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What are meta tags?
Meta tags are HTML elements that describe the summary or context of a web page. These tags are not displayed on the page.
These tags are found in the HTML header area of a website.
<head>You can find all the meta tags used by a website here</head>.
You can view these tags by right-clicking on the page and selecting “view page source”.
This is what a meta tag looks like (example of a meta description tag);
So you want to know more about these beacons? Without further ado, let's find out everything you need to know about meta tag optimization.
Benefits of using meta tags for SEO
Let's first talk about the benefits of using these tags so you know why you need to worry about optimizing them for your website's SEO.
How are these tags useful for SEO?
If you're wondering why you should use meta tags on your website, know that you can't rank higher in search engines without optimizing your main keywords with them in mind. That said, here are three major benefits of creating SEO friendly meta tags.
1. For the relevance of the content:
Search engine crawlers use information from your web page's meta tags to determine the relevance of your content. If you use similar keywords in your meta tags like the header, meta description, and subtitle tags like h2, h3, search engines give you better results based on the relevance and quality of your content.
2. For better content optimization
It doesn't matter if your website is new or old, if you want to rank on the first page for a keyword, you need to optimize your page well. This is where optimizing your meta tags with your primary and secondary keywords in mind helps you rank higher on Google.
3. To improve your organic click rates
Google has a simple concept when it comes to giving the first 3 results to a page. It simply looks at the number of people who click on the results on the first page to give a better ranking (if more people click on a 5th result, it will move up the rankings to 1 or 2 or 3).
In short, optimizing meta tags, such as meta descriptions, can significantly improve your website's organic click rates.
Well, enough talking! Now let's talk about the different types of meta tags and how you can optimize them for better SEO.
Important meta tags for SEO
While there are a ton of meta tags that you can find online, there are 6 main types of meta tags available that are listed below.
- Title tag
- Meta description
- Header tags (contains h1, h2, h3, and so on)
- Image alt tag
- Canonical tag
- Tag “Robots”
Let's talk about each of these 6 tags so that you have a better idea of how to use them to improve the overall SEO of your website.
Quick note : You'll find some technical words like HTML, canonical tag, etc. when describing the different types of meta tags below, but don't be fooled. We will try to make it easier for you to understand and explain in simple terms.
1. Title tag
A title tag defines the title of the document and is referred to by<title></title>.
The title tag represents the information that people see at the top of the browser and on search engine results pages (SERPs).
A title tag is absolutely necessary on every web page and it is also the On-page SEO factor the most important when it comes to increasing the SEO of your website through on-site optimization.
This means that you'll get better search rankings by optimizing your title tags for search engines because they have more weight in search results.
consultancy : Be sure to include your main keyword at the beginning of your title tag for an additional benefit in getting the best rankings on Google (based on the quality of your content and the links you attract to the page!)
For SEO purposes, it's always best to include your main keyword at the very beginning of your title tag (which also gives the first result in the case above).
2. The meta description tag
A meta description is a summary or short description of a page that appears under the title on the Google search results page.
Most people who are new to SEO or on-page optimization don't take meta description tags seriously and are often unaware that they need to fill out their meta description. It's a huge mistake.
If you want to improve your ranking for a keyword, you should include it at least once in your meta description (don't use your main keyword more than twice in your meta description).
Quick tip: your meta description has an impact on your overall search engine rankings. Do you know why? Your meta description is what most people read before clicking on your link on the Google results page. By having a compelling meta description, you get more clicks, which ultimately affects your overall search ranking for that term.
3. Header tags
Header tags contain h1, h2, h3, and so on that specify a header for a document or a section in a web page.
As you can see above, the h1 tag is the most important and has more weight in search engines (and you should only use the h1 tag once in a web page).
The second and third most important tags after the h1 tag are h2 and h3, and so on. You can use the h2 and h3 tags as many times as you want. These h2, h3 tags are generally used in the subtitles of your page.
Here's a simple illustration that explains how you can describe your content or web page using the h1, h2, h3, and other header tags.
