What is a meta tag? Well, it is a special HTML tag that gives information about a web page. Meta tags are part of Head section of the website and describe content of the web page. They are used in HTML or XHTML documents, and lie between opening and closing tags of the code. There are several elements that influence successful search engine placement for a website, and meta tags is one of them. Meta tags can be used to highlight important keywords and build page relevancy to search terms. Though meta tags are traditional SEO technique and has been in use for a long time, it is still effective in influencing search engine rankings. There are multiple meta tags with different elements that can be used throughout a web page. It includes title, keywords, description and robot tags. But, mainly title and description are considered and displayed by search engines during listing of results.
A simple example
of Meta tag –
<head>
<title>Not
a Meta Tag, but required anyway </title>
<meta name="description"
content="Awesome Description Here"> <meta
http-equiv="content-type"
content="text/html;charset=UTF-8">
</head>
Benefits of using meta tags
- They
provide information about the web page, especially which keywords
represent the web page.
- Normal
HTML tags change the appearance of the web page, but meta tags allow
adding keywords to web page without affecting its appearance.
- Several
search engines use meta tag information to index and organize websites.
- Meta
tags appear in search results, especially if it contains keyword that user
searched for. It helps in building relevancy and attracting attention of
user.
- Improve
Click-through-rates CTR
Tips to Optimize Use of Meta Tags
- Choose
your meta tags (keywords and description) carefully. Also, include them in
a natural way rather than simply stuffing keywords.
- Try
to keep each meta tag within character limit. For page title, character
limit is 70 characters, meta description character limit is 160 characters
and for meta keywords, it should not be more than 10 keyword phrases.
- Use
your most important keyword followed by the company name in the title.
- Develop
your meta description like a short advertisement that will encourage
people to view your page. Meta description is visible in the SERP, so it
should be meaningful, appealing and gives accurate description of your
website.
- Fill
as many meta tags as possible. While title, keywords and description are
very important, other tags like Robots meta tag also influences ranking.
- Make
sure the meta description includes a CTA (Call-to-Action). It influences
click-through-rate and natural search traffic.