{"id":8726,"date":"2018-12-09T09:34:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T09:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/?p=8726"},"modified":"2024-10-31T16:35:44","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T16:35:44","slug":"dos-donts-meta-tags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/dos-donts-meta-tags\/","title":{"rendered":"Metadata Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SEO professionals and most online business owners know what meta tags are. However, not everybody realizes the important role meta tags play in search engine optimization.<br \/>\nAs more exciting and latest search engine ranking factors became popular in the last few years, meta tags have lost their importance a little bit. SEO factors, such as engagement rate, the loading speed of a website, mobile responsiveness, etc. have stolen the limelight away from meta tags.<br \/>\nHowever, they remain an integral and basic part of web pages and, therefore, should not be ignored.<br \/>\nIn this blog post, we highlight a few do\u2019s and don\u2019ts of meta tags that would ensure that you are doing the basics right.<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>1. Create unique meta titles and meta descriptions for each web page<\/h2>\n<p>Although it seems a bit obvious, it is important to remember that meta tags must be unique. Creating duplicate title tags and meta descriptions are not going to do you any favors.<br \/>\nUnique meta descriptions are not only preferred by search engines, but they will also give you an opportunity to explain your web page in a better way.<br \/>\nThis is especially important for e-commerce websites and online stores that have plenty of similar-looking products. It\u2019s crucial for them to have unique title tags and meta descriptions for each web page and accurately define the product and the information the page may contain.<\/p>\n<h2>2. Strategically place important keywords in meta tags<\/h2>\n<p>While meta tags inform users what a web page is about, they also need to have relevant keywords.<br \/>\nStrategically placing keywords in the title tag and meta description may give you a couple of advantages during search engine optimization. First, search engine crawlers may give more importance to keywords found in the title tag and meta description.<br \/>\nSecond, keywords that the online users search for also get highlighted in the meta tags by Google. This catches the attention of online users and encourages them to click a web page.<\/p>\n<h2>3. Do not exceed the character limit<\/h2>\n<p>Both the title tag and the meta description have character limits. The tip is to say all you want to say without breaching that limit.<br \/>\nGenerally, the title tag should not contain more than 55-60 characters. If a title tag exceeds the limit, search engines will cut the rest of it. Ideally, to be on the safe side, put the most important information in the first 50 characters.<br \/>\nFor meta descriptions, the limit is approximately 155 to 165 characters. It should briefly describe what the web page is about and give online users a reason why they should click the link.<br \/>\nThere are so many results in the search engine results pages (SERPs) that are competing with each other for the online user\u2019s attention. Try to treat your meta description as an ad for your web page. This is your chance to convince the searchers that your web page is what they are looking for.<br \/>\nUse this <u><a href=\"https:\/\/seomofo.com\/snippet-optimizer.html\">free tool<\/a><\/u> to preview how your Google SERP snippet would look like.<\/p>\n<h2>4. Make it interesting and engaging<\/h2>\n<p>How do you convince them?<br \/>\nBy making it interesting and engaging. Here are a few tips for doing that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mention your competitive advantage.<\/li>\n<li>Use the keywords that they are most likely be searching for.<\/li>\n<li>Use action verbs.<\/li>\n<li>Write your meta description in active sentences.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure that the meta description is grammatically correct.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure it is easy-to-read and easy-to-understand.<\/li>\n<li>Put the most important information earlier in the meta description so as to catch the user\u2019s attention as soon as possible.<\/li>\n<li>If your brand is recognizable, you can place its name in the title tag or the meta description.<\/li>\n<li>See if you can use verifiable data and stats to increase the credibility of your content.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>5. Do not forget a powerful call-to-action<\/h2>\n<p>In the end, the purpose of a title tag and, especially, the meta description is to convince people to click on them and to drive traffic to the website.<br \/>\nThis is why you need a powerful call-to-action to close the deal.<br \/>\nUse words and phrases such as \u2018Find out more\u2019, \u2018Shop for [your products], \u2018Buy now\u2019, \u2018Read here\u2019, etc. may increase the click-through rate.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>The organic click-through rate (CTR) is fast becoming another search engine factor. You can only increase it by improving the quality of your web page\u2019s title tag and meta description.<br \/>\nThe aforementioned do\u2019s and don\u2019ts will help you craft better meta tags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SEO professionals and most online business owners know what meta tags are. However, not everybody realizes the important role meta tags play in search engine optimization. As more exciting and latest search engine ranking factors became popular in the last few years, meta tags have lost their importance a little bit. SEO factors, such as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":23398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oct_exclude_from_cache":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[33,35],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Metadata Best Practices | IMSR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SEO professionals know what meta tags are. However, not everybody realizes the important role they play in search engine optimization.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/dos-donts-meta-tags\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Metadata Best Practices | IMSR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SEO professionals know what meta tags are. 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