Ultimate Meta Tag Guide – Know All About Meta Tags

Do you want your site to appear higher on the SERPs and attract more traffic? Optimizing your page with DigiMatiks’ Ultimate Meta Tag Guide can help you achieve that. Meta tags are invisible tags that store information about your website which search engines and web crawlers can read. The Meta, in its name stands for 'Metadata,' they provide information on what the content is about and how to display it to the visitors. To implement these tags effectively, we must learn why they are so important in SEO through Basics of Search Engines . Why Meta Tags are Important ---------------------------- The leading SEO motive is to make your content stand out amidst thousands of others in search results. Meta tags help you achieve that by highlighting the unique elements of your website as it answers the user's query in the best way possible. There are a plethora of these tags available which are used to enhance user experience. Although not all of them are for SEO, many of them carry out functions like: • Determine content type • Optimize title and description • Set-up robots • Enhance navigation and many more Let's look at some of the most important Meta tags and how they can help improve your website. Some Important Meta Tags to Optimize your Contentr As there are many options available, we'll be discussing some of the most important Meta tags for SEO in our Ultimate Meta tag guide. Meta Title ---------------- Nobody's going to click on your article if they don't know what it is about. The Meta title tag helps you just there. It shows up in the SERP and specifies your web page for visitors and search engines. As it's one of the primary pieces of information that determines how many people will click on your site, it needs to be descriptive and sharp. Tips to Write Good Meta Titles • Try to keep it in betwee 55-60 characters. • Add numbers to make it catchy (example – 5 Best Tips to Boost Search Traffic). • Make sure it's unique. • Be clear and descriptive. • Add primary keyword. Meta Description -------------------- This tag provides a brief summary of your webpage to the searcher before they actually click on it. Optimizing the Meta description doesn't affect page rankings, but it can impact the CTR as it is visible in SERP. A well-writte Meta version should feature an accurate and catchy explanation of the content. It can be added to the web page via a plug-in or through HTML code. Tips to Write Good Meta Description • Try to keep it under 160 characters for complete visibility. • Add primary keyword. • Add a CTA (Call-to-Action) tone. • Try to make it query-based. • Be explanatory. Robots Meta Tag -------------------- You can use Robots Meta Tag to inform the search engines what they should do with a page. Its various functions include: Follow/ No-follow ------------------- It helps to determine whether the search crawler will follow the links on the page or not. Index/ No-follow – It informs the search crawler whether it should index a web page or not. Now, why would you want this tag? There might be certain vital pages on your website that you don't want to be found by visitors or followed by the web crawlers. Robots Meta Tag lets you decide which page shouldn't be followed or indexed. Alt text ------------- Alt text or "alt attributes" help search engines identify images on a web page. They cannot see pictures as humans can; the text allows them to consider the image properly. Alt tag aids visitors to identify the image if it fails to load and helps the visually impaired read it via a screen reader. It also gives you another opportunity to get ranked for your visual content. How to Write a Proper Alt Text • Make it descriptive and easy to understand. • Focus on improving the user experience. • Add primary keyword. • Place images near relevant texts. Meta Viewport --------------- The percentage of mobile internet users has been steadily increasing since 2011, which has created the need for mobile optimization of websites. Use the Meta Viewport tag to set the visible area of your web page, i.e., how the browser will render it on different devices? It's cumbersome to access the desktop version of a webpage on your mobile. Using the Meta Viewport tag can negate this issue and make your page rank higher on mobile devices. Header Tags ----------- Would you like to read unstructured content with information flowing all over the place? You won't enjoy reading it, that's for sure. Header tags are an integral part of your page which enhances readability and helps you structure the narrative. It also affects SEO as these tags help the search engines learn about your content. There are 6 header tags available (h1 to h6) which you can use to highlight different sections of your content. Conclusion ------------ Use the Ultimate Meta Tag Guide to optimize the Meta tags properly to enrich the user experience and the SEO. With thousands of websites chu ing the latest content regularly, these tags can help you stand out and rank higher on the SERP.