SEO is a practice that involves many on-page and off-page factors, and it’s critical to know how to incorporate Meta tags into each one of your web pages. Meta tags help search engines correctly crawl and index your pages, which may result in higher rankings and more exposure to the audience you're trying to reach.
Now, you might be thinking, “Wait … what's a Meta tag?”
What Are Meta Tags?
Here, I’m going to define Meta tags, pinpoint some of the most important Meta tags you need to care about, and provide directions so that you can begin incorporating Meta tags into your HTML today for SEO benefit.
SEO & Meta Tags
A Meta tag is a snippet of code you'll include in the HTML of a web page but it doesn't appear on the page itself. Meta tags help search engine crawlers understand what your page content is about and index your page, which is critical when you want to rank on SERPs for the right keywords.
Meta tags are useful from an SEO angle since they let search engines more easily crawl and index your web page's content. There are many types of Meta tags and their attributes are available to use, but how you apply them on a page will depend on your SEO strategy.
Meta Tags Example
Examples of basic yet notable Meta tags include canonical tags, meta content type, robot Meta tags, Meta descriptions, and title tags. You might use a canonical tag to communicate with search engines which page is the "original" one. Alternatively, you might use robot meta tags to confirm search engines don't index a section of the site you don't want on the SERPs, like search results pages on your site.
Let's explore some of these now.
1. Canonical Tags
If you have a single page but can be accessible with multiple formations of URLs, or different pages with similar content (such as a page with separate versions for mobile and desktop devices), search engines see these pages as duplicate versions of the same page.
For example, as a human, you know typing "www.google.com" and "google.com" will bring you to the same page - if you search for either, you'll land on Google's homepage.
But Google sees "www" and "non-www" as duplicate versions of the same page just like "HTTP" and "HTTPS". If you don't specify which page you want to be the official one, Google will choose one version as original and crawl the other versions less often.
This could mean that Google may devalue your desktop version of the homepage over its mobile counterpart by consistently crawling your mobile version of your homepage and rarely checking your desktop version or vice versa.
For this reason, it's often important to include a canonical tag, which simply tells Google, "Hey, if you find this same content elsewhere - please disregard. This is the source I want you to consider, and this is the version with which I want to appear on the SERPs".
This is particularly important for pages like your homepage - the most important page among all. To insert a canonical tag, simply put this code in your HTML:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/tenet/meta-tags" />
2. Meta Content-Type
The Meta content type allows you to specify the media type (e.g. "text/HTML") and character set for each web page - you'll want to include this on all of your web pages. Different browsers extract information differently, and different programming languages have different character sets. Using Meta content type tags ensures your pages are rendered in all browsers.
Here's an example of the code you'd use for Meta content type:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
3. Robots Meta Tags
By default, search engine bots crawl your entire site and follow internal and external hyperlinks. However, this may not align with your SEO strategy if you are looking to control how some pages appear on SERPs. In addition, a high number of outbound links may negatively affect the value (a.k.a. "link juice") passed through your links.
If you don't specify a robots meta tag, search engines will obey the default “index,follow” directive. Robots Meta tags can affect the behavior of the search engine crawling and indexing, resulting in more strategic control of how your site pages get indexed and what "link juice" a page retains.
Here are a few common robot Meta tags:
- noindex - Excludes the page from being indexed
- nofollow - Blocks Google bot from following links from this page
- nosnippet - Prevents showing any textual snippet for a page in the search results
- noarchive - Prevents Google bot from showing the Cached link of a page
- unavailable_after:[date] - Let's you specify the date you want to stop crawling and indexing a page
There are many reasons you might use a robots Meta tag. You might convey the "nofollow" command, for example, if your web page has a section for posting comments from visitors. Since you can't be sure which links are posted by readers in the comments section (which could be spam), it might be smart to tell search engine bots not to follow those links.
On the other hand, "noindex" is a popular tag for a few reasons. Let's say you're planning to relaunch a website, but you want to test the redesign on a development server that resides in a subdomain on your live website. You'll want to use the "noindex" tag to ensure Google won't show the site in search before it's ready.
