In the fast-changing world of digital marketing and SEO, Google's search rules keep evolving. Staying updated is a must. At the core of this journey are "meta tags," your website's SEO keys.
Meta tags are crucial for search engines like Google and Bing. They help your site get noticed, crawled, and displayed when users search. These tags are like the secret sauce of SEO, invisible but powerful—they affect your website's Google ranking.
Good meta tags make your site visible on Google. Without them, your website may be buried deep. You don't want that, do you? So, help search engines find your site by using meta tags.
In this guide, we'll explore meta tags that matter to Google's SEO, from title and description tags to the less-known but vital ones. Discover how they boost your website's visibility and traffic. Let's unravel the mysteries of meta tags and soar to the top.
What are Meta tags?
Meta tags are HTML tags used to provide additional information about a page to search engines and other clients. Meta tags are snippets of code that are placed in the <head> section of an HTML document.
These tags are not visible on the user interface of your website but can be seen by search engines when they are crawling your site. Examples of some relevant meta tags inside an HTML code are shown below
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="description" content=" Author:
A.N. Author, Illustrator: P. Picture, Category: Books, Price: £9.24, Length:
784 pages">
<meta name="google-site-verification"
content="+nxGUDJ4QpAZ5l9Bsjdi102tLVC21AIh5d1Nl23908vVuFHs34=">
<title>Example Books - high-quality used books for
children</title>
<meta name="robots" content=" index,nofollow">
</head>
</html>
Meta Tags that are important for a better SEO ranking
These meta tags help browsers, search engines, and other tools understand and
display your web page correctly. They are crucial for SEO and ensuring a
positive user experience. You can use these tags in combination with other
HTML elements to optimize your web page's visibility and usability.
1. Meta Title
<head>
<title>Example Page Title</title>
</head>
First, it's the headline you see when you search for something on Google. It
tells you what the page is about and helps you decide if you want to click on
it. So, a good title can get more people to visit your site.
It's also the name that shows up on your web browser's tab when you're on that
page. This helps you find the right page if you have lots of tabs open.
And when you share a page on social media, the title tag often becomes the
title of your shared post. A catchy title can make more people interested in
what you're sharing.
If you don't have a title tag, search engines won't know what to call your
page. This can make it harder for them to show your page when someone looks
for what you've got. So, it's a bit like giving your website a secret name
that helps it be found.
2. Meta Description
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<!-- Meta Description -->
<meta name="description" content=" This is an example web page with a
meta description. Learn how to use meta descriptions for better
SEO.">
</head>
</html>
A meta description is a short blurb about what's on a web page. It shows up
on search results and helps folks know what the page is all about.
A good meta description makes people more likely to click on a page. Think
of it as an ad, drawing visitors in.
Even though it doesn't directly affect search rankings, it indirectly helps
with SEO by getting more clicks. More clicks signal to search engines that
your content matters.
By giving a clear and relevant summary, a meta-description helps both people
and search engines figure out what's on the page. This can lead to more of
the right people visiting.
Note:
If you use a CMS, such as Wix, WordPress, or Blogger, you might not be able
to edit your HTML directly, or you might prefer not to. Instead, your CMS
might have a search engine settings page or some other mechanism to tell
search engines about meta tags
Additional note: If you want to add a meta tag to your website, search for instructions
about modifying the <head> of your page on your CMS (for example,
search for "wix add meta tags") Or rather contact your developer if you use
a custom template
3. Meta viewport
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" name="viewport">
</meta>
</head>
</html>
The meta viewpoint tag is an HTML element used to instruct the user's web
browser to adjust the webpage to fit the user's screen properly. This tag is
vital for ensuring that your web pages work well on mobile devices and enhance
the overall user experience.
Search engines take user experience into account when ranking websites, so
making your site responsive to different devices can indirectly boost your SEO
efforts by keeping users engaged and content
In essence, the absence of a proper viewport meta tag can result in a website
that is not mobile-friendly and doesn't provide a good user experience on
smaller screens. This, in turn, can lead to a higher bounce rate on
mobile devices could indirectly affect search engine ranking, and also reduce
user engagement, and potentially lost traffic.
It's essential to use viewport settings to ensure that your website is
accessible and usable on various devices, including mobile phones and tablets.
4. Meta Robots tag
<meta name="robots" content=" index, follow">
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
The "Meta Robots" tag is a tool used to communicate with search engines,
telling them whether to crawl, index, follow links on your website, or
not. It allows you to provide instructions to search engine crawlers on
how they should interact with your web page. Here are some common values
for the "robots" attribute:
index: This value indicates that the page should be included in
search engine indexes, making it discoverable in search results.
noindex: This value instructs search engines not to include the
page in their indexes, effectively hiding it from search results.
follow: Use this value to tell search engines to follow and explore
the links present on the page, including those leading to other pages on
your site or external websites.
nofollow: This value instructs search engines not to follow or
traverse the links on the page, meaning they won't explore the
destinations of those links.
These directives give you control over whether a specific page on your
website is indexed or not, as well as how search engines handle the links
on that page.
If you want your site content to display to search engines for indexing, you
need to use the proper tag unless your web pages will be hidden
5. Open Graph Meta Tags (for social media)
<meta property="og:title" content=" Your Page Title">
<meta
property="og:description" content="A brief description of the page">
<meta property="og:image" content=" URL to your featured image">
These tags are used for rich social media sharing, enabling your
content to display nicely when shared on platforms like Facebook and
Twitter.
Using these meta tags, you can improve the presentation of your web
pages, enhance the user experience, and positively influence search
engine rankings.
Are these metadata tags available on your website? They may or may not be present, so it's essential to check for yourself to confirm.
If you are a developer, you can examine and edit the HTML head of your page to verify their presence. For non-coders, the quickest way to check whether the metadata tags exist on your website is by using the Chrome Dev Tools.
Metadata tags are crucial for various aspects, such as SEO, social sharing, and defining the structure of your web content. Ensuring they are correctly implemented can significantly impact how your website appears in search results and on social media platforms.