In the constantly evolving search engines scenario, having a consistent SEO strategy has become mandatory to stay ahead of the competition. Thus, it is crucial to understand this strategy from its most basic pillars.
One of them is meta tags. Although they seem like just a detail, they can make all the difference in your results. This key element will gain you, not only in position but also in readers.
Meta tags are statements inserted into the head section of the HTML code to guide the actions of algorithms regarding page ranking in search engines. They ensure browsers and search engines behave precisely how you want them to and showcase your content in SERPs as per your choice.
Through this blog post, find out what a Meta Tags is, what it is used for and how to write one that will boost your click-through rate.
Contents
Meta tags, or HTML elements, are snippets of text codes that provide data about your page to search engines and website readers. In simple, it makes it easier for them to better understand the content found on a website page. They provide data, such as a title or summary on the subject covered by external programs.
Meta tags are added to the <head> section of your code page. They are invisible content that is featured on the page. However, they act as little instructions to give crawlers consistent directions.
For this reason, filling them out is a best practice to get your blog or website to rank in SERPs.
Here is a brief review of the most popular meta-tags, as well as some valuable tips (tips):
Meta tag “Description”
It is a general description of the content of your HTML document; there must be consistency between the content of this meta-tag and the words included in the text of the document and the title of the page. It is generally recommended that the description be between 120 to 159 alphabets.
Best Practices for effective Meta tag “Description.”
- Keep it under 160 characters
- Create distinct summaries for each page
- Avoid duplicate meta descriptions on your website
- Use sentence case
- Be accurate, descriptive, and concise
- Match search intent
- Avoid doing keyword stuffing
Meta Tag “Title”
When evaluating search results, the title is the first thing that catches reader’s eyes and shows them that your page is the perfect fit for their query. So, it is crucial to create a well-designed title that helps crawlers read and rank your page. A well-designed title can also invite users to choose your page over your competitors.
Best Practices for compelling Meta Tag “Title.”
- Use title case or sentence case.
- Add target keywords in each title tag
- Craft a compelling headline to make readers swoon and click it.
- Ensure that the title tag is present on all web pages.
- Don’t use vague titles.
Meta tag “Abstract”
Presents a brief abstraction of the document, a general summary.
Meta tag “Author”
This allows you to place information about the author of a website; it is recommended to place the email in this attribute. If someone is interested in contacting the author of a specific HTML document, they have the contact needed.
Meta tag “Copyright”
It is the space formally designated to indicate any matter related to copyright laws, intellectual property, licensing, patents, etc. It is not information that search engines use meaningfully.
Meta tag “Distribution”
It indicates the distribution that should be given to the document; it can be GLOBAL if you want to use it massively, LOCAL if it is only for local use, or UI, which means that it is only for internal use. If not set, the document takes a GLOBAL value by default.
Meta tag “Expires”
It can be used for documents that lose validity after a specific date has passed. It tells search engines that the record can be removed from their database when indicated in this meta-tag.
Meta tag “Language”
Beneficial for sites that are not made in English. It allows you to indicate to search engines the language in which the document is made; this can be very important for directories that only index sites created in a specific language.
Meta tag “Revisit”
It is intended to tell search engines how often they should visit the site to re-index its content. Its use is highly recommended but only on those sites that are changing their content on an ongoing basis.
Meta tag “Keywords”
It is a set of words that have the objective of describing the content of your document, separated by the character “,” (comma). No more than 20 keywords are recommended.
Meta tag “Robots”
It exists to indicate which pages should be indexed by a search engine and which ones should not. Its use is recommended to protect from indexing those files that should never appear in Google search results. Its use could be harmful if not used carefully, in the sense that an error here or in the robots.txt file could cause documents that should be indexed not to be indexed.
Meta-tag NOT recommended:
Meta tag “Refresh”
It is a way to make one page redirect to another after a certain amount of seconds; however, it is not the most elegant way to achieve this goal. Its use is NOT recommended.
Meta tags are not that tough; you only need to make sure that you know the basics and add them to your blogs or website pages. If you own a small website, then you can do it manually by yourself. If you have dozens of pages to optimize, then it is better to opt for a leading marketing company that can help you to optimize your site.
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