Let’s talk meta tags – sounds a bit geeky but it’s not that bad really! We already know how incredibly important SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is for your website to rank high on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). There are many ways to optimise SEO – great content, keywords, the list goes on, but one essential method is to use Meta Tags. If you have not developed a website before then this may be a new term to you, so what on earth are Meta Tags and how do you use them.
In a nutshell, Meta Tags tell search engines such as Google, what your web page is about. They are short excerpts of text which are included in the code of the web page. This text is not visible on the web page itself, it hides behind the scenes. Consequently, these descriptive keywords are not seen by visitors but they are picked up by search engines. The end result is that Meta Tags enable search engines to categorise and surface your content for the correct search terms, and this is how we get various rankings on SERPs.
Let’s take a look at some of the common meta tags you should include on your web pages:
1. Title tags
These are shown on the search engine results page and they inform visitors what your content is about. You should have a unique title on every web page, if you don’t then Google will create on for you and this may harm your SEO ranking. More importantly – length! These should be between 50 and 60 characters – this is key!
2. Meta description tags
These are found under the title in SERPs and they provide a summary of the web page to the visitor. Meta descriptions are a valuable tool as it encourages web users to click through to your web page. It’s vital these are no less than 120 characters and no more than 156!
3. Canonical tags
These are used if you have a single page with multiple URLs or different pages that have the same content such as mobile and desktop versions. Search engines will see these as duplicate pages so you have to tell the search engine the real URL which is the main web page. By using canonical tags, you are telling the search engine which pages you want it to display in SERPs and to disregard other similar content from your web pages.
4. Robots meta tags
These tags provide instructions to web crawlers, instructing them to index a web page or not. You can instruct a web crawler to do one of four things:
- FOLLOW – the search engine crawler will follow all the links in that web page
- INDEX – the search engine crawler will index the whole web page
- NOFOLLOW – the search engine crawler will not follow the web page or any links in that web page
- NOINDEX – The search engine crawler will not index that web page
5. Alternative text (Alt) Tag
These tags are used for images, as search engine cannot read them, they need to have Alt text to so that they can be read and ranked accordingly. It is important that the text clearly and concisely describes the image in 50-55 characters.
As mentioned previously Meta Tags are not the only tool to improve SEO. They must be used in conjunction with other methods and be monitored continually. Remember, achieving good SEO rankings is an on-going process, the moment you stop working at it, a competitor can swoop in and take your position on the SERP.
If you have any questions on this blog post please contact the 2xN team by clicking here.