nofollow”> means do not index and do not follow this page.
<meta name=” robots” content=” index, follow”> means to follow and index the page.
Your webpage’s <head> element should contain the robot’s meta tag.
Using Meta Tags Will Make Your Site Easy
Meta tags are a piece of HTML code embedded in a web page’s head section. They provide information about the page to search engines, browsers, and other web technologies.
Websites often use meta tags to specify keywords and meta descriptions for their pages. These tags allow search engines to find and index websites more efficiently and display relevant content on search result pages.
That is why every website owner needs to choose the correct meta tags for their site on every page to ensure that it appears in the first few results on Google’s SERPs.
About the Author
My name’s Semil Shah, and I pride myself on being the last digital marketer that you’ll ever need. Having worked internationally across agile and disruptive teams from San Fransico to London, I can help you take what you are doing in digital to a whole next level.