You might also use "noindex" if you have a gated discount offer you don't want users to be able to find on search engines - since you want them to fill out a form to avail it.
Lastly, you might use "noindex" if your website creates imitation web pages whenever someone does a site search. Search engines might think those value-less pages are part of your website, which will hurt your SEO. It's best if you incorporate "noindex" to ensure URLs containing site search results aren't displayed on the SERPs.
To incorporate a robots Meta command, insert this code into your HTML:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
4. Title Tags
Title tags help searchers initially understand what your content is about, and they are also a major factor in helping search engines understand your content's topic. Additionally, a title tag can ensure dependability, since the title tag will showcase your web page’s subject matter, on the web browser, and in social networks.
Even if you include a <title> tag, Google, sometimes, will create a custom one for the SERPs for searchers - which can hurt your ranking. So, better if you create a compelling, click-worthy title that will intrigue readers while accurately portraying what your page is about.
Include a title tag on each of your web pages by inserting this code into your HTML:
<head>
<title>Example Meta Title</title>
</head>
It's important to note, ALT text is technically not a tag - it's an attribute. However, you've likely heard the term "alt tag", which is why you might think ALT text is part of the Meta tag family.
Regardless of its nomenclature, ALT text is incredibly important for your overall SEO strategy, particularly since Google gives equal value to visual search. When a search engine spider crawls your page, it's going to look for the ALT text of an image as an identifier for what your web page is about - so it's critical you correctly insert text in and as an ALT attribute.
Here's a code example for ALT attribute to include in your HTML:
<img src="meta-tag.png" alt="Meta tag image">
5. Meta Keywords
Meta keywords are an element of the "meta" tag family that get added if you want to use keywords to define what a page is about. These keywords would not visible on the page but rather in the page's code, and search engines used to apply them as a ranking factor.
Note: While it doesn't hurt to use them nowadays, Meta keywords are no longer relevant for any SEO strategies. In 2009, Google announced that it no longer consider Meta keywords as a ranking factor due to massive spam with this tag by SEOs worldwide.
A meta description is another integral member of the Meta tag family - simply put, a Meta description is a snippet of text a user can view on a search engine results page. A Meta description tells the searchers what they'll find if they click on an organic listing displaying on the SERPs - which, if done correctly, can significantly increase click-through rate (CTR).
The tag doesn't impact on ranking directly, but it's nonetheless an important element of SEO strategy - a good Meta description can encourage viewers to explore your content, and if the Meta description accurately portrays your page content in addition to supporting the title tag, the searcher is more likely to visit and stay on the page. Click-through rates do influence search engine ranking, so optimizing Meta description is essential for SEO.
Here's an example of the code you'd use to insert as a Meta description into your web page's HTML:
<head>
<meta name="description" content="This is an example sentence of my meta description.">
</head>
These two often get mixed since they both contain the word "meta". Note that the Meta description tag is just one example of Meta tags, it’s a subcategory of Meta tags. Meta tags are used to help primarily search engines figure out the content of your site, but Meta descriptions are used to invite a user to interact with your content. On the contrary, sometimes it is okay to not include Meta descriptions for selective pages since search engines like Google won't all the time use your Meta description as Google’s algorithm doesn't think the existing Meta description matches a searcher’s query and creates a custom snippet from the target page that better matches a query.
I think of exactly what to include in this topic because we often hear about spamming through Meta tags in SEO. Note that, to work with Meta tags, you should have knowledge at least about HTML. Nowadays, most of the sites are built on CMS (content management system), and they all have an easy user interface to DIY Meta tags optimization as per your need. So, let’s learn how to write Meta tags.
1. Understand that not all Meta tags are handwritten. Some are just codes.
5. Meta Keywords
Meta keywords are an element of the "meta" tag family that get added if you want to use keywords to define what a page is about. These keywords would not visible on the page but rather in the page's code, and search engines used to apply them as a ranking factor.
