What is meta tag optimization? It’s the editing and research put into customization of snippets that define a webpage in the search engine results page. Meta tags come in various types, however for SEO, we mainly focus on one, the meta name property, to define 3 main aspects of the website.

The 3 main meta name tags SEOs focus on are:

  • Meta Title – Defines the page title, brand and a secondary keyword if it fits.
  • Meta Description – Not used too much for SEO, but moreso for marketing, this tag defines the content summary of the webpage, using CTAs in this tag, increases CTR
  • Meta Robots – While this meta tag, doesn’t show up in SERPs, it does tell searchbots a few things, to cache or not, image indexing, and whether or not to index or follow, which can mean the difference of a website showing up in search results or not.

Meta Name Tags Talk To SearchBots

Often SEO issues stem from a lack of optimization of meta titles, they matter that much when it comes to SEO and keyword ranking. Searchbots use the meta title, which is often derived from the h1 tag, brandname and a secondary keyword, if it fits. Having the wrong meta title, can easily cause a website to not rank for the keywords targeting. It’s also a place you don’t want to have too many unnecessary words, since the space is limited and the message needs to be clear.

The message of the meta description should be one that markets the contents of the webpage, try to entice the user into clicking, as that’s the main function. Using calls to action, by including a phone number, can dramatically increase brand interaction, by removing the need to even click, if a user is in a hurry. Being honest and straight to the point, while highlighting the best aspect of the content is always a winning strategy.

While meta robots may seem like technical seo, it’s also part of the meta tag group. While optimizing each webpage, it’s always good to double check either by crawling the website or checking manually in the source code or CMS webpage settings. Not just for indexing webpages, you can index images, and prevent caching. If using plugins, there are a few extra places to check within a CMS as well, since some settings inside 3rd party plugins can result in noindexing webpages in certain groups.

Are Your Website’s Meta Robot Tags Optimized?

When in doubt, always have a professional technical SEO check it out, contact SEOByMichael today for a meta tag audit, part of a basic SEO audit.

© 2013-2024 Copyright| SEObyMichael.com