Quick tip: if you use WordPress, you can install a free plugin called Easy Table of Contents that automatically generates a table of contents for your articles and pages by analyzing its content to find headers.
4. Image alt tags
Image optimization is as important as optimizing your page because you can also attract visitors from Google search. Some people use Google image search to find engaging images and infographics and often provide a link to the original source when using them.
So, if you optimize your images well using the right alt tags, you can not only attract visitors, but also quality links from a variety of sources. Be sure to include your main keyword in the image alt tag (which is usually represented by the tag<img alt>) for better SEO.
5. Canonical tag
A canonical tag is generally used to avoid duplicate content or URLs on your site. A canonical tag tells search engines like Google that a specific URL represents the main copy of a page. If you use the canonical tag, you can easily avoid all website SEO issues caused by very similar or duplicate content appearing on multiple URLs in order to improve the overall SEO of your website.
6. Robots tag
It's one of the most powerful meta tags. By using a robots tag, you can actually control what search engine robots do on your site. This means you can control which pages to index and which to ignore, and you can also tell search engine robots which links to follow and which to ignore (using the nofollow tag).
There are basically two types of robot tags that are widely used by bloggers and are explained in simple terms below.
robot tag “noindex”:
This robot tag tells search engines NOT to index a web page so that it does not appear in Google search results. For example, if one of your web pages contains duplicate content or content that is completely uninformative, you can use this tag. If you are a WordPress user, you can use the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin to easily reindex all unwanted blog posts and pages from Google search.
“nofollow” robot tag
If you use the nofollow tag in a page, it means that these pages are indexed but do not transmit link juice to the linked page. These nofollow tags are mostly
used for affiliate products, paid links, sponsored magazine articles, etc.
How do you optimize meta tags for SEO?
Most people think that HTML meta tags are only used by SEOs and bloggers, but all website operators can rank higher on Google by optimizing these tags.
Optimizing your web pages for the various meta tags is also not very difficult. In fact, optimizing your page is one of SEO best practices that brings you an excellent ranking.
Before we get into how we can optimize meta tags, take a look at the following illustration.
What did you understand from the image above?
Meta tags have three main components that allow you to get better search results.
- Relevance
- Human appeal (USP)
- Compatible with search engines
You need to find the right place (see illustration above) by optimizing meta tags keeping in mind the 3 factors above. That being said, let's talk about each of them so that you have a better idea about optimizing your meta tags.
1. Relevance
When optimizing meta tags, make sure you're using content that's highly relevant to the keywords you want to rank for.
Knowing the intent of the searcher is the key to creating highly relevant content and optimizing it using the right meta tags. If you don't focus on researching user intent before doing keyword research or optimizing meta tags for targeted keywords, you'll get random visitors who won't convert at all!
The intention of the researcher can easily be found in 3 ways.
- Informative : You can use these keywords when a searcher is trying to find more information about a particular product or service. Ex: What is XYZ?
- Commercial discovery : You can use these keywords when people are looking for comparisons. E.g. XYZ vs ABC
- Transactional : You can use these keywords when a searcher is about to buy a product. E.g.: Buy XYZ
Here is a great illustration that will allow you to better understand the intent of the searcher and the importance of optimizing your meta tags based on that intent.
2. Unique selling proposition (human appeal)
Create content for people, and optimize it for search engines. In other words, be sure to create content that is meant for people. Don't use jargon. Use a unique tone of writing when creating blog posts to make them more shared and engage users.
You can make your content unique by adding human appeal to it. Always meet the wants and needs of your target audience. Use calls to action at the end of the article to get more shares, leads, and feedback.
3. Compatible with search engines
What is the point of creating content if you don't optimize it for at least one main keyword? If you want to optimize it properly for SEO, you need to find and use at least one main keyword so that you can use it in various HTML tags like header tags, title tag, meta description, etc.
There's a common mistake that most people make when optimizing their meta tags. They often write long title tags or meta descriptions (which are often truncated in Google search).
