Beginner’s Guide to Meta Tags for SEO

Those who have the slightest knowledge about SEO know the importance of meta tags and how essential they are to improve the rank of a website. However, if you are a beginner, you should know that meta tags are an integral part of your website's HTML code, and they help search engines understand the details of your website. Furthermore, meta tags decide the position of your website on the search engine's results and tell browsers how to show your website on different devices. 

Overall, meta tags have a vital role to play, and in this guide, we will help you understand the basics of using meta tags for SEO. We will also highlight some of the best practices for using meta tags to optimize a web page.

What are meta tags?

Meta tags have a direct impact on the way search engines would view or display a website. Since meta tags provide information about a webpage, they influence Google on how to display a web page. Meta tags are added to the HTML code in the document's header, telling the search engines all the necessary information about a webpage. 

Besides, meta tags also help improve the user experience through the viewport meta tags. These tags prompt the browser to render a webpage according to the screen size, making it convenient for the user. 

Let's look at some of the most common meta tags used by the best web development company in India:

• Meta descriptions

• Viewport meta tags

• Robot meta tags

• Title tags

Although title tags aren't technically meta tags, however, they can work as meta tags. The title tags help Google understand everything about your webpage, plus Google uses these tags to display your page in the search results.

What is a meta description and how to optimize them for SEO?

The meta description is a summary of the content of a particular web page. It is usually written in 160 characters and displayed below the title in the search engine results.

Meta descriptions are not a part of Google's rankings algorithm, but they are still included as snippets to enhance the accessibility of a web page for a searcher. 

So, meta descriptions cannot be considered a ranking factor, but you can definitely use them to boost the click-through rates of a web page. As a result, using creative descriptions with target keywords would help. 

For creating impressive meta descriptions, use the tips mentioned below:

• Your meta description should be close to 160 characters. Do not exceed this character limit.

• Create different summaries for each page, do not copy and paste. 

• Be accurate, descriptive, and concise while you write a meta description.

• Try and match the search intent of your targeted customer.

• Don't include the targeted keywords forcefully, make it fit naturally in the content.

You can also take help from the best web development India companies that specialize in creating web pages with perfect meta tags and descriptions, helping them rank higher on search engines results. 

What are robots meta tags and ways to optimize them for SEO

Robots meta tags is the header section of your webpage that give instructions to the search engine about whether you would like them to index parts of your website. Basically, all the pages and links you create on your web page are indexed by search bots. And robots meta tags help manipulate how Google bot handles that indexing. 

Some of the common parameters of robots meta tags include:

• Index, which tells the web crawlers to index the page.

• Noindex, which directs the search engines not to add the webpage to their index. 

• Follow, which instructs the search engines to follow links you've included within your web page.

• Nofollow, which instructs the search engines not to follow the links mentioned within the web page.

• Noarchive, which instructs the search engines not to shor or cache the page.

So, robots meta tags are meant to control how Google crawls a page on your website. For instance, if you don't want Google to index duplicate content, you can use the noindex parameter. Similarly, if you don't want Google to follow the links on your page, you can use the nofollow parameter.

What is a viewport meta tag and ways to optimize it

As the name suggests, viewport meta tags instruct the browser to adjust the page size according to the device used to open it. For instance, if you are opening a web page on a laptop, the viewport meta tag will adjust it accordingly, and the same goes for a desktop or mobile screen. 

Viewport meta tags enhance the user experience and make a website easily accessible on different devices. Viewport meta tags have become one of the best SEO practices as most internet users access websites on their mobile, making it essential for developers to design a  responsive website. 

Google says it can understand pages with a responsive design better than its alternatives. Therefore, many companies hire professional services of a web design and development company in India to get responsive websites designed.

What are title tags and ways to optimize them for SEO

The title tag can be the simplified version or part of the headline that you want to display on SERPs. These tags display the page title in a shorter format for social media and browser tabs. Title tags make it easier for search engines to read, classify and rank your content. 

Title tags can be referred to as the face of the webpage. It is the first thing that catches a searcher's attention; hence, it is of utmost importance. Therefore, you should keep a few tips in mind to optimize them for SEO. 

• Add a unique title tag for every webpage.

• Keep it as short as under 60 characters.

• Use sentence case.

• Use tags relevant to your targeted searchers.

• Avoid clickbait titles.

• Use a target keyword as a title tag only if it fits naturally.

So, begin working on your meta tags today to make your website appear on a higher position that it is now.