How Meta Tags Influence SEO And Ranking

byRobert-A

10.9K followers

Updated 6 years ago

What Are Meta Tags And Why Are They Important?

Hi Folks

I get asked the above question almost on a daily basis. I have published several other blogs on the various Tags and their function but as I get new followers nearly every day it does no harm to reiterate what I have said before for those Newbies.

Meta Tags are added to a web page to increase its visibility in the search engines and consist of three components - Title, Description and Keyword.

The title is the most commonly used Meta Tag, and is displayed on top of the browser window. It acts as the title of the document.

(If the text in the image is too small right click and open image in new tab then you can enlarge it with one click)

The Meta Description is not shown on the browser but it is shown in the search result.

The Meta Tags are usually added under the head tags. The Meta Tags for each page should be unique. In this way, you can avoid duplication problems.

The Meta Keywords is the least important of all the Meta Tags. Some people like to take advantage of the Meta Keywords by spamming it with a huge list of keywords.

You should use a different Meta Tag for each page in the website.

The Meta Keywords should not exceed more than 255 characters. If the Meta Keywords exceed 255 characters, it will be considered spam by search engines. In fact your site may be blacklisted by the search engines as a spam site because you have used too many keywords. You can however use multiple words as one keyword (keyword phrase).

In order for the search engines to recognize a phrase as a single keyword, you have to use the comma. The most important keyword should be first followed by the less important secondary keywords.

The title and description should be written properly so that people will be interested in viewing the web page. Sometimes, the search engines will display the Meta Description in the search result if they couldn't find any keyword in the article. It is important to optimize the Meta Title and Description with keywords. By optimizing the Meta Title and Description, you will be able to rank well in the search engine.

The keyword(s) you use must have low competition. You should not use misspelled keywords in your Meta Tag (use a spell-check if you have one available). Though misspelled keywords have small competition, your search engine ranking will suffer if you use them. The search engines will know that you are trying to manipulate them and not rank you. Also using misspelled keyword people will think your site is unprofessional, and avoid it. In addition, the keyword phrase you use must be meaningful or the search engines will consider you a spammer.

Ok folks there you have it and now that I have given a more detailed description of the various Meta Tags I wont get any more questions.

Any member who has other tips or advice can do so via a comment below.

Have a great day wherever you are and be successful.

Robert Allan

PS

Try out these two tools below and find out how your Tags match up.

Meta Tag Tool

http://tools.seobook.com/meta-medic/

Meta Tag Generator

https://www.seoptimer.com/meta-tag-generator