Why are meta tags needed on website pages?

Why do we need meta tags on site pages

When generating a list of search results, Google and Yandex analyze the site for many criteria and recommendations, the main of which is the content of your site.

In our article we will talk about the basic elements necessary for website promotion, Meta tags:

• heading h1;
• title;
• description;

Meta tags were created as a tool to indicate page content to search engines, in the early stages of search development, the search engine understood what the page would be about by analyzing the main meta tags. For easier understanding, the printed book contains the title and a brief description of the edition, so we can understand the content.

At the stage of evolution of the algorithms of each search engine, they have become just one of the thousands of factors that need to be considered when optimizing a site, but we should not forget the importance of metadata for website promotion. Each has a specific purpose and value to the search engine when determining value.

Every user who has ever searched in a search engine has seen organic results for their request and a brief description of each resource “Snippet”. A snippet is a short description of a resource based on the meta tags that are filled in.

Based on these descriptions, most users decide whether to visit the current site or skip it. Relying on this, search engines use meta tags as one of the factors in generating results and pay attention to content for a specific query.

In order to correctly write meta tags, you may need a semantic core (phrases that users enter when searching) or accurately determine the information need of your site's pages. With the help of what search phrases users will search, and then optimize the pages of the site in such a way that they match the phrases.

At the same time, do not forget that the content of the page must also correspond to the meaning of the written text and metadata of the page, no one wants, for example, to look for the creation of an online store, but to get into the creation of a business card site. Otherwise, the user will simply leave your site.

Summarizing information by meta tags:

• meta tags allow you to get into search results by user requests;
• meta tags help to determine whether the user should visit the site;
• meta tags allow you to understand the content;

What is the Title meta tag in website promotion

The Title tag () is not exactly a meta tag, but in the world of website promotion and development for quick communication, it is generally accepted to consider it as such.

The title meta tag should be written as a meaningful sentence, do not try to trick the search engine and make incoherent words between each other.In the search results, it is displayed as the title (title) of the page:

When writing a meta tag title, it is better to place keywords and phrases important for the page closer to the first part of the sentence. It is best to use phrases for which your page will be useful to users.

There is a myth that the length of the title should not exceed 50-75 characters, from personal experience and a large number of successful promotions, we can say that this is a delusion. When forming, it is important to use the correct spelling and avoid a lot of repetition of words. If you think that repetition is indispensable, then it is better to change the word form or put such words as far apart as possible. On average, a good title with the use of synonyms for the main words and word forms is written within 130 characters without spaces.

A large number of repetitions will have a negative impact on your ranking in search results and website promotion.

Such an example can be found on the TOP50-TOP100 search results, so many sites have similar problems when writing a title due to overspam. 

An important parameter of the title meta tag is uniqueness at the level of the entire domain, when we write metadata, we must understand that copying them from one page to another will be a mistake. Search engines, when analyzing the site, will notice similarities and lower the positions of pages with duplicate data.

The h1 tag as a site promotion factor

H1 is a text tag, an element for marking up text headings in an HTML page document. This tag is not a meta tag, but in the IT world it is considered as such. To define headings, there are H1-H6 tags, while in descending order, the value of the tag is lost.

For a page, always use the H1 heading once. For the rest of the headings in the texts, the use of H2-H3 and the least use of H4-H6 are recommended.

Often you can find that key user queries are added to the H1 meta tag when promoting and optimizing the site. I make sure that users clearly understand the content, and the search engine gives an important value to this tag.

From the experience of DIGIANTS, we can say that the use of commercial words in the H1 tag lowers sites in ranking due to the fact that it looks intrusive for both the user and search engines. In some cases, such as how to order a SERM service or Custom Kitchens, such headlines can work positively.

Important: 

• The h1 tag is a text title that is usually placed at the beginning of the text or at the top of the page, this meta tag is not visible in the search results;
• When optimizing a site, the h1 heading must be used once;
• When using the semantic core in the h1 heading, indicate high-frequency user queries in a direct entry;
• The volume of the meta tag should not exceed 7 words;
• It is better to use the h1 meta tag in the plural when it comes to optimizing an online store or product catalogs.

Description meta tag is important for SEO promotion

Meta tag Description - the meta tag is really such as it is written in the tag. According to the content, it describes the page, the competitive advantages of your business compared to competitors, relying on this text will decide whether to visit you or look for more.

The Description meta tag contains additional information about the promoted page. It is written in a format where name indicates the name of the meta tag, and content indicates its content:

Description can be filled in:

• with keywords (user search phrases);
• the theme that defines the page;
• attractive sentences and phrases;
• the benefits of trade offers;
• advertising and brand information.

The Description meta tag does not have a strong impact on the ranking of the site, but is only one of the search engine machine learning factors, while it can increase the number of visits - CTR by users. Click-Through Rate - the ratio of clicks from search results to the total number of impressions when ranking sites. Very often you can notice that the text is pulled in the Description, which means that the meta tag does not respond to the user's request, but the search engine was able to determine the answer in the content of our page.

Also, do not forget about the behavioral factor, the more users finish their search on your site, the better opinion the search engine will have.

You should write only interesting Discriminations without frightening phrases, especially if you want to optimize your site for SEO, then you should spend a lot of time on generating metadata. In order to increase the visibility of your meta tag Description in organic search results, it is best to use Unicode characters and smileys, so the text will become more visible.

An example of using symbols and emoticons:

Don't get too carried away when using Unicode characters, if you write a large number in the Description, you can only cause a negative attitude and scare away users. Especially if the audience of your business is people who are more comfortable with plain text. Adding a few characters will not negatively affect the promotion and transitions to your site.

Adding meta tags to the site

If filling in meta tags takes a long time, we recommend using data generation. The presence of meta tags is very important when promoting and evaluating your resource. The absence of important elements will negatively affect the entire SEO promotion of your resource.

For priority pages in terms of promotion and business, we recommend using manual writing, for derivative and less important pages, use metadata generation formulas.

They should work only on pages where the data is not filled in manually.

For example, for the directory https://name.com/sumki and similar categories, you can use templates:

H1 meta tag: [H1 catalog]

Title meta tag: [H1 catalog] — buy in Ukraine | online store [Store name]

Metatag Description: Buy [H1 catalogue] with delivery to [City and country] ✓ Guarantees and high quality ✓ In stock ☎ 8-123-123-12-12 Call us!

Checking the filling of meta tags on pages

Development SEO website promotion is developing rapidly, and with it a large number of useful tools appear. You can check the filled meta tags by manual checking and automatic through specialized programs and services.

Manual verification will take a lot of time, so it's easier to use specialized tools than to look at the filling in the HTML code.

Browser extensions for analyzing meta tags: SEO META in 1 CLICK

The tool helps to quickly analyze metadata and additional information.

Bookmarklets for metadata analysis

When used, they provide an opportunity to quickly get information:

https://prnt.sc/u2w8d9 

Of the minuses of these tools, they are suitable only for analyzing one promoted page , which will significantly affect the time spent when optimizing the site.

Paid programs for resource crawling.

For example, Netpeak Spider, ScreamingFrog and help programs will help you quickly get the necessary information. The main thing is that the power of the computer is enough to unload the site parameters.

Promotion using metadata and conclusions

Description - a meta tag that contains additional information for user clicks and one of the factors ranking the site in the search engine

Title and h1 - meta tags that allow the search engine to determine the topic and purpose of your page.

Properly composed and prepared meta tags will perfectly present the site to users and help the audience understand the purpose of your page, and for the search engine, the value of the page is on a par with your competitors.