How the 5 Best Meta Tags That Impact SEO

Meta tags are the snippets of text that furnish information about the webpage in the HTML format of a document and are not visible on the page itself. They appear only as page sources and show up at the “head” of the page that can be found only by search engines and web crawlers. To understand better, let say that the Meta tags are more like a content descriptor that assists SEO to understand all about the web page content. Meta tags help the search engines to show page texts in search results for the end-users. Thus, influencing the ranking of the website. In a nutshell, meta tags help your webpage to reach readers organically.

Using the appropriate types of Meta Tags is one of the essential elements of a successful SEO strategy.

Let us understand how the 5 best Meta tags impact SEO.

1.  The Title tag

Title attributes are amongst the prominent tags and one of the 5 best meta tags that impact SEO which has a direct influence on the search engines rankings. They are the only components of meta tags visible to the searcher as these tags appear at the top-notch of the browser. As a searcher, we always the first lookout for the page title in Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) and then decides if the content on the page is relevant enough to answer the search intent. The Title tags comprehensibly provide a glimpse of what the content of the page is all about.

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How do the Title tags make your page appear on the browser and impact the ranking in search engines?

Title tags appear at the head of your browser. If you want your page to be in the high-rank search category, ensure that the title should be catchy, distinctive, easily identified, and infused with vital keywords.  The title tag is one of the 5 best meta tags that impact SEO.

The title tags create the first impression of your page and intrigue the searcher or an end-user to read its contents. An adroitly articulated title can effectuate an increase in the number of clicks and traffic and shall leave a positive impact on the search engines rankings.

Tips for a high-ranking search title-

A cleverly crafted title to each page with relevant keywords elaborates the exact nature of the contents of your page. Limit the titles to 50-60 characters long as too long or even too short tiles are not SERPs friendly. The longer titles are trim down by SERPs to about 600-700px. Incorporate your brand name in the search engine as it helps in SERPs rankings.

There is all category of end-users who google for basic, advanced information and many lookouts for the current one. Adding the year to the title as it publishes creates more sets of new results. For example, when searching for the topic- the effect of Digital Marketing in India,2020 (note that a year added), will enhance the circumference of this particular webpage on search engines results.

With time the SERPs have become more advance in the searches. Now the relevancy of the exact match keyword in your title is not required by Google to know the subject matter of your page covers. A few years back, Google search, for instance, on a title-What is the future scope of Digital Marketing? would show few results with the titles matching the exact query.

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However, now the scenario is different.

The SERPs show the end number of results even if the title does not match exactly. But the search engines display similar content in this case- the future of Digital marketing.

The SERPs evaluate the entire page’s content, but at the same time, a well-written title has its relevance when it comes to enticing the searchers. A long-tailed keyword in the title is also a viable option to ensure your page does not get buried in search results.

2.  Meta Description tags

The Description tags are another component of the 5 best meta tags that impact SEO. These tags provide you with a concise synopsis of what the webpage is all about. They are not visible on-page itself but will show up in the SERPs. The reasons to consider it one of the 5 best Meta tags that impact SEO are mentioned below.

How do the Description tags impact the ranking in search engines?

Descriptive tags teamed with title tags cater to a high SEO value to the web page.

But many times happens that the descriptive meta tags do not preview in the search engine result. This situation occurs when google involuntarily picks up snippets of content from the page itself. So, then the question arises why do we need these meta tags? The answer is simple. The titillating meta description tags infused with vital keywords in the webpage can easily captivate attention to your website. Thus, improving your page search rankings.

Tips for a high-ranking search meta description-

• Be descriptive and use the keywords which have relevance to your content on the page. It is not essential to present the mega descriptions in sentence format but avoid using those keywords that do not add value to your content description on the page. Keyword stuffing can result in Google removing your text extracts from the search results.
• Since meta tags are in HTML code use of quotations can have an impact on the display. So don’t use quotation marks.
• The meta description should not be a repeated version of the extracts you copy-paste from the contents of your page(s). It has to be unique. A repeated version will curtail your chances of maximizing SEO rankings.

Duplication of the same meta description for the different pages of your website will surely leave a bleak impact on your SERPs rankings.

In this case, the searcher is clueless about what to click as the meta descriptions add no value to these pages. The user will skip them and move to more viable options, thus hurting your CTR. Moreover, there is always a risk of Google removing your website pages from the search engine results on account of duplication and non-friendly user experience.

Add uniqueness & innovativeness in your Meta description that can differentiate your page(s) from competitor’s websites and entice the searchers and crawlers. Offer details of what the end-user is precisely looking out for.

In a nutshell, qualitative and not quantitative meta descriptions can add value to your SEO.

3.  Meta Robots tags 

After prioritizing title tags and meta descriptions, you can move on to Meta Robots tags for a more advanced strategy. These robot text files are a bit technical. But have a voluminous impact on your  CTR and rank amongst the 5 best Meta Tags that impact SEO.

So, what do Meta robot .txt. files do ?. This txt. files help the search engine bot to determine what parts of the website need to be indexed. The sitemap is created in the root folder and robot.txt.file of your website that simplifies the task of search engines to index your page(s) content. 