Note: While it doesn't hurt to use them nowadays, Meta keywords are no longer relevant for any SEO strategies. In 2009, Google announced that it no longer consider Meta keywords as a ranking factor due to massive spam with this tag by SEOs worldwide.
6. Meta Descriptions
A meta description is another integral member of the Meta tag family - simply put, a Meta description is a snippet of text a user can view on a search engine results page. A Meta description tells the searchers what they'll find if they click on an organic listing displaying on the SERPs - which, if done correctly, can significantly increase click-through rate (CTR).
The tag doesn't impact on ranking directly, but it's nonetheless an important element of SEO strategy - a good Meta description can encourage viewers to explore your content, and if the Meta description accurately portrays your page content in addition to supporting the title tag, the searcher is more likely to visit and stay on the page. Click-through rates do influence search engine ranking, so optimizing Meta description is essential for SEO.
Here's an example of the code you'd use to insert as a Meta description into your web page's HTML:
<head>
<meta name="description" content="This is an example sentence of my meta description.">
</head>
Meta Description vs. Meta Tag
These two often get mixed since they both contain the word "meta". Note that the Meta description tag is just one example of Meta tags, it’s a subcategory of Meta tags. Meta tags are used to help primarily search engines figure out the content of your site, but Meta descriptions are used to invite a user to interact with your content. On the contrary, sometimes it is okay to not include Meta descriptions for selective pages since search engines like Google won't all the time use your Meta description as Google’s algorithm doesn't think the existing Meta description matches a searcher’s query and creates a custom snippet from the target page that better matches a query.
How To Write Meta Tags For SEO?
I think of exactly what to include in this topic because we often hear about spamming through Meta tags in SEO. Note that, to work with Meta tags, you should have knowledge at least about HTML. Nowadays, most of the sites are built on CMS (content management system), and they all have an easy user interface to DIY Meta tags optimization as per your need. So, let’s learn how to write Meta tags.
1. Understand that not all Meta tags are handwritten. Some are just codes.
After reading this post so far, you've learned that there are several categories of Meta tags are available to use. Some Meta tags require human intervention at the page level in terms of customization and creative while others just code snippets that you can simply copy and paste throughout the site.
2. Create and save a file to use for copy/pasting those codes.
For the cases in which you don't need to write or customize any Meta tags, it's useful to have the preset coding in easy reach anytime you're creating a new page.
3. Use the canonical tag properly.
3. Use the canonical tag properly.
If the page has duplicate content or if there are multiple versions of a page on your site, you'll need to use canonical tags to specify the original source for that content. For any duplicate content, you can refer to your canonical code structure from your saved file to use it as such.
4. Use the robots noindex tag properly.
If you don't want the page to show up in SERPs, due to any reason, the noindex tag will signal to search engines not to index that particular page.
Like canonical tag, refer to your robots meta tag code in your saved file and then, paste it into your HTML header of the page in need.
5. Use the robots nofollow tag properly.
If you don't want web spiders to follow links on a page, you can do this with the nofollow tag. The nofollow tag is also useful for distributing "link juice" in a strategic way throughout the site. If you don't want search bots to follow any links on a page, pull this code from your saved file insert it in the HTML header.
6. Create a short catchy headline to use in your title tag.
At least some portion of your title tag should be unique for each page you create because it essentially defines the page. The title tag appears in the SERPs, in the browser, and on social media. For that reason, it should be written for your target audience, not for search engines predominantly. Some things to keep in mind as you write:
- What benefit are you providing to them?
- What solution do they find if they visit the page?
- What values you are adding compared to others?
- How can you present the most valuable information while enticing them to click?
A rule of thumb is to include your page's primary keyword as close to the beginning of the headline as possible.
7. Write a compelling Meta description that supports your title tag and further entices readers.
Since the Meta description also is visible on SERPs, this is an additional opportunity that essentially advertises your offer. The goal here is to expand on the title/headline with enough elaboration while also keeping it short and concise for enticing them to click. Here are some points to consider:
- Use your secondary keywords in the Meta description to make it more relevant to a searcher’s query, catching their eyes
- Briefly talk about the benefits and features, giving the reader ideas about what you'll be delivering
- Add CTA (call-to-action) to make them want to explore more.