For the best possible search results, limit the title length to 65 characters and the meta description to under 150 characters, including spaces.
So how do you know if you've used long meta tags on your website or not?
The Google Search Console is one of the best ways to discover all the pages on your site that have long descriptions or title tags.
You will find all the necessary information in the “HTML Enhancements” section, which looks like this;
So you can easily find and fix any problems with your website using the HTML Enhancements section of the Google Search Console.
7 most important things to know when optimizing meta tags
If you want to use meta tags to improve SEO, here are the 7 most important things you need to know to better optimize your website pages.
1. Stop using the same keywords in multiple page titles and descriptions.
The content you provide in the meta descriptions and title tags of the various articles on your website should be completely unique and you should avoid using duplicate content that contains the same keyword phrases. Using too many meta keywords can actually harm you!
Always be sure to pre-search Google using your title tags to see if there are pages with similar titles. Change completely
your titles and make them unique if you find similarities between your title tags.
2. Make sure you have “highly relevant” content that matches the intent of your keyword phrase
Be sure to include highly specific and relevant content on each specific page where you are targeting a primary keyword and be sure to match that content with the “intent of your keyword phrase.”
Let's make things simple. If you're using a meta tag with “apple,” make sure you know the intent of your searchers and whether they're looking for information related to the apple or Apple brand products (laptops, iPhones, iPads, etc.).
Once you know the intent of the searcher, using similar meta tags, you can easily create highly relevant content that ranks well on Google searches.
3. Keep your meta tags concise and easy to understand.
How many keywords should I use in the meta tag? As we saw above, there are six types of meta tags that can have a significant impact on the SEO of your website. By keeping the tags mentioned below short and sweet, you can keep both people and Google search robots happy.
- Header tags
- Image alt tag
- Title tag
- meta description
4. Ensure that the length of your title tag and meta description is correct.
While Google is making a ton of changes to its search algorithms, in terms of length, always try to keep your page title tag under 70 characters and limit your page meta description to 150 characters or less.
5. Be sure to use relevant keywords at the beginning of the article.
Brian Dean suggests using your main keyword in the first 100 words of a blog post or page. In this way, search robots will be able to more easily
understand the relevance of your meta tags and the content of your page.
6. Stop keyword stuffing at all costs
When optimizing for a main keyword, most people go crazy and fill in their main keyword over and over again in their content. It's called keyword stuffing, a Black Hat SEO technique which may result in your site being penalized by Google.
Instead of stuffing with keywords, you can find and use LSI keywords (highly relevant keyword phrases that are similar to your main keyword) and optimize your content accordingly.
7. Know when to use canonical tags
A canonical tag helps search engines like Google to easily identify the original page in case of duplicate content.
Duplicate content can be anything that is;
- Mobile URL (m.domain.com/less while also using the similar URL on the desktop version such as www.domain.com/less)
- System-generated URLs (which are the same as other pages on your website)
- HTTP, HTTPS, and WWW - search engines like Google generally think of http://www.mydomain.com, http://mydomain.com, and https://www.mydomain.com as separate pages and most often crawl and index them as such.
If you want to learn more about how to use canonical tags to avoid duplicate content on your website, check out this Guide to Moz.
The importance of using SEMrush for better meta tag optimization
Have you ever wondered why your website is having trouble getting search traffic? Are you wondering why your website isn't getting more organic traffic, even though you're creating quality content on a regular basis?
The reason is simple: your website may have SEO issues or technical issues like a missing sitemap, indexing issues, duplicate title tags, and more.
Unfortunately, most people don't realize this and abandon blogging altogether instead of finding the causes and reasons for the lack of search engine traffic on their websites.
The best way to find problems with your site is toconduct a thorough audit of the site. You can use tools like SEMrush to find any technical issues to better optimize your meta tags to improve your site's visibility in search engines.
What is a site audit?
A site audit is a process of analyzing your site to find any SEO issues (including desktop and mobile SEO issues) that may be preventing your website from ranking high on Google.
