Meta tags help improve your web pages and help search engines understand the topic of your content. Often misunderstood, these little tags have a bad reputation.

For a long time, it was popular to try to trick search engine algorithms by repeating keywords in metadata ( keyword stuffing ). This caused Google to change its algorithms and evaluate meta tags differently.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to optimize meta tags to improve your SEO. We’ll look at how meta tags have evolved and identify which ones are useful for SEO and which ones are best avoided.

💡 What is a Meta tag?

Meta tags are small pieces of HTML code that help describe the content of your webpage to Google and other search engines. The word “Meta” is short for metadata. This is additional data about your webpage, such as the page title, description, and content type. Search engines use data from meta tags in their search results pages (SERPs).

Check your meta tags and identify issues that affect your website’s indexability.

🔮 Do Meta tags have an impact on SEO?

Meta tags are still necessary and very useful for SEO today. They have been a staple of  SEO strategies since the beginning of search engine optimization. Although their use and value have evolved over the years, they should not be overlooked.

📝 Meta and HTML tags

Metadata is found in the header of all your web pages and articles. You can easily add your meta tag in HTML using a WordPress plugin or a CMS content editor. Simply insert it into your HTML and it will be visible to crawlers.

🖼 What are the most important meta tags?

To rank well, it’s important to use the right tags. These tags can have a significant impact on your rankings and, when used correctly, improve the user experience.

Meta tags and Google

Each search engine evaluates tags differently. However, I recommend following the guidelines below. Pay attention to the differences and adapt them to suit your website’s needs.

Don’t forget to use your meta tags to let Google know who you are and the purpose of your content. Content such as blog posts, product and service texts, webinars, rich media, etc.

Use our infographic below to see which meta tags impact SEO and Google search results.

🏆 The Best Meta Tags for SEO

1. The title tag

Although not technically a meta tag, it is often included when discussing web page markup.

This is an HTML tag that provides a concise description of your webpage. It’s very important for SEO, usability, and sharing. Search engines take this tag into account and display it on the results page as a clickable title. Your title must be unique, present on all webpages, and contain between 50 and 60 characters.

2. The Meta Description

This tag is infamous in the SEO world. In fact, since 2009, these tags no longer affect website rankings.

The meta description still plays a very important role  : improving the click-through rate (CTR). This tag promotes your page and is visible when users browse a SERP. This is why a quality meta description helps you get more clicks. It’s as simple as that.

The Meta Description should be approximately 160 characters.

3. The viewport tag

We often forget it! In a world where many different devices are used to browse the internet, using a viewport tag is essential. It allows for an optimized experience across all browsers. Its use has become standard on all modern websites.

Without this tag, search engines will display your web pages as wide as a desktop computer. Mobile users will have to zoom in to read the content.

4. The Robots tag

These tags provide specific instructions to crawlers (e.g., Googlebot). You rarely need them, as search engines do a good job of managing crawler behavior themselves. However, sometimes additional instructions are necessary.

Many marketers still believe that robots meta tags are necessary. However, they are really useful when you need to change indexing or link guidelines. If omitted, Google will use the default index:follow values.

Example:
 
Values ​​of the robots tag:

• index – display this webpage in search results
• follow – follow the links on the page
• noindex — do not display this webpage in search results
• nofollow — do not follow links on the page