Importance of Meta Tags and Optimizing Meta Tags for SEO Purposes!
A blog post by Alok Vats on the importance of Meta Tags and how to optimize the same for SEO purposes. Optimizing Meta Tags for SEO Purposes is a controversial topic as many SEOs claim that it is obsolete nowadays.
Meta Tags are an essential part of the HTML coding of any website. Although it is Title only which is visible to visitors, there are Meta Description and Meta Keywords as well, which consist Meta Tags of any web page.
It is almost more than a year since I last write a blog post. Especially in the aspect of SEO, Digital Marketing, etc. I have not written anything fruitful in the last two years. To be very honest, I was too busy with so many things in our life, and then the Covid 19 situation in between, in which both I and my wife were hospitalized together, it became a challenge to do blogging. But, after a long gap, I started writing again, and this is my first blog post after a huge gap. Let’s see how are you going to react to it.
So, the topic I chose today is related to Meta Tags, which were a few years ago considered as the most important factor towards getting Search Engine love, especially in Google.
Before going ahead you can watch this video of mine:
During the last few years, Meta Tags lost their charm. Many SEO’s considered that Meta Tags, especially Meta Descriptions and Meta Keywords are obsolete now. They claim that Google doesn’t give any importance to these, especially with the introduction of Schema Markup and Structured Data.
But, some old-fashioned SEO like us still believe that Meta Tags not only play a crucial role in getting search engines love but then it also plays an important role in providing visitors to your website. Visitors, who are the motivating factor for any website, can come to your website, once they see the details in the search engine listing. Meta Tags displayed over there play a crucial role in deciding whether they will visit your website or not.
Considering the same, you cannot ever ignore optimizing these things.
Importance of Meta Tags
In a nutshell, Meta Tags are the backbone of your web page. It helps search engines to understand your website and what it does. Based on Meta Tags search engines decides, how to show your website in search results.
Here’s an example of Meta Tags:
<html class=”no-js” lang=”en-US”>
<head>
<meta charset=”UTF-8″>
<!– Always force latest IE rendering engine (even in intranet) & Chrome Frame –>
<!–[if IE ]>
<meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=edge,chrome=1″>
<![endif]–>
<link rel=”profile” href=”https://gmpg.org/xfn/11″ />
<title>10 Benefits of Reading! | I News India – Empowering Ideas!</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”Reading is one of the best hobbies a person can have. But it’s saddening to know that majority of us aren’t introduced to the fabulous world of books. If…” />
<meta name=”keywords” content=”Benefits of Reading, Birthdays, Books, Boredom, Concentration, Creativity, Cultures, Discipline, Diwali, Hobbies, Lazy, Memory, Mental Process, Pressure of Work, Reading, Self Esteem, Special Occasions, Talk, Uncreative, Vocabulary, Work Pressure” />
<meta name=”robots” content=”index,follow,noodp,noydir” />
</head>
As you can see above Meta Tags are found inside the Head section of the HTML code of any webpage. You can see that it contains a Title, Description, and Keywords as the three building blocks of the same.
Not only that, it is Meta Tags only that help browsers decide how to show your website when visitors will visit them. Thus, it is Meta Tags only that tell search engines if your website is mobile-friendly or not. Mobile-friendly websites have a better chance to rank in search engines; thus, Meta Tags play a crucial role in establishing the same for your website.
Meta Tags on Search Engine Results Page
SERP or Search Engine Results Page is something that shows some results related to the search query posted by any person in that Search Engine. Normally this is how a site’s details are displayed in SERP:
You can see that it displays the URL of the site, then the Title of the site, and then the Description. Now, for some cases in which the Search Engine doesn’t find any Meta Description on that page, then it automatically took some content from the page and displays it on the SERP. According to Google they rewrite descriptions based on their algorithm and can show it with rich snippets, and content of the page in SERP.
Some latest SEOs claim that since Google takes content automatically from the web page so there is no point in using Meta Descriptions in it. On the other hand, traditional SEOs love writing Meta Descriptions for the sake of Search Engine Love.
Social Media Benefits of Using Meta Description
Meta Description is not only important from a Search Engine and visitor’s point of view, but it also helps you to promote your website in Social Media as well. When someone decides to share your webpage on Social Media, normally Social Media sites take Meta Descriptions only to display in sharing content. If they don’t find any Meta Description then they can either show a null text or any random text from the page.
Thus if you want other people to share your content on Social Media then it is better to include Meta Description with your web pages.
Importance of Meta Description in SEO
A question may arise what is the importance of Meta Description in SEO?
The response is quite simple. It is just like a CTA, i.e. Call-to-Action. It simply attracts the visitor’s attention and compels them to visit your web page. Thus it is also like a Sales Pitch. In an honest opinion, I might say that Meta Description is not a direct ranking factor (just like many other ranking factors of Google) but it influences visitors to visit your web page.
In a nutshell here is the importance of Meta Descriptions:
- It Differentiates your web page from competitors
- It increases the probability of getting more targeted visitors
- Might improve the CTR
- Provides exposure to your brand
- Helps you to increase the Social Sharing of your page
Things to Write in Meta Tags
As I displayed above Meta tags include things like Browser compatibility of the web page, along with the kinds of stuff like Title, Description, Keywords, robots, author, etc. details. Here are a few things which you need to use in Meta Tags:
- Browser Compatibility
Browser compatibility is a crucial ranking factor from a search engine point of view. Thus while using Meta tags you need to surely use details about it.
- Meta Title
One of the most crucial things concerning Meta tags is Meta titles, as it is the only thing that remains visible to the visitors and also a crucial ranking factor in Search Engines. So it is wisely said that no one should avoid Meta titles while developing a web page.
- Meta Description
Already explained the importance of Meta Description, but I will share another blog post on things to include or how to write Meta description properly in some time. This blog post will also include the details of the things which we should avoid while writing a proper description.
- Meta Keywords
Meta keywords are a nice place to put relevant keywords which you are targeting for your web page. It is an ideal way to tell Search Engines about which keywords they need to consider while indexing your web page.
- Robots Info
It is a good way to let search engines know if they need to follow or index the particular web page through the robots field of Meta tags. Thus, you can let search engines know if they need to bypass a page while indexing your website through the Meta tags of that particular page only.
- Author Info
This normally comes in handy with blog pages, as author tags will let search engines know about the authority of the person who wrote that blog.
That’s all about the Meta tags at the moment, as I already promised that I will come again with a new blog post especially for Meta Description soon, so stay tuned to my blog to know when it is going to publish or you can also subscribe to us by clicking here.
If you Like Us then Share Us As Well
You May Also Like to Check These Posts:
New Approach towards Online Marketing after Panda and Penguin Updates of Google! Two days back, Google, the search engine giant company, launched a new version of their well known updates Penguin 4, which Matt Cutts, the Anti-spam head of Google, call as Penguin 2.0. I […]
How to Get Search Engine Ranking Without Doing SEO! One question which I normally encounter is how to get search engine ranking without doing SEO or without knowing know-how of Search Engine Optimization?
How to Distribute Your Blog Content? You do blogging, but are you aware about the ways to distribute your blog content? Only creating great content is not enough, you must need to ensure that it should reach to the mass. Read […]
7 Vital SEO Tips for Bloggers! Do you know why SEO is so important for your blog? Well it is because you can get good numbers of visitors for your blog through SEO. Read on this blog post of mine on 7 vital SEO tips for bloggers.
How to Do SEO and Rank in Google in 2018! Sometimes it becomes next to impossible to let people understand SEO. Everyone wants their website in the first position on Google Search. Please read this blog post of mine on How to Do […]
Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Online Marketing! Want to know about ABC of online marketing and factors which we should take care while doing so, check out my blog on Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Online Marketing!
About The Author
alok
Hi friends, my name is Alok Vats, and I am the owner of this website I News India. From last six years I am trying to build this website, I started this website from scratch and then with the help of my friends like Pooja, Prachi, and Divya I published many articles over here. Recently Harshita, Tanmay and Aayushi too joined my website, and am really glad to share some articles written by them over here. I am sure many of you would love the same. These days I am managing the site with myself only and the focus is to share blogs on the topics like Blogging Tips, Self Improvement, SEO, and all other things which can make you to enhance your life.