A site audit takes a ton of time. By using the right SEO tools like SEMrush, you can easily conduct a thorough audit of your website where you can easily find and fix SEO issues on your site.
Try the SEMrush Pro account (free for 30 days worth $119.95)
SEMrush gives you a total score (out of 100) as well as:
- Mistakes (these are the most important issues that need to be corrected first)
- Warnings (these may be overlooked but your site may perform well if you can fix them)
- Reviews (you can often ignore them)
The SEMrush site audit tool mentions 3 major issues, namely internal links with nofollow, the use of more than one h1 tag, duplicate content in the header, and title tags.
Additionally, the SEMrush site audit tool analyzes all pages on your website and gives you a detailed analysis of all technical and SEO issues on your site. Here are some of the things you can easily find and fix with the SEMrush site audit tool;
- Checks if all pages have title tags (and alerts you if some pages don't have title tags, long titles, or meta description).
- Check image alt tags (alerts you if there are images without alt tags)
- Check the over-optimization of your website pages.
- Check the load speed of all pages on the website.
- Check for duplicate content issues (title, meta description, or duplicate content, etc.).
- Information about toxic backlinks (if your website has bad links)
- Overall website SEO score (the higher the better).
SEMrush doesn't just audit sites, it also helps you with the following areas;
- Competition analysis
- Keyword research
- Domain comparison
- Backlink analysis
- Advertising research
- Keyword tracking
- Social media management
- Brand monitoring
- Lead generation, etc.
If you're wondering about SEMrush pricing options, here's what you need to know.
SEMrush offers 3 pricing plans that are listed below:
- SEMrush Pro (costs you $119.95 per month)
- SEMrush Guru (costs you $229.95 per month)
- SEMrush Business (costs you $449.95 per month)
That said, if you want to use the SEMrush site audit tool, we have an exclusive offer for you: you can get a completely free SEMrush Pro account for 30 days (you won't find this offer anywhere else because SEMrush only offers a 7-day free trial to its users).
Get a free 30-day SEMrush trial worth $119.95.
FAQs
Here are some of the FAQs we've compiled to help you better understand everything you need to know about these SEO tags for improve the SEO of your website.
Is it necessary to make meta tags compatible with SEO?
Yes, if you want to get more search traffic, get in the habit of optimizing meta tags for primary keywords. Always do keyword research before writing a new blog post, find primary and secondary keywords, and create meta tags accordingly.
How do I use meta tags for SEO?
If you're a WordPress user, you can install an optimization plugin like the Rank Math SEO plugin because it helps you easily optimize your blog posts and pages for the keywords you want. It also includes all the built-in technical configurations, so you don't need to worry about the technical side of your website.
What is a meta tag in simple terms?
Meta tags are snippets of text that describe the content of a web page. Meta tags don't appear on the page itself, but you can find them in the source code of a web page (by right-clicking “View Source”). Meta tags are extremely useful for getting more search traffic if you optimize them for the keywords you want.
What is a robot meta tag in SEO?
A Robot metatag is a special HTML metatag that has two main functions. First, it tells search engine robots not to index the content of a web page (using rel="noindex”). Second, it also tells search robots whether or not they should scan a web page for links to follow or not to follow (using rel="nofollow”). As a general rule, use the rel=nofollow tag when creating links to affiliate sites, promotional messages, and so on.
What are the most important meta tags?
The first is the “title tag” and the other is the “meta description”. When it comes to using meta tags to improve SEO, these two meta tags play an important role. So, optimizing your title tag and meta description for a primary keyword can give a boost to search engine traffic.
Summary.
In short, meta tags are “invisible tags” that have an impact on the SEO of your website. These tags are only visible by clicking on the “Show page source” option (by right-clicking on a page) and are easily readable by search engine crawlers.
Instead of ignoring these HTML tags, you can improve your overall search engine rankings by optimizing them for your primary and secondary keywords.
So what do you think of the best meta tags for SEO? Do you optimize titles and meta tags? Let us know if you have any questions in the comments below.
