What is Metadata and which are The Good Meta Tags to Use?

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Metadata in SEO refers to the information in the HTML code of a website that provides information about the page’s content to search engines and users. Meta tags are used to share web page information in HTML. This includes the page title (displayed as the link title in search results), description (displayed as the snippet of text under the link), and keywords (not commonly used by search engines).

Why is Metadata important?

Metadata is important for SEO because it helps search engines understand the context and relevance of a page’s content, which can affect its ranking in search results. A well-crafted page title and description can also entice users to click on the link and visit the website, which can increase traffic and improve user experience.

Meta tags are positioned at the header and visible. They are the best tool for searching market catalogs, so it is essential to have them optimized. SEO metadata optimization helps in improving the visibility and discoverability of online content including the title, description, and keywords associated with it.

It is often done through a combination of keyword research, crafting compelling titles and descriptions, and using Meta tags to ensure that search engines can accurately interpret and categorize the content.

Meta tags can be categorized into good, unresponsive, and bad. The unresponsive ones are the ones that don’t matter at all or don’t make a difference. Therefore, the unresponsive and bad Meta tags can frustrate the browser, so it is wise to stay on your road. The HTML code is a direction to reach somewhere but unimportant Meta tags can annoy the Google bots.

Good Meta tags

Title tags

Title tags are an important HTML element that provides a brief and concise description of the content on a webpage. They help search engines understand the context and content of a page, and are used as the main title displayed in the search engine results.

A good title tag can improve the visibility of a webpage, increase its click-through rate, and ultimately drive more traffic to the website. Additionally, they can also help establish the website’s brand and improve user experience by providing a clear and concise title that accurately reflects the content on the page.

Meta description

The Meta description is a summary of the content of a web page, usually limited to around 155 characters. It is intended to give users an idea of what the page is about and is often displayed in the search results snippet, below the page title.

Meta Content Type

The Meta content type tag specifies the character encoding for the HTML document. It is used to ensure that the browser displays the content correctly, regardless of the user’s computer system or regional settings. The tag should be included in the head section of the HTML document and is written as follows:

Viewport

The viewport Meta tag is used to optimize the web page for mobile devices. The viewport tag provides information to the browser about the width and scaling of the web page on different devices. This allows the web page to be optimized for smaller screens, such as those on mobile phones. The tag should be included in the head section of the HTML document and is written as follows:

The width=device-width figure determines the viewport width to the width of the gadget screen, and the initial-scale=1 figure determines the initial zoom level to 100%.

Image tags and alt attributes

Image tags and proper alt attributes in HTML are important for both accessibility and SEO purposes. Image tags with properly written alt attributes provide a text description of an image to assist users who are visually impaired and rely on screen readers to understand the content of a webpage. The alt attribute is the text description of the image and it helps the screen reader to convey the information about the image to the user.

Image tags and alt attributes also play a role in search engine optimization. Search engines use the text in alt attributes to understand what an image is about, and this information can contribute to the overall relevance and ranking of a page.

Canonical tags

Canonical tags are HTML elements that help to prevent duplication of content in search engines by specifying the preferred URL of a web page. This is important for SEO because search engines may view multiple pages with similar or duplicate content as low quality and penalize a website’s ranking.

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Unresponsive Meta tags

Meta keywords

The Meta keywords tag is used to specify a list of keywords related to the content of a web page. However, the use of the Meta keywords tag has become less relevant over time, as search engines have stopped using it as a ranking factor.

Social Meta tags

These are HTML Meta tags that provide information about the content of a webpage, to social media platforms when a URL is shared. They allow for a better visual presentation of the shared link, such as displaying a title, description, and image.

Language Meta tag

The language Meta tag is an HTML attribute that specifies the natural language of the content of a webpage. This information can be used by search engines or browsers to accurately display the page content to users.

Googlebot tags

Googlebot tags are Meta tags that provide instructions to Google’s web crawling bot, on how to crawl and index a webpage. For example, a “no index” tag can be used to prevent a page from appearing in Google’s search results.

Geotags

Geotags are HTML tags that provide information about the geographic location of a webpage’s content. This information can be used by search engines or mapping applications to provide more relevant results to users.