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Before we step into why your business needs Meta tags, let us first educate on what Meta Tags are and what they do.
Meta Tags are key phrases or words that help the search engines identify what the website is about. They are visible to the average user and are embedded in the website’s HTML code. They are part of the Head section of the Coding.
Danny Sullivan, co-founder of Search Engine Land puts it best, calling them the Legally hidden words on your website that attracts Search Engines. Best SEO services will always include Meta Tags as part of their SEO strategies.
The Importance of Meta Tags
Meta tags are what will attract the Search engines to your website. It is literally the first impression that the search engine gets. Good meta tags can greatly improve the rankings in a search listing. Of course, you will still need good quality content and visual aesthetics, but Meta Tags are the lure that catches the attention of the fish. They summarise the entire content of the website into keyword categories that the search engines understand.
Types of Meta Tags to optimise your website
Title Tag:
The title text that appears in Search engine listings is what is called the Meta Title. It appears only in that listing and may not be the actual title of the page it directs to. The optimum length of Title Tags is 55 – 64 characters.
Meta Description:
The description text below the title in the search listings is where you describe what your site is all about. It can also be promotional content that is catchy to the customer. This like the Meta title appears only in the listings page.
The optimum length of the Meta description is around 160 characters including spaces for computer browsers and around 130 for mobile browsers. Although Google does not have a defined length for this, the ones specified here are well adjusted for dynamic SERP’s.
Meta Keywords:
These are the keywords and what is generally referred to as Meta Tags by the Best SEO services there are. They should comprehensively cover all the possible search phrases while providing insight into the website.
Google has verified that it has removed Keyword Meta Tag-based rankings, but they are very important for SEO purposes. You will still need them to even be on the Listings, although they may not affect your ranking.
Alternative Tags:
The Alt Tags are used in images to enable search engines to recognize what they are. They are also becoming a popular tool for people with disabilities to know what a particular image is describing. The optimum length of Alt Tags is 50-55 characters. It improves the accessibility of your site for both individuals as well as search engines. The Alt Tag also steps in when the images are not loading properly due to poor network connections, by describing what the intended image is.
Responsive Design Meta Tags:
The Responsive Design Meta Tags are used by the Best SEO services, but only when the website itself has been designed to be responsive, or in laymen terms, the website has been optimised to suit any screen size. This element is also added to the Header section of the coding. These Meta tags are used to convey the metrics of the layout for mobile viewing to the interface.
Social Media Meta Tags:
Social Media Meta Tags are designed to optimise the integration of your website to its links in the Social Media platforms that your brand frequents. They control how the site URL is displayed on that particular social media. They make your content attractive and give a clear insight into your purpose. They are particularly useful on Facebook, as Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol uses these Meta Tags to increase search visibility.
These are some of the most useful Meta Tags that make your brand and its website visible to search engines and through them the human users. Open Designs is the best SEO services company in Chennai, guiding you in choosing the most relevant meta tags and incorporating them into website design.
