Effective SEO or search engine optimization is about making your website accessible to both your audience and the search engines. The Meta tag or Meta tag SEO allows search engines to crawl, index, and rank your site easily.
Even more importantly, metas can draw in more web traffic organically through Meta description snippets that tell visitors what your site is about in 160 characters or less.
First, what is Meta tag SEO? And what are meta tags, precisely?
Understanding Meta Tags
Meta tags are invisible code snippets that aid search engine crawlers at understanding a page’s content. This is important so that the search engines can easily classify or categorize what your site is all about, and rank it in relevant search results.
While Meta tag codes are visible only to search crawlers, some types of metas are actually visible to website visitors. Title tags and meta descriptions are two of these examples.
Meta tag SEO simply means optimizing your Meta tags for both search engines and search users. To be indexed and ranked by Google, you need to know which Meta tags work best in today’s digital climate.
Moreover, when you combine proper keyword use with due diligence on Meta tagging, you can effectively drive your site’s higher listings in the SERPs or Search Engine Results Pages.
Which Meta Tags are Best for ROI?
#1. Title Tag
The title tag is visible in the SERPs as the title of your website or any web page. It is important because it headlines what your site is about. It has to be short, clear, and relevantly descriptive. The length should be no more than 55 or 60 characters.
Typically, what shows up in the title tag may be different from what your page headlines are. It is nevertheless important for the title tag to mention your keywords, strategically placed as closer to the front of the title as possible.
#2. Meta Description
The Meta description is another visible type of meta tag, which shows up in the SERPS as a brief description of the site or page. Usually no more than 160 characters, the meta description is visible below the title tag and the actual site or page link. It is a blurb that, ideally, contains keywords as well as a call to action.
#3. Header Tag
The header tag is useful for both search engine crawling/indexing and ease of reading. They aim to break down huge blocks of text for easy organization of ideas, readability, and flow. With a text content effectively segregated through header tags, it will be easier for search engines to crawl, understand, index, and rank it.
Typically, the order of the header tags should connect to their order of importance in the text content. Thus, the title is usually assigned h1 while the rest of the headlines are ordered h2, h3, and so forth as sub-headings.
#4. ALT Text Tag
The alt text tag is applicable to images uploaded to your site so that search engines know what the image is about and site visitors can see the image’s description even before it has loaded completely. This tag is valuable for image SEO or image optimization.
#5. Canonical Tag
The canonical tag is useful at differentiating two seemingly similar pages within one site. When you have identical pages such as those that contain products or product models, it is important for you to signal to Google that these are actually different pages. It also prevents you from getting a duplicate page penalty.
#6. Robots Meta Tag
The robots Meta tag is employed to inform search engines which pages to index and follow and which ones to skip crawling or indexing. This Meta tag also signals which links to track and which ones to ignore.
#7. Viewport Tag for Mobile
The viewport tag is mostly applicable for sites or pages that aim to be mobile accessible. It provides tweaking powers for your website to be readable even when accessed through a mobile phone. The viewport tag can make images or content visible even when viewed through smaller screens.
Rising up the SERPs Ladder Through Meta Tags
At the end of the day, being found in the SERPsis all about user experience. Meta tags help search engines and search users understand what your pages are about in as efficient a way as possible.
Certain Meta tags, such as the viewport tag, also improve a webpage’s mobile-friendliness, making it easier for users to navigate through a site through a mobile phone or smart gadget.
The business site owner of today has to invest in digital marketing strategies that slowly build online presence over time. Meta tag SEO is a big help in slowly but surely rising up the SERPS ladder, the sustainable and ethical way.