Robot meta tags are similar to an instruction manual for bots that have rules & procedures they need to follow. These guidelines tell the crawlers, what is allowed to view, (like the pages on your sitemap), and what is not.  The attributes that make it one of the 5 best Meta tags that impact SEO are mentioned here.

The Robot Meta attributes are- 

• Index/noindex : this robot. txt. files instruct the search engines what content in page(s) to be shown in SERPs results and what to be restricted.

noindex HTML code-

<html><head>

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex” />

(…)

</head>

• follow/nofollow: this robot meta tag guides the engines on how to function with the links on your pages.- which link to follow to the next page or unfollow.

 the HTML for a robot nofollow-

<meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow”>

How do the Meta Robot tags impact the ranking in search engines?

Meta robot tags are not the direct influencer of SEO ranking. But, play an important role in how your site is displayed in the SERPs. Hence it is one of the 5 best meta tags that impact SEO. It also plays an important role in ensuring what type of content on your page is visible to the searchers and crawlers.

In case you want to show a particular page of your website, say a promotion page, then the noindex and nofollow tags are of great assistance. They give you certain control over how your website is seen by the search engines- What is to be displayed or not to the eyes of the end-users. In nutshell, these tags help you out in web marketing and thus indirectly edging a mark on SERPs rankings of your website.

Tips for a high impact of Meta Robot tags-

• Shut down the irrelevant or unfinished pages with thin content that add no value to your page and no intent to appear in search engines results.
• Closing down such pages will control the unreasonable waste crawl budget
• Ensure that all the important pages are entered for indexing.

4.  Image Tags

Image tags and Title tags are not categorized as meta tags. But they both are crucial components used by the search engines to identify your website and include in the 5 best Meta Tags that impact SEO.

The image alt attribute when added to the image tag renders the description of its contents.  The attributes that make it one of the 5 best meta tags that impact SEO are listed below.

The HTML code looks like this-

<img src=“image.jpg” alt=“image description” title=“image tooltip”>

How do the Image Alt tags impact the ranking in search engines?

• The Image Alt attributes help the search engines to define what the images are about and how they gel with the rest of the content on the page. This important aspect helps the SERPs to display the page for suitable search queries.
• Alt text displays when the image can’t be loaded ( or spoken to in case of visually impaired ).
• The context is provided by Alt attributes, as the search engines are unable to detect images. This feature is predominantly important for eCommerce sites where images have a crucial role to entice visitors to the page.
• Alt text description images are extremely helpful for ranking Google Images.
• Besides the alt text, titles, and captions another factor essential to the image is that it should be displayed with relevant context too.

Tips for a high impact of Image tags-

• Optimize the images like infographics, product images, training images that are highly google out in search results.
• Add the image alt attributes on the pages which display images and minimum in content.
• A descriptive clear alt text added up with vital keywords that connect with your content on the page provides a relevant push to SEO rankings of your site.

5.  View Ports Tags

The viewport is one of the 5 best meta tags that impact SEO. The window allows you to customize how your website page would be scaled and displayed on any device. You keep side-scrolling a page left to right in case the page is missing the viewport. The viewport is added and set up on your page using the viewport meta tag.

They are a crucial component in today’s mobile-first world of search and consider the 5 best Meta Tags that impact SEO.

Generally, these tags and the value would look like-<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1”/>

In this, the first content attribute, “width=device-width”, will tell the browsers to make the page fit in the screen width in device-independent pixels.

Mobile-friendly websites are more focused on areas on Google search engines. Thus, making the viewport tags relevant attributes to climb up in SERPs rankings and CTR of your page as they are great influencers when it comes to user experience.

Free tools to add on the right type of Meta tags to your page-

• Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress is one most downloaded SEO tools and for meta tags. Yoast opens up a window of various options for your published page(s) in context with social sharing, optimization of SEO, and updating of meta tags and other metadata. The process of adding meta tags is smooth and done in few seconds in the WordPress Yoast SEO plugin.

• BuzzStream Meta Tag Extractor provides you in no time the information of metadata used by your fellow competitors. You have to copy and paste the list of URLs, and pops come to the metadata you’re looking out for.

These free tools simplify the whole process of adding the meta tags and metadata effectively.

Pic Credit: Google

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. What do you put in meta tags?

• Meta tags are used to make the readers know about the particular subject or inform them about some information about the page.

2. Are meta tags used these days?

• The answer is no if you want to know about Google using this. But other sear engines still use them.

3. Is meta keyword tag important?

• Yes, they are important. But all kinds of meta keyword tags cannot help your content to rank on the first web page.

Conclusion

Meta tags understand the contents of your web page and help in sowing your page(s) on search engines and thus leaving an impact on your page SERPs rankings.

With time, advance contextual, AI searches, and more usage of mobile devices are changing the pattern of viewing the Content. But, adding meta tags, especially Tile and Description, will still be first impression markers to your website page for the searchers and web crawlers.