Meta tags enable search engines and users to understand your content better. If used properly, they can improve click-through rates and user experience, as well as social sharing and indexing. If you’ve heard about their connection with search engine optimisation (SEO), you may have been wondering: ‘What are meta tags for SEO?’. Our blog addresses this question and more – how they affect search engine rankings and how to optimise them effectively for better visibility and click-through rates.
In this brief SEO meta tags guide, we’ll cover on-page SEO basics, how to use meta tags and more.
What are meta tags?
Meta tags are simply snippets of text that deliver metadata (in other words, data about data) about a web page’s content. They appear in the page’s code, typically in the HTML head section (the section that appears before the body section), so they can’t be seen on the web page itself.
For clarity, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the standard markup language that is used to create and design web pages. It outlines the structure and layout of a web page by way of a variety of tags and attributes. Tags play a vital role in how Google and other search engines understand the content of your pages.
Meta tags are there to define information about web pages for both search engines and website visitors. They can identify document authors, expiration dates of pages or even instruct web crawlers on how to handle pages.
In brief, they work behind the scenes to influence visibility in search engines and user experience in search results.
Why meta tags matter for SEO
Meta tags are a vital part of SEO. The impact of meta tags on rankings, click-through rates and relevance is significant – all through the metadata they provide about a web page.
When you add meta tags for SEO, you enhance your website’s visibility and make it much easier for potential clients to find your content.
Essential meta tags you should know
When it comes to the best meta tags for SEO, it will help to know the key types. They are:
- Title tag. An HTML element which specifies a web page title. Crucial for SEO, user experience and social sharing, it can show up in search engine results, browser tabs and social media feeds.
- Meta description. A short snippet which summarises the content of a web page.
- Robots meta tag. This controls the way search engines index and serve a web page, giving instructions to web crawlers about what to do – and not do – with a page.
- Viewport tag. A meta tag situated in the <head> of the HTML code. It’s visible to users.
- Charset tag. This specifies the character encoding for an HTML document, ensuring the browser correctly interprets characters and symbols.
- Social meta tags. Open Graph meta tags enable you to share your page on social media. Twitter Cards display your page details on X (formerly Twitter).
Improve click-through rates and the user experience with our meta tag services.
How to optimise meta tags effectively
Mastering title tag optimisation is worthwhile. Each page should have its own individual tag which should be descriptive yet brief – stick to less than 60 characters. Steer clear of vague or generic titles and use sentence case or title case. It’s vital to come up with something that is worthy of clicks but not clickbait. Be sure to match search intent. And ensure your target keyphrases are included where it makes sense.
Tools like Yoast, Semrush and Ahrefs can help.
Common mistakes to avoid
Be careful to avoid the following common errors:
- titles that are too long – or short, for that matter.
- forgetting to give every single web page a title tag
- including more than one title tag on a page
- using the same titles across a number of pages
- keyphrase stuffing
- poorly written copy
There are ways you can check your tags are working and up to date. For example, to check a page doesn’t contain tags that are too long or short, or that it doesn’t include a tag at all, plug the URL into a tool like SERPSim. If this doesn’t pull a title back, you will need to add one.
If you want to check for duplicate and multiple title tags, you can crawl your site with Ahrefs’ Site Audit.
You will be able to spot keyphrase stuffing or poorly crafted copy on the page itself.
Tools to help with meta tag optimisation
There are free and paid tools you can use for auditing and generating meta tags, such as:
- Yoast SEO. A WordPress plugin designed to help website owners optimise their content for search engines
- Screaming Frog. A tool which enables you to crawl a website’s URLs, operating much like the spiders used by search engines
- Ahrefs. An SEO toolset for increasing search traffic and optimising websites
- Semrush. An all-in-one tool set which enhances online visibility and provides marketing insights
- Google Search Console. This tool analyses your site's impressions, clicks and Google search position
Recap: We hope our meta description tips have given you some idea as to where to start. Once you do, remember it’s critical to regularly review and refine your meta tags as part of ongoing SEO best practices. You may not be able to see them at a glance, but they are working for you in the background all the time and need to be checked and maintained frequently to give your website the best chance of being seen.
WEBPRO knows
Tags that include a question have a 14.1% higher click-through rate than those that don’t.