8. Add ALT text that is keyword-optimized and descriptive to any embedded multimedia content on the page.
ALT text describes the relevancy of multimedia elements for search engine crawlers and screen readers. With that in mind, you should:
- Don’t spam and include information about the image or context of the image in terms of the surrounded text of that image as concisely as possible
- Include a targeted keyword to make the image more relevant from an SEO perspective
Meta Tags That Google Recognizes
Google recognizes the following Meta tags (a comprehensive list):
- <meta name="description" content="A description of the page" />
- <meta name="robots" content="..., ..." />
- <meta name="keywords" content="..., ..." />
- <meta name="revisit-after" content="..." />
- <meta name="generator" content="...." />
- <meta name="googlebot" content="..." />
- <meta name="mssmarttagspreventparsing" content="..." />
- <meta name="no-cache" content="..." />
- <meta name="google" content="notranslate" />
- <meta name="google-site-verification" content="..." />
- <meta name="verify-v1" content="..." />
- <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="...; charset=..." />
- <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="...;url=..." />
Note that, all the Meta tags reside within the header section of the HTML document. Google specifically can read both HTML and XHTML-style Meta tags, regardless of the programming language used to write code on the page.
With the exception of "google-site-verification", letter case sensitivity is commonly not significant in writing the Meta tags. As said, this is a comprehensive list of usable Meta tags, and you should feel free to use other Meta tags if they are essential to your site’s SEO. Just make sure, you have included Meta tags correctly and remember that Google may ignore some Meta tags that its algorithm doesn't recognize.
How To Use Meta Tags in CMS?
Every CMS has a unique means of editing its HTML, CSS, and Meta information. Let’s review the steps for the top three most popular CMSs in the market right now.
How to use Meta tags with HubSpot?
- Go to your website pages or landing pages under the marketing tab
- From the list of your pages, select to edit the one you're looking to add tags to
- At the top of the page editor, click the Settings menu and find "Additional code snippets" under the "Additional Options"
- Enter your desired Meta tags into the header HTML box
- Save and exit
How to use Meta tags with Wix?
- In your website dashboard screen, click on the "Edit Site" button
- In the hovering menu on the left panel, find the Menus & Pages menu
- Hover over the page you want to work on, press the Show More icon, and select Settings from the menu
- Scroll through the tabs to the Advanced SEO button to get to your SEO features
- Enter your Meta tags into the Custom Meta Tags field
How to use Meta tags with WordPress?
WordPress is a little tricky than the above two, some may think but with the inception of the plugin, it becomes easier. Plugins are useful tools especially for those who do not have a web development background.
Each plugin is a bit different, so it's important to do your research and find one that suits your website best.
These are the top three SEO plugins to use for your website:
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is widely used and considered one of the best SEO plugins available right now. It provides space to add Metadata inside the CMS at the bottom of every page and blog post.
The SEO Framework
A little less feature-heavy than Yoast SEO, but this plugin prioritizes Meta tag information above all else. Its interface is pretty simple, making it easy to use for those who aren't professional developers.
All In One SEO Pack
This plugin generates Meta tags automatically and you can edit them however and whenever you like, which is a helpful feature for those who might forget to check their Meta before going live.
Most of their default settings are set to enhance on-page SEO performance by the moment the plugin is installed and activated, but you can customize them however you wish.
Conclusion
Meta tags have such an impact on your site's SEO, so make sure your web pages are well-aligned with your SEO strategy by keeping up-to-date on Meta tag best practices and how they work with search engine bots.
Now that you know what Meta tags are and how to implement them on your website, you can start an SEO audit. Your pages will now be much more easily crawled and accurately indexed by all the ethical search engines like Google. Keep in mind, however, that Meta tags are only one part of the optimizing process for organic search. There are many other SEO factors that could affect your performance in terms of ranking, traffic, and ROI (return on investment).
