6 Meta Tags to Improve Your Site Rankings
6 Meta Tags to Improve your site rankings
What the heck is a Meta Tag? Thanks for asking…
Meta tags are invisible bits of text linked to the pages on your website that make it easier for search engines to understand your site content.
This is great for boosting your search engine ranking - making it more likely you’ll be found on Google.
They’re also helpful for human beings browsing the web. Meta tags help your customers find you. They create a digital trail leading your ideal customer from a search bar, to you.
And when more people than ever are searching for answers using the Internet, meta tags make sure your content is properly indexed and searchable, which means it’s more likely to be seen.
So where can you find these invisible meta tags?
They’re just below the surface of your web page - in the <head> section of an HTML document.
If you use Squarespace, Wordpress, or another visual Content Management System - you can usually enter meta tag data wherever you normally enter page information.
Why do meta tags matter?
You can use meta tags to highlight the most essential elements of your content, and make your website stand out from other results on a SERP (a Search Engine Results Page).
You can also use meta tags to give your site visitors a better experience. When your ideal customers spend their precious time on the Internet looking for information - you can make life easier by displaying the content of your site in an easily searchable, concise way. Meta tags help your customers see the highlights of your site, faster.
Some types of meta tags are all about page structure, and will make sure that your site is easy to travel around. Others tell the search engine which parts of your page are significant, and which to leave.
Different types of meta tags fulfil different roles, but not all of them are for SEO purposes.
Here are the 6 most important meta tags you need to know about to improve your site optimisation.
1. Title tag
The title of your page is one of the first things people will see from your site on search engine results pages (SERPs). Your title tag essentially offers a snappy preview of your content.
Make your title tags clear, descriptive, and no longer than 55 characters. Though you can include a keyword in these 55 characters, it’s even more important to add value and clarity to boost your SEO.
Remember, your title tag is for a search engine that discovers your content and not just for your visitors alone. So think about blending clarity with context to make sure your title is understandable to everyone - both human visitors, and search engine trawlers.
Keep scrolling for knowledge…
2. Meta description
The meta description is as important as your title tag. It’s a snippet that appears just underneath your title on a search page.
Your meta description should offer a concise description of your page content. Meta descriptions help visitors decide whether they want to click and read that page - so you have an opportunity to summarise, and entice.
The ideal length for a meta description was previously 150-165 characters. But recently, Google changed it so that longer snippets can be used to great effect. Check David Portney’s comprehensive piece‘Google’s updated SERP snippet length: What should be your SEO strategy now?‘ for more information.
3. Alt text
Most sites now contain plenty of images. Your alt text tags mean that there is text hidden behind these images that is accessible to search engines, and site visitors.
If images do not display for some reason, your alt text will be visible instead.
Alt text tags are also great to include for accessibility. People who use screen readers and devices for the visually impaired will be able to access your alt text, and understand the content of your images.
4. Robots Meta Tag
The robots meta tag tells search engines which pages on your site should be indexed as part of your ranking, and which ones should be ignored.
You can use these tags to instruct a search engine crawler not to index a particular page, or follow any links on it.
5. Header tag (h1,h2,h3,etc.)
Header tags are any headings used to structure your site page.
Paragraphs always look better with a heading, and the tags that dictate font sizes on the web (h1, h2, h3, and so on) are prioritised by search engines.
This means if you put your keywords in your heading tags, they’re more likely to be noticed by the search engine.
Header tags go from h1 to h6, with h1 being the most important (and usually the largest in font size).
H1 might be for your page title, and h2 would be a subheading.
6. Canonical Tag
Canonical tags let search engines know which page should be prioritised, if you have pages on your site that are almost identical.
Or if you have syndicated content on your site which has been republished elsewhere, using this type of tag can prevent you from incurring a duplicate content penalty.
Duplicate content penalties are in place to prevent websites from using multiple identical pages to boost their search rankings. Canonical tags would stop you accidentally being penalised in this instance.
Canonical tags are also excellent for guiding search engine crawlers to your URL as the ‘main’ one. This is very useful for preventing copycat sites from cannibalising your SEO.
That’s all folks.
So there you have it - your introduction to the world of meta tags.
Everything to do with SEO can seem mysterious, complicated, and somewhat dry. But the visibility that comes with using these meta tags is highly useful.
Before you go!
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