Meta tags are invisible tags that provide data about your page to search engines and website visitors.
In short, they make it easier for search engines to determine what your content is about, and thus are vital for SEO.
Best practice brief
- Write a unique title tag for each page;
- Be brief, but descriptive of the page content;
- Avoid generic and vague titles;
- Use sentence case or title case;
- Create something click-worthy—not clickbait;
- Match search users intent;
- Include your target keyword where it makes sense;
- Keep it under 60 characters.
Why do meta tags matter?
As previously mentioned, meta tags offer more details about your site to search engines and website visitors who encounter your site in the SERP. They can be optimized to highlight the most important elements of your content and make your website stand out in search results.
Search engines increasingly value a good user experience, and that includes making sure that your site satisfies a user’s query as best as it possibly can. Meta tags help with this by making sure that the information searchers need to know about your site is displayed upfront in a concise and useful fashion.
Some types of meta tag relate to page structure and will ensure that your site is easy to navigate, while others tell search engines which parts of your page are important and which to overlook.
There are numerous different types of meta tags that fulfil different roles, and not all of them are relevant to SEO. You can find a full list in our complete guide to meta tags.
However, for the purposes of this quick guide, we’ve picked out the six most important meta tags that you need to know about for search optimization.
Six meta tags to improve the optimization of your site
1. Title tag
The title tag is one of the first things that users notice in the SERPs. It’s the title of your page that offers a preview of what your content is about.
It’s important as it shows up in the search results, but it’s also pulled out to show up as anchor text and a title in social shares.
This means that your title tag should be clear, descriptive and usually not more than 55 characters.
If you can include a keyword in these 55 characters, you can enhance your SEO, but what’s even more important is to remember to add value. A title that has the right keyword without being clear won’t necessarily lead to improved results.
Your title tag is not just for your visitors, but also the search engines that discover your content. Thus, you need to blend clarity with context to ensure that your title makes sense to everyone.
If you’re using a plugin like Yoast SEO in WordPress, it becomes easier to add your title tag in the SEO section to see a preview of your page and how it can look at the search results.
Another way to add the title tag is through the site’s HTML, which should look something like this example:
<head>
<title>Example Title</title>
</head>
Takeaway: Pay attention to your title tags, be clear and descriptive.
2. Meta description
The meta description is of equal importance to the title tag. If the title tag is the title that appears at the top of a search result, the meta description is the snippet that displays underneath.
The meta description should provide an accurate description of the content of your page. It is usually the element that determines whether users will click on your page, which makes it important to spend time on its optimization.
Previously, the optimum length for meta descriptions was 150-165 characters, but a recent update to the way Google displays search results has resulted in longer snippets being shown on occasion. For more on what this means for SEO and how to adapt, have a read of David Portney’s comprehensive piece, ‘Google’s updated SERP snippet length: What should be your SEO strategy now?‘.
As with title tags, you can add a meta description via a plugin like Yoast SEO, or code it manually in your website’s HTML, as in this example:
<head>
<meta name="description" content="Here is a precise description of my awesome webpage.">
</head>
Takeaway: Use your meta description wisely and take advantage of the opportunity to provide more details about your content. Make it appealing, concise and relevant.
