A meta tag is a snippet of coding, known as metadata, which is invisible to the website viewer, used to describe content on a page. Meta tags make is easy for search engines to understand your content, making these tags very important for SEO purposes. Lets discus some key tags…
<head>
<title>Title name </title>
</head>
Your webpage title is the one of the first things your viewer will notice, making this tag an important one, and also the meta tag to have the biggest impact on SEO. Ideally your title tag should be no more than 55 characters, so keep it clear and concise. Titles are vital in giving your viewer an instant insight into the content the page will include, allowing them to decide if this is relevant to them or not.
Meta descriptions provide an opportunity to offer more of a description of your page’s content. Although this tag doesn’t effect your ranking, it’s the text that will determine if your viewer clicks through to your site, so make it informative and interesting! Try and keep this below 160 characters, and include keywords where appropriate.
Robots tags provide information to search engines on whether you would like them to crawl or index parts of your site. Some common robots tag values include:
Alt text is a short descriptive summary of an image, used as an alternative for images which are unable to be displayed. Alt text can also be read out by a screenreader, making your site more inclusive also. Image optimisation is very important, providing an opportunity to increase your SEO ranking.
Header tags are the headings used to break up your content. They tend to be h1, h2, h3, h4 and so on. H1 being your main, and most important heading. Headings are so important when it comes to hierarchy, and suggesting importance of information to your viewer.
To conclude, the purpose of metatags is to improve user experience, and increase your SEO ranking. Following this blog, we suggest you check all your web pages have title tags, and meta descriptions, and ensure all image have metatags. These are really easy wins, which can have great results when it comes to your site traffic. If you are still unsure, or would like any further information, please contact us.