Today, we're going to dive into one of the essential tools for understanding your website's magic – Chrome Dev Tools.
Chrome DevTools, short for "Chrome Developer Tools," is a set of web development and debugging tools built directly into the Google Chrome web browser. These tools are designed to assist web developers and designers in inspecting, debugging, and optimizing websites and web applications. Chrome DevTools provides a range of features that help you understand how web pages work, diagnose issues and improve performance
Let's start with something you might have heard about but never dared to explore: HTML meta tags. They're like the unsung heroes of your website, quietly guiding browsers and search engines on how to treat your content.
And guess what? You don't need to be a tech wizard to peek behind the curtain and see how they work. In this beginner's guide, we'll show you how to use Chrome Dev Tools to unveil the secrets hidden in your HTML meta tags.
Certainly, here's the corrected version of your note:
Note: To use Chrome Developer Tools for inspecting your website's elements, you'll need a laptop or a desktop computer. These tools are best suited for use on these devices. So, ensure you have a computer ready for exploring and inspecting your website's elements.
Let's get started
To follow along with this tutorial, ensure your computer is up and running.
STEP 1: Choose the page you want to inspect. This is typically your website's homepage. In my case, I'll be using my site for the experiment. Open the homepage of your website. Once done, right-click on your computer. This will bring up a pop-up window.
STEP 2: Locate the "Inspect" option and click on it. Wait for Chrome Dev Tools to open.
Alternatively, you can simply press CTRL + SHIFT + J to perform steps one and two simultaneously.
Since this article is about the meta tags of your website, we will be only considering the element tab
STEP 3: In the newly opened tab on the left side of your computer screen, at the top of the page, find and click on the "Elements" tab.
STEP 4: Now, you have to locate the <head> tag of the HTML element. To do this, scroll to the top of the element page, find the <head>...</head> section, and click on it to expand.
STEP 5: The next thing you need to do is to look for the necessary meta tags to improve your chances of achieving a top ranking on Google.
For example, take a look at the image above and check if the highlighted meta tags are in your website's template. Are they present? If not, you should include them if you want to improve your visibility on search engines like Google.
It's important to understand that using Chrome DevTools to edit HTML doesn't result in permanent changes to your website. The modifications you make are temporary and only affect your current browsing session. Once you refresh the web page or close your browser, the changes will be lost.
To make permanent changes to your website, you'll need to access and edit the source code directly on the web server or through the content management system (CMS) that manages your website. These changes will be saved and applied to the website for all visitors.
You might be wondering, 'How can I edit the HTML elements of my website?' or 'How can I add those important meta tags?' In my next article, that's precisely what I'll be discussing. Stay tuned for more information!