In the quest for superior search rank and online visibility, SEO meta tags pack a big traffic punch for such a small snippet of text. Hang with us as we detail how to nail your SEO meta tags for increased rank and traffic metrics.
Romain Berg is a comprehensive digital marketing agency based in Minneapolis, MN. We do SEO the right way, based on results, not hype. We arm our clients with the data they need, and the SEO and content strategy they want to convert more users to customers.
Reach out to our digital marketing team to begin your digital marketing success story.
Meta titles: All in a Name
While page descriptions and titles comprise the visible part of your meta tags, there are several elements of meta tags that we must create well to establish and maintain a high search rank.
If you use a DIY web builder, you’ll have the easiest time crafting your meta titles and page descriptions, and you should brush up on your meta knowledge for this task.
The Meta Title is a line of code or text 50-70 characters in length. It’s how Google and other search engines find your page and display it on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP.)
Each page on your website should have a unique title tag. For example:
Page Name or Keyword | Location | Site Name
Your meta title should be concise and accurate. The only information you should include in your title is your business name, business location (especially for local businesses), and the type of business you own.
If you have a store with zillions of product pages, set up a title tag template so you can fill it in easily for each page. Remember, all you need are three or four pieces of information and a max of 70 characters for each tag.
If you produce a lot of content or blog articles, each article should have a title tag. These tags may include the article title and perhaps your company:
Guide to SEO Meta Tags | Romain Berg
If you have a WordPress site, there’s a spot at the bottom of the blog editor to add SEO like title tags and page descriptions. You can take the title of your post, add it as a title tag, and copy and paste a snippet of your article in the page description box.
Speaking of Page Descriptions
Each web page you publish should include a meta description. This meta type content contains up to 300 characters and can vary in detail, depending on the purpose of the page.
The first 160 characters you write will be visible on the SERP. A user would have to click or hover over your result to view the remaining 140 characters, so include the most essential page information in the first sentence of the description.
It’s crucial to provide a well-crafted page description, especially in prominent page content like your home page, blog articles, and online store pages. Search engines pick up keywords and phrases in your page descriptions when users enter more precise queries into Google.
Many web builders will provide simple prompts to fill in each meta description on your pages and some helpful templates that can guide you along when you can’t remember what to write.
Think of your meta description as a cold call on your desired customers. You must use this tool to summarize your page and engage your audience. To that end, get to the point, be useful, and be friendly in your meta descriptions.
If a user can read your page description and remark, “they have exactly what I’ve been looking for!” you won the internet for today.
Reminder: if you have a zillion page descriptions to fill in for your online store, create a template you can whiz through with speed and accuracy. However, if you only have a few pages to describe, you can get a little more artsy in your composition. (Artsy doesn’t mean flowery, though, keep it direct and use each word to your advantage.)
Avoid Duplication at all Costs
Like humans, Google gets confused from time to time, especially when we give it the same information in several different places.
If you employ the same or very similar page titles and descriptions, Google doesn’t know who to believe. Since Google makes ranking decisions based on trust, authority, and expertise, duplicate titles and descriptions mean yellow flags for those three search rank criteria.
Include keywords in each page description that are unique, and differentiate your title tags accordingly. Otherwise, Google will ignore you at best, and penalize you at worst.
Nerdy SEO Meta Tag Stuff You’ll Want a Professional to Handle
Meta robots are pieces of code that tell search engine crawlers whether and how to crawl your site pages. Getting these wrong can tank your search engine results, so proceed with caution if going it alone.
You can set these tags to “index,” “no-index,” “follow,” or “unfollow,” which allows you the flexibility to select pages for Google to index or not, as well as which pages contain links for which you can vouch for their reliability.
If you don’t set meta robots tags in your page SEO, the default is “index” and “follow.” You would only use a meta robot to restrict a page you don’t want to be indexed or followed.
Meta viewports create visibility specifications for different sized screens. If you want to be listed as “mobile-friendly” (a requirement to rank high in search engine results), you may want to include these tags in your SEO.
Meta Charsets specify the type of characters displayed on your site. They are essential to user experience.
Incorrect use of this tag may mean some of your characters show up wonky for users when they click your site. Any code mistake that makes your pages harder to read will tank your search rank in a hurry because users will “bounce” quickly when they hit any snags on your site.
Call Romain Berg for Superior SEO Meta Tags
Yes, we know DIY SEO can be tempting as a business owner. We also know you’d probably rather serve your customers, innovate new products and services, and take more operational tasks off your plate.
Romain Berg is the ultimate SEO partner for business owners. We create and implement SEO and digital marketing strategies that PAY with dramatic increases in traffic and conversions. Let our results-based SEO methodology go to work for you this week.
Get in touch with Romain Berg’s digital consulting professionals. It’s the first step to mastering your SEO domain—partner with the firm that delivers results over hype.
