BY
Arpad Balogh
April 29, 2021
learn how to optimize your meta tags for seo

Meta Tags are hidden (only visible in your websites HTML Code) snippets of HTML code that you can add to your website to help search engines understand what the site is about.

Setting these up are the first things that you have to do when
doing SEO on your website.

Meta Tags are often overlooked by website owners (as they are so simple to set up), but still to this day they remain one of the most important ranking signals.

A properly set up Meta Title and Meta Description can not only improve your position in Google, but the number of visitors you can get from the same rankings!

In this article, we will list all of the Meta Tags for SEO and provide tips and tricks for how to improve them.

Here are The Best Meta Tags for SEO:

If you are using WordPress and some kind of SEO Plugin (Like Yoast or RankMath) the chances are that you can set these up very easily in the settings for each of the pages.

If you are using a third party CMS like Wix or SquareSpace you will also have the option to set these up inside the settings of each page.

But, if you are using a custom developed website, you will have to manually add these tags, inside the <head> section of your website.

Now, let's look at the best meta tags for SEO!

Meta Title Tag

The Meta Title Tag is an HTML Tag that you can add to the <head> section of your website.

Optimizing Meta Title for SEO

The content of this tag will be what appears in Google Search Results as the title of your listing and it is also one of the most important ranking factors for SEO, as well as being extremely useful for branding!

The Meta Title can be a maximum of 65 characters and if it is longer than that, Google will automatically truncate it after the 65th character.

This doesn't mean that Google doesn't look at the content in your Meta Title after the 65th character (according to our tests), it just means that people will see three dots (which makes it look bad) at the end of your title.

What is the Meta Title Tag Used For?

The Meta Title Tag is used by Google and other search engines to give a title to your website in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and also to have a better understanding of what your webpage is about.

How Can You Add a Meta Title Tag?

You can add a Meta Tag with an SEO Plugin of your choice or you can add it to the <head> section of your website using the following code:

<title> Your Title Goes here</title>

How to Improve the Meta Title Tag?

The Meta Title Tag of your website should be a short but descriptive sentence that will grab people's attention.

Your primary keyword should be included at the beginning of your Meta Title tag and if there is room, you should add your secondary keywords as well.

Example: The Best Dog Shoes for Chihuahuas in 2021

Adding Emojis in Your Meta Title

adding emojis to your title meta tag

You can add emojis to your Meta Title Tag to stand out from the crowd and get more people clicking on your site rather than your competitors.

You can use AMP What to copy the Emojis and add them to your Meta Title Tag.

Adding Dates in Your Meta Title

adding date to your title and description meta tag

It’s important to let the searchers know that our page has recent information about that topic they are looking for.


By adding a year or a date to the Title you can stand out from your competition and show that your article has fresh information.

Adding Odd Numbers, Statistics, Symbols, Brackets

adding statistics to your title meta tag

People are more likely to click on “clickbait” Titles that specify numbers like “7 steps” or “ increased by 79%”.


People also are more likely to click on Odd numbers, like "11 Great Tips" than on even numbers.

By using these, you can have more people click on your listings.

What are the Most Common Issues Meta Title Issues?

The Most Common Meta Title Issues are Too Long, Too Short and Missing Meta Title Issues.

Too Long Meta Title Issues: Your Title is more than 65 characters. Make it less than 65 characters!

Too Short Title Issues: Your Title is less than 30 characters. Make it longer and utilize the free real estate!

Missing Title Tag: You didn't set up a Title tag. Add one!

What Happens if You Don't Add a Meta Title Tag?

missing title meta tag

If you don't add a Meta Title tag to your website, Google will try to guess what could be the best title to describe your content.


This most often doesn't look good or compelling, which will lead to less people clicking on your listings.

Do You Want More Customers?


If you are looking to generate more customers, check out this guide and learn how.

You'll find 5 steps that will help fix the most important things on your website today!

Meta Description Tag

The Meta Description Tag is an HTML Tag that you can add to the <head> section of your website.

Optimizing Meta Description tag for SEO

What you set in this tag is what will be the description of your listing in Google. Although it is not a strong ranking signal, it is still worth including your keywords in it.

The Meta Description can be a maximum of 165 characters and if it is longer than that, Google will automatically truncate it after the 165th character.

What is the Meta Description Tag Used For?

The Meta Description tag describes what a website should be about and tells readers more information about the content.

This can help search engines determine which pages are most relevant for your targeted keywords.

This is your option to also create something that will persuade readers to click on your listing in the search engine.

How Can You Add a Meta Description Tag?

You can add a Meta Description tag in the webpage's code in the <head> section or by using an SEO Plugin.

<meta name="description" content="Your Description Here">

What are the Most Common Meta Description Issues?

Too Long Meta Description: This happens when your Meta Description is longer than 165 characters. Make your meta description shorter.

Too Short Meta Description: This happens when your Meta Description is too short. Although this is not a huge issue, it just means that you are not utilizing a valuable SEO opportunity.


Missing Meta Description: When you don't have a meta description, Google will automatically pull one from your content for you. This very often looks bad and affects your SEO and how many people click on your listings.

How Can You Improve Your Meta Description Tag?

You can improve your Meta Description tag by making it short and concise with the use of keywords that directly correlate to what your website is about while including a call-to-action for readers if you want them to click through to your site.

What Happens if You Don't Add a Meta Description Tag?

missing meta description tag

If you don't add a Meta Description, Google will take your page's content and create a Meta Description for you. This will not be as effective as if you add one yourself, but it is better than nothing!

The key to any successful SEO strategy is optimizing meta tags; so that’s what I want to cover in this article about how to improve them and optimize your site.

Meta Robots Tag

With the Robots Meta Tag, you can instruct how a search engine crawls and indexes your site.


There are four Robots Meta Tag options:


Allow indexing of your site (Index, Follow): This option allows the search engine to index your content and follow all of its links.

Block the indexing and following of the links (No-index, No-Follow): This option instructs the search engine to not index your content and block it from following any of its links.

Allow indexing, but don't allow following the links for the crawlers (Index, No-Follow): This option instructs the search engine to index your content but not follow any of its links.

Block the Indexing, but allowing the following of the links on the page. (No-Index, Follow): This option tells the search engine to not index your content, but to follow the links in it.

What is the Robots Meta Tag Used For?

The Meta Robots tag can be used to tell the search engines not to index specific pages on your website.


For example, if you have hundreds of Tag pages, you might not want them to be indexed, but you still want Google to look at them and follow the links on them.


You can also use this tag to hint Google to not index landing pages, which are useful for sales but maybe they are not SEO optimized.

How Can You Add a Meta Robots Tag?

You can add this tag to the head of your page, using these codes:

<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

In the content, you can add any combination of "index" , "follow" , "no-index" , "no-follow".

What are the Most Common Meta Robots Issues?

The most common Meta Robots issue is when the web developers deliver the website to you and they accidentally keep the website on no-index, no-follow.

A few months pass, and you wonder why your website isn't ranking because of a simple setting.

Meta Viewport Tag

What is the Viewport Meta Tag?

The meta viewport tag is a code that you can add to the head of your web page and it will tell mobile browsers what size (width) they need.


Having this setting set properly on your website helps improve the user experience.

What is the Meta Viewport Tag Used For?

The meta viewport tag is mostly used to set the size of your website on mobile devices.

How Can You Add a Meta Viewport Tag?

To add a meta viewport tag, you need to add it to the head of your webpage. For most CMS platforms this can be done in the settings panel, for others you will need to edit code directly on your page's HTML.

The meta viewport tag is added into the site header section and looks like this:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

How Can You Add a Meta Viewport Tag?

To add a meta viewport tag, you need to add it to the head of your webpage. For most CMS platforms this can be done in the settings panel, for others you will need to edit code directly on your page's HTML.

Meta Name Language

What is the Meta Name Language Tag?

The meta name language tag is used to specify the language of the content on your website. This is an important tag that helps Google know what language your website's content on.

How Can You Add a Meta Name Language Tag?

The meta name language tag is added into the site header section and looks like this: 

<meta name="language" content="Spanish">

When the Meta Name Language Tag Useful?

The meta name language tag is useful when you have content in two different languages on your website.

It will tell Google what the main language of your site's content is so that it can be ranked appropriately for those specific regions. If you are using English, Spanish or French then this tag should go into every page header sections of your site to let Google know.

Meta Charset

What is the Meta Charset?

The meta charset tag specifies the character encoding standard that is to be used on your website.

The most common charsets are UTF-16, ISO 8859-15 and Windows 1252.

Each of these encodings is for a different language - you'll need to know which one your website's content uses to set it up correctly.

How Can You Add a Meta Charset Tag?

To add a meta charset tag, you need to edit the HTML of your website's page headers and add a code like this:

<meta charset="UTF-8">

Should You use the Meta Keywords Tag?

Using Meta Keywords doesn't have any SEO benefits as Google stopped using it back in 2009.

Conclusion

Meta tags are one of the most important things to set up when doing SEO on your website.

They can help you rank higher in search engines and also provide information for potential customers about what they should expect from your site.

Create meta tags that will make a difference with your rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Frequently Asked Questions about Meta Tags

How to Write Meta Tags?

When writing Meta Tags you should be following certain guidelines, like the characters requirements to make sure your Meta Tags are not too short or not too long. Certain Meta Tags should include your main keywords too to get a better ranking in search results.

Is meta keywords tag important for SEO?

There are certain meta tags, like the Keywords Meta Tag that are not useful anymore. Google decommissioned the Keyword Meta Tag in 2009 and is not using it anymore.

Does Google use meta tags?

Yes, Google does use Meta Tags. It uses Meta Tags to display your title and meta descriptions in the search results. Just like your header tags, other Search Engines use these Meta Tags as well to get more information about your web page.

How do I enter meta tags?

You can enter Meta Tags in your site HTML source code, by adding it the <head> section of your site source code.

Which meta tags are important for SEO?

There are several meta Tags that helps you increase search engine rankings, when optimized properly. For example, your target keyword included in your meta tags will help you get better SEO rankings and more website visitors.

Are there any Social Media Meta Tags?

Yes, there are social media meta tags for Twitter and Facebook which affect how your content appears when shared on Social Media.


The Facebook Meta Tags are Called Open Graph Meta Tags, the Twitter ones are called Twitter Cards.

Do You Want More Customers?


If you are looking to generate more customers, check out this guide and learn how.

You'll find 5 steps that will help fix the most important things on your website today!

About the author

Arpad Balogh is a Hungarian SEO Expert and Strategist with more than 8 years of experience in the field. He loves dogs, he is afraid of empty pools (so weird, right?), loves vegan food and has a passion for telling very bad jokes.

Technical SEO, Structured Data and Keyword research are the areas he loves the most.

As a Founder of Slothio, His mission is to help 5,000 small business owners to grow their business in the next three years, help them be happier and enjoy life more.

Arpad Balogh


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