Are you a new brand looking to reach the top pages of Google’s SERP? If so, then you know how important SEO is to your site. But optimizing your website is not as easy as it looks. With so many elements to work on – both on and off-site – you might wonder where to focus your efforts.
Well, every aspect of your optimization is essential as it goes to boost your traffic and rankings. However, this article discusses one aspect that might appear insignificant at first glance but holds a lot of SEO power. Yes, your meta tags.
But what are tags in SEO? And why are they important? Here, you’ll find answers to these questions, including how you can develop high-quality SEO tags.
What are Tags?
Tags, in general terms, are simple labels used as an attachment to categorize or pass on info about something. As a social media regular, you are familiar with the role hashtags play in organizing posts. But does that same knowledge apply when it comes to your website optimization?
What are tags in SEO?
SEO meta tags refer to codes used by websites to display info about their web page on SERPs. In other words, they are a quick overview of your page’s content. Hence, they offer a lot of value to your prospective visitors and search engines.
To your visitors, meta tags allow them to determine whether or not you have what they are looking for. If so, they'll click on your page. And if not, they will scroll down, resulting in a loss of traffic for you.
In the same way, search engines will use your tags to ascertain your page's relevance to a user's query, thereby influencing your ranking on SERPs.
As a result, webmasters ensure they optimize their meta tags by inserting their keywords and providing an engaging description of their page. Four main SEO tags targeted by these webmasters include:
Robot Tags
As the name hints, robot tags exist solely for search engine index bots. Through the use of these tags, webmasters inform engines on how to treat their webpage. These robot SEO tags are:
INDEX or NOINDEX. It indicates if search engine bots should index your site when crawling. A Noindex option means your page won’t appear on results pages.
FOLLOW or NOFOLLOW. If you’re familiar with backlinking, you know what this stands for. A dofollow (or simply follow) attribute tells SERPs to crawl the link on that page. On the other hand, nofollow prevents bots from passing SEO value to the links on your web page.
A wrong application of these tags can throw your SEO efforts down the drain. Knowing this, you need to familiarize yourself with each function of the robot tags.
Description
What is your page all about? For users, this is the most important question while navigating the SERPs. And your meta description helps to answer it. Through it, users can determine if your page is capable of providing the answers they need. Hence, you need to develop a highly engaging description tag.
NOTE: If you fail to insert a description, Google will randomly write one for your page. So, you should provide one yourself. And while doing so, ensure it corresponds with the content of your page.
Alternative Text
Images are an essential part of web content. They help attract audiences and increase user engagement. Hence, it’s no wonder why it has a designated section on Google’s SERP. To rank there, you need to develop high-quality alt texts.
Your alt text, like your description tag, should be highly relevant. It helps increase user experience and plays a crucial role in web indexing.
Title
Though last on this list, your title tag is the first thing that affects your traffic and rankings. It refers to the big blue page title that appears when you search on Google. It first informs your viewers what your page is about, even before the description. Thus, if your title tag is wrong, your SEO will fall flat.
To avoid that, how do you develop title tags of high quality? Below are five tips that will help you when generating any of the four SEO tags discussed above.
How to Develop High-quality SEO Tags
Insert your keywords
Keywords are the primary factor affecting SEO. Hence, your tags – the description, alt text, and title – should contain your focus keywords.
Stick to length.
When generating your tags, you need to ensure it's the perfect length. Google's standard for meta descriptions is within fifty to a hundred and sixty characters. And the maximum limit for title tags is sixty characters. If your tags exceed this limit, Google will cut it short.
Avoid keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is a black hat technique used by SEOs to increase rankings. And since Google kicks against such acts, it will negatively affect your site.
Ensure it is relevant to your page’s content
As seen with your description and alt text, your SEO tags should correspond with the content of your page. If not, Google won’t be able to properly index your site, resulting in a loss for you.
Attractive and engaging, not dull and boring
Lastly, your tags should be capable of drawing in audiences. And not just any audience – your target audience. To do that, your title, description, and alt text need to be catchy and engaging. It should be able to convince readers to click on your site and stick around.
Wrapping Up
While most SEO tags are invisible, their effect can visibly affect a website. Applied right, it can skyrocket your page to the top of Google's dynamic SERPs. And for brands, that is a dream come true. After all, more rankings equal more traffic leading to the ultimate result – more sales.
True, developing SEO tags might appear tricky. But in reality, it is easy. The five tips highlighted above, if applied, will help you create the perfect tags for your site. And with easy-to-use meta tag generators, you can scale the SERPs.
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