When reviewing websites, analysts dissect and study the meta tags used on the page as one of the first steps. They are little snippets of text that describe what that page’s content is all about. If you’ve ever followed or subscribed to a blog, you will notice they are quite similar to tags used in those kinds of websites. However, they don’t appear anywhere on the page; rather, developers write them in the page’s code. Although it’s not nearly as cut and dry, you can think of page tags for the readers and meta tags for search engines, both describing to their intended audience what the content of the page is.
Now, the main difference between them is that you can see one on a page, but you can’t see the other. Despite not being visible on the page, meta tags can still be utilized to your advantage in terms of SEO or search engine optimization. But that is only if you know how to use them. Experts also agree that meta tags are arguably one of the best tools in an online marketer’s repertoire, and it would be a shame if they were misused. Here, we will explore how you can view tags, what kinds there are, and how to leverage them to boost your SEO campaign.
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Why Meta Tags are Important for SEO
Meta tags play a crucial role in SEO, aiding your website’s visibility on search engines like Google. They’re like little messages that tell search engines what your webpage is about.
One big reason why they matter is because they help search engines understand your webpage. When people search for something online, search engines use them to figure out which websites are most relevant. So, if you have the right meta tags, your webpage is more likely to show up at the top of search results. Most people click on the first few results they see, so being at the top is great for getting visitors.
Another reason why they are crucial is that they can make your webpage look better in search results. Have you ever seen search results with a title, a short description, and maybe even a picture? That’s because of meta tags! With the right meta tags, you can control what people see when your webpage pops up in search results. This can make your webpage more appealing and get more people to click on it.
They also help with social media. When someone shares your webpage on Facebook or Twitter, the meta tags you’ve set up control its appearance in the shared post. This can make your content more interesting and get more people to share it.
In short, meta tags are important because they help search engines understand your webpage, make your webpage look better in search results, and make it more shareable on social media. Using meta tags well can help your webpage get more visitors and show up higher in search results.
Ways to View Meta Tags
In the event you would want to view what kind of meta tags any given page is using, you need to right-click on any part of the page, and then select “View Page Source.” A new tab or window will then display, showing the head of the page at the top, where the meta tags are located. It starts with “<meta” and then follows with other parts of the code. Although there are many kinds of meta tags webmasters use in coding their pages, there are four main types worth knowing.
The Main Types of Meta Tags
It’s important to note that not all meta tags are created equal. Some are able to help our campaign, while others are simply a waste of space. Others were useful before but not today, while others might even be detrimental to your website if implemented the wrong way. Here, we explore the four main types of meta tags. The first one is the meta keywords attribute, which comprises a string of keywords believed to be relevant to the page where the meta tag is embedded. The next one is the title tag; it’s the text that you see at the top of the browser. The meta description attribute is a short text describing the page, and the last one is the meta robots attribute, which tells the search engine bots crawling through the page what to do.
- Meta keywords attribute – A few years ago, the meta keywords attribute might have been useful in some instances. However, if you were to use them in this day and age, it wouldn’t make much sense. It’s not that using them would be detrimental, but it’s just a waste of effort to do so. The reason for their fall from grace is excessive use and misleading content. In order to get as many visits and views as possible, some webmasters added keywords that weren’t related to the content of the page.
They did this to attract traffic from as many sources as possible, even if the page had absolutely nothing to do with a certain topic. Labelled as “keyword stuffing,” this practice led to Google devaluing the tool, subsequently ceasing its use as a metric in their ranking algorithm.
- Meta robots attribute – Basically there are three commands that you can input into these kinds of meta tags. The first one is index or noindex, which will tell search engines if you want your page to pop up in their results or not. There is also something called a deindexing, which removes a previously indexed page from the search results. Lastly, there is the follow or nofollow, which commands search engines to either trust and follow the links that are on your page, or not to.
It’s imperative that you need to take into account which tags will be more beneficial.
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- Title tag – Out of all the meta tags discussed, this is arguably the most important when it comes to SEO campaigns, and how well your website does on search engine results. Title tags have a real impact when it comes to ranking, and even more importantly, they are the only meta tags that are visible to all visitors of the page, even without viewing the source code. They are the ones located at the very top of the browser and search engines will consider what you input in your title tag the “real” title of the post. You can also make it so that people who are shuffling multiple tabs can easily read them, or if you just want to simplify the title for SEO purposes.
- Meta description attribute – Despite the title tag being the most important, meta description tags don’t fall that far behind. What they do is explain to the search engines—and sometimes even the searchers themselves—what the page is actually about. However, it is important to remember that description tags will not show up in the results for a search all the time. Some browsers or search engines just pick snippets of it, and some do not at all. But despite this, they are still very useful in other ways.
Being able to create a compelling meta description tag may entice the people who search to click through to your page, especially if the keywords in the tag include what they were searching for. Don’t make the same mistake as some of the old webmasters who tried gaming Google’s system using keyword descriptions.
Identifying Effective and Ineffective Meta Tags
As mentioned before, there are meta tags that are useful for SEO purposes and some that are not. For the most part, four meta tags should never be omitted on the page: the title, meta description, meta content type, and viewport. The meta content type tag is necessary for websites to declare the character set for the page, as omitting this can cause problems in browser rendering. Including the viewport tag ensures that mobile users experience faster page loading times, as failing to specify it could result in a poor user experience.
Always include these four in your page. Although the other types might prove to be useful, more often than not, they are just a waste of effort and space. But if you really want to ensure you are giving the best possible effort in your SEO campaign, consider making use of a business product outsourcing company that focuses on SEO. Don’t leave it to your administrative assistant—hand it to the experts. You don’t really even need to deal in offshoring; just good old outsourcing to companies that share similar views with yours will be good. Check us out at SquareFish, and you might find we are exactly what you need.