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The Basics of Meta-Tags: What They Are and Why You Need Them

If you have done any reading about website best-practices you are probably at least vaguely familiar with the term "meta tags". And if you aren't aware, this is a very simple thing to learn about, and it's important for you, as a website owner, to understand.

What Meta Tags Are

"Meta data" is essentially "data about data" this is very common in the digital world where we have "data" - documents, image files, web pages, etc. - and in order to organize, classify, and understand this data, we store additional information about the files: "Create date", "file size", "author" - for a document, pixel "dimensions" (width & height) of an image, etc.

For web pages, this meta data is stored in the code for the page, in a part that doesn't display when you view the page in a web browser, called the "head" section. (As opposed to the "body" section - which does display when viewed.) If you would like to see this hidden section of any webpage while viewing it in your web browser, just go to the menu option View > Page Source (or View > Source, in some browsers). You will likely see many meta tags, along with other information about the page. Most meta tags begin with "<meta name =" for example: "<meta name="description" content="Text about my website" />"

The Important Meta Tags for Your Website

If you peek around at several different web pages, you are likely to see all sorts of meta tags: description, generator, keywords, robots, copyright, etc. You don't need to have all the meta tags imaginable on your webpages, there are actually only a few which are really important.

Title Tag
Though the title tag doesn't follow the traditional format for a meta tag, because it does appear to your site visitors in the title bar of your web browser, it is considered one of the most important meta tags. Your title tag should be written with your human visitors in mind. Generally when your webpage comes up in a search, the title tag is displayed as the clickable link. Keep this in mind when drafting your title. Your main goal is to entice someone to click on your link, so make the title tag sell the page. If possible, include some of the relevant keywords in your title tag, but not if it will detract from readability. Generally you should limit your title tag to about 65 characters (8 words).

Description Tag
Your description tag might show up as the text beneath your title in the search engine results on Google, so focus on making it enticing as well. This is your opportunity to let visitors know that your page will give them the information they want. You can even include some marketing text and a call to action right in your description, if it makes sense. If possible, try to use your keyword phrases in your description tag so Google will use your description when displaying the page in the results list. Your description should be 150 characters or less (about 25 words) in order for the entire tag to be displayed on the search results page.

The basic rule when drafting meta tags for your site is to keep them relevant to your human visitors. Tag text should be readable and make sense. It should accurately represent the actual content of the page it is on. It can highlight the marketing aspect of the page - with benefits and calls-to-action. It should not be stuffed with irrelevant keywords which are designed solely to bring in traffic, but should use relevant keywords, if they fit the sentence structure and don't detract from readability.

What About the "Keywords" Tag?

Many years ago, search engines used the "keywords" meta tag to determine if a webpage was relevant to searched keywords, but savvy web masters quickly figured it out and would stuff their keyword tags with highly searched, but irrelevant keywords. With so much keyword tag spam out there, when Google came along, the engineers decided to completely ignore keyword tags in their indexing algorithm.

Basically, if you want to put in a keyword meta tag, go ahead, but make sure the keywords are actually relevant to your page content. But if you only have limited time for creating your meta tags, spend it on the tags that matter, as outlined above.

Web Action Steps

  • Look at all your webpages and draft unique and relevant title and description tags for each one.
  • Add the new meta tags to your webpages.

Knowing how to properly draft your meta tags is one thing you can do to improve your website's effectiveness as a marketing tool for you business. There are actually many things you can do with the structure and content to improve your website. If you would like to have a website which follows best-practices and is optimized for business results, contact me today to schedule your complimentary strategy session.