Meta Tags for SEO
Updated: Oct 18, 2022
Meta tags are HTML tags that provide information about a web page. They are used by search engines to help index and rank a page. Meta tags do not affect the look or content of a web page, but they can be very useful for improving your SEO. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the most important meta tags and how you can use them to improve your website's ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
1. Meta Tags That Affect SEO
The most important meta tags for SEO are the title tag, meta description tag, and meta keywords tag. These tags are used by search engines to understand the content of a web page and determine its relevancy to a user's search query.
The title tag is the most important meta tag for SEO. It should be placed within the <head> section of your HTML code and should accurately describe the content of your web page. The title tag should be less than 60 characters long, as anything beyond that will be truncated by Google in SERPs.
The meta description tag is also important for SEO. It should be placed right below the title tag in the <head> section of your HTML code. The meta description is a brief summary of your web page that appears in SERPs beneath your page title. Like the title tag, it should be accurately descriptive and no longer than 160 characters.
The meta keywords tag is used less frequently by search engines nowadays, but it can still be helpful for improving your SEO. The meta keywords tag should be placed in the <head> section of your HTML code and should contain a list of relevant keywords for your web page. Keep in mind that if you stuff your keyword list with too many irrelevant keywords, you may end up being penalized by Google.
2. Other Meta Tags That May Be Helpful
There are other types of meta tags that can be used to improve your website's SEO, though they are not as important as the ones mentioned above. These include:
The meta author tag, which allows you to specify the author of a web page
The meta copyright tag, which allows you to specify copyright information for a web page
The meta robots tag, which allows you to tell search engines whether they should index or crawl a web page
3. How to Use Meta Tags in WordPress
If you're using WordPress as your CMS, then you can easily add meta tags to your website by installing a plugin like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO Pack. These plugins will give you options to add title tags, meta descriptions, and other relevant information to each post and page on your website. Once you've installed and activated one of these plugins, simply fill out the fields on each post or page and hit "publish." It's that easy!
Meta Tags are Important
Despite all of these changes, meta tags are still an important part of SEO - especially the title tag and meta description tag. While Google no longer uses the meta keywords Tag to index websites, optimizing your title and meta description tags can still help you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), driving more traffic (and potential customers) to your website in the process. So make sure you're using well-written, relevant, and concise meta tags on each page of your website!
In conclusion, meta tags play an important role in SEO. They help search engines understand the content of a web page and determine its relevancy to a user's search query. The most important meta tags for SEO are the title tag, meta description tag, and meta keywords tag. Other types of meta tags that may be helpful include the author tag, copyright tag, and robots metatag. If you're using WordPress as your CMS, then you can easily add these tags by installing a plugin like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO Pack. Thanks for reading!