Learn about the Most Important Meta Tags
Meta tags have been a part of search engine history for years. They counted towards rankings before people started abusing them to rank higher in the SERPs. But just because meta tags don’t directly improve ranking, doesn’t mean that they are not important. You should still use meta tags for your construction company’s website.
Some meta tags tell people what can be found on your page, while others tell search engines which parts of the page are important, and which are to be ignored. Engines compare the keywords you use to the visible content on your site. So, what exactly are meta tags and how do they work?
Read more: SEO vs Traditional Marketing: Which is Best for Construction?
What are meta tags?
The “meta” in meta tags stands for metadata. Meta tags are hence data about the data on a page. These little snippets of code describe the contents of the page. They are invisible to page visitors but can be found in the page’s HTML code.
This information is called “metadata” and is read by search engines and web crawlers. The metadata tells web browsers how to display to visitors and in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
How can I use meta tags for SEO?
Using meta tags alone will not help you with search engine optimization (SEO). You should always focus on pushing out high-quality content and satisfying your site visitors. But there are still a few meta tags that can affect how people see your site in SERPs and whether they choose to click. Below are some of the most important meta tags you should be using:
Types of meta tags
There are many different types of meta tags. Some pages use just two or three tags, while others may use four or five. We have listed some of the most important meta tags below:
Title tag
This tag appears at the top of your browser as the title of your page. SERP’s also display them to internet searchers. The character limit for title tags are 78 on mobile devices and 70 on desktop in Google search results. Long-tail keywords are great to include in title tags.
For example:
<head>
<title>Your title here</title>
</head>
Meta description
A meta description describes your page to searchers. Search engines show it in SERPs. These are limited to 160 characters and are not tied to search algorithms. But without the description, search engines will default to a preview sentence it thinks is best to describe the content. Meta descriptions serve to improve user experience and convey the summary of the page in brief..
For example:
<meta name=”description” content=”Free Web tutorials on HTML and CSS”>
Alternative text (alt) tag
The alt tag is used for images since search engines cannot read them. It can come in handy if you want to improve your SEO. When an image can’t be rendered, or is spoken to the blind and visually impaired, the alt text displays. Refrain from stuffing a bunch of keywords into the tag since you just need to describe your visual content.
For example:
<img src=”smiley.gif” alt=”Smiley face” height=”42″ width=”42″>
Header tags
The header tag is used when creating headings with different fonts. The heading elements are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. H1 is the highest-level heading while H6 is the lowest. Use the header tags to break up your text; don’t overuse them and create multiple headings.
For example, the title of your write-up should be in <H1> Title </H1>, with the subheading in <H2> Sub-heading </H2>, and sub-sub-heading in <H3> Sub-sub-heading </H3>.
For example:
<header>
<h1>Most important heading here</h1>
<h2>Less important heading here</h2>
<p>Some additional information here</p>
</header>
Anchor text
An anchor text is the clickable text of a hyperlink. They tell readers what to expect before they click. They are also great ways to get people to download something or link to PDF documents or files. Anchor texts also tell search engine algorithms what your text is about.
For example:
<a href=”http://www.example.com”>Example Anchor Text</a>
Keyword tags
While keyword tags do not improve search rankings, they help search engines determine which pages of your site should rank for a search. These usually focus on short keywords instead of long-tail keywords. So, ensure that you use different keyword tags and categories.
For example:
<meta name=”keywords” content=”HTML, CSS, XML, XHTML, JavaScript”>
Canonical tag
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo created canonical tags to provide websites with a way to solve duplicate content issues. If you have the same or similar content under multiple URLs, you can use canonical tags to specify which version is the original or main one, and thus, should be indexed.
For example:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.cmgurus.com/” />
Robots meta tags
These attributes tell search engines what to do with your pages. Index/noindex tells engines whether to show your page in search results. Follow/nofollow tells the engines whether or not they should follow your links to the next page or not. If your page has a lot of external links, it can make your page rank lower. So you can tell search engine crawlers not to follow or index these links.
For example:
<meta name =”robots” content=”index”>
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow”>
Metadata is helpful for both visitors to your website and search engines. The better the experience your users have, the longer they will spend on your site. This will improve your SEO ranking. You should use meta tags for your