PAGE 1 - What are Meta Tags and where do they appear?

PAGE 2 - What does No Title, No Description and No Keywords mean?

PAGE 3 - Where is the Meta Title and Meta Description Tags?

PAGE 4 - Do I still need to fill in the Meta Keywords Tag? What Google says.

Hello Everyone!

I realize that many new website owners who build their own websites here at Wealthy Affiliate get a bit confused when it comes to the use of meta tags. I see questions being posted in the community and on live chat asking if they need to fill them in at the bottom of the WordPress editor.

In this easy to understand tutorial I will explain and show you what meta tags are, why you will see things like No Title, No Description and No Keywords in your WordPress dashboard, where the tags for Meta Title and Meta Description are located, and if you need to use the Meta Keywords Tag.

WHAT ARE META TAGS

Simply put, meta tags are pieces of code that represent various areas of information that are seen and unseen within your website and that get displayed in search engine results. In the below image I am showing you a Google search results for one of my recent posts on the Government Shutdown of 2019


So what do you see?

First thing on top in purple is the title of the post, then in green is the URL website address for that post, and then in black text is the description for that post. That title is where the Meta Title Tag is located and that description is where the Meta Description Tag resides. Notice you do not see the Meta Keywords Tag.

This is what people who mainly do not build a website will see when they do a Google search for something, a title, URL and a description. However what we as webmasters see when inside our WordPress dashboard will look a little bit different. This is where most of the confusion comes into play.

NEXT UP = Why No Title, No Description and No Keywords in WordPress dashboard




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bleumoon Premium
Okay so if I use the WA site content then that is why I am having to always fill it in manually. If I used the WordPress site this would be automatically filled in am I understanding you right?
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feigner Premium
if this is in your all in one seo then have a look down the general settings and tick the advanced option box - you should then find a 'automatically fill in the ' box further down - the interface has changed a bit - so if you are in any doubt with it - jump onto their help it is very good .
the aio fields are updated at saving time if automatic.
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boomergp08 Premium
Happy you got it sorted out.
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Triblu Premium
Another excellent tutorial to share with members in the future. Thank YOU Rob!
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome Trish. Happy you liked the tutorial.
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Hudson Premium
Great training, cleared up some points for me - thank you
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome. Happy I was able to help you understand.
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AmyHD Premium
Robert, thank you for this great training.
I have a question. In AIO SEO, I put a few keywords, but can I use different keywords in every single post?
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome. First off you should stop putting keywords into the AIO SEO Pack meta tags. It will not help with your rankings.

Secondly you definitely can and want to use different keywords for different posts. All you need is one target keyword per post.
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AmyHD Premium
If I didn't misunderstand, you meant I should keep AIO SEO Home Keywords area blank.

Is that correct?
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boomergp08 Premium
I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about the keywords tag for each page and post. The Home Keywords tag in the AIO SEO Settings is recommended for putting about three keywords into it.
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AmyHD Premium
Thanks a lot, Robert!
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome Amy. Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.
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AmyHD Premium
You are good, Robert. Your training helped me a lot!
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boomergp08 Premium
Thank you.
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MBartley Premium
Hi Robert thank you for this tutorial it was easy to follow.

Murray
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome Murray and I am pleased you found it easy to follow. That was my plan.
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judebanks Premium Plus
Google reversed its decision after increasing snippet length and reduced it back down to 160 characters, instead of 300 characters. Mobile is around 130 characters.

I had to go back and shorten all of mine. Trust G to create more work for us...lol.

Great training, Robert. Thanks. ~Jude
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boomergp08 Premium
Thanks Jude. Figures Google would do that. But I still do see it from time to time, but it could be only for desktop. I will need to experiment with those same search results on my phone and see the differences.
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judebanks Premium Plus
According to an article in the Search Engine Journal, Google states that it does not have a set character count for snippets.

They must have realized after officially increasing the snippet count to 300 characters, with everyone rushing to increase their meta description length, the difference between mobile and desktop search results was causing too wide of a gap in what appeared in mobile search and regular search results.. ~Jude
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boomergp08 Premium
Makes sense. Frankly I don’t know why they would nearly double it in the first place. That seems too much for mobile. I could see 160 to 200 but no more.
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