One of the most fundamental parts of SEO is meta tags. Ensuring that they’re in place will also help you ensure that your website’s pages have a good, solid foundation of optimization. Unfortunately, their best practices are often ignored. Since this isn’t something you should do, here are some things that you need to know about them.
What are SEO meta tags?
SEO meta tags are found in the website’s HTML header. Here they describe the page by using syntax that Google understands. Google then uses this information about the website in its rankings. Hence why you should never forego these tags.
Meta tags are one of the pieces of code that search engines use to help them understand what your page is about and how relevant it is to the keyword their users are searching for. Although your visitors can’t see this data, it’s still important.
There are two types of meta tags that you should be aware of:
- Page title tags are your page’s main descriptive element. Visitors see this when they find your site on Google.
- Meta description tags are very short paragraphs that are found underneath your page title in the SERPs. If you use an accurate description, Google will use it to entice and inform visitors about your page.
Why are meta tags used?
Here are a few examples of what your SEO meta tags can accomplish:
- You can use the keywords meta tag to help describe certain words that you use to describe your product or service (e.g., features, price, size).
- You can use them to tell people where your site is located (e.g., city, state, country).
- You can add them to your blog post to help visitors find your post.
Why are meta tags important for SEO?
SEO meta tags are very important to your website’s overall optimization process. Having great title tags can mean the difference between your page’s success and failure. Without them, Google may choose what it thinks are the best ones for your page. Since Its algorithm is imperfect these may not be as good as what you want to see. Therefore you should include at least a title and description tag for each page you create.
What does Google say about SEO meta tags?
This is the ultimate question people want to have answered regarding SEO meta tags. After all, many people see how Google virtually monopolizes the internet. With this in mind, here are a few things that you should know:
- Don’t waste your time going back through all of your website’s pages to add these tags if you haven’t already done so. Changing these descriptions, adding to them, or including keywords in them won’t have a drastic effect on your site’s ranking.
- Many website builders either forget about their meta tags or use the same ones across lots of pages, while others create off-topic, low-quality, or outright spammy descriptions. When this happens, Google feels as though its reputation is being tarnished and its visitors’ search experience is being diminished. Therefore, Google chooses to ignore these types of meta descriptions.
- Google admits that it adjusts the meta description based on its user’s query. This means that not everyone sees the same thing. Therefore if you’re doing a site query and seeing your title in your search results, someone else may not be seeing it.
Optimizing your SEO meta tags is yet another vital part of good SEO. With all the tasks that are involved in the SEO process, you’ll want to consider hiring us at the Local SEO Tampa Company in Tampa, FL, so your focus can remain on your business instead. So make sure you contact us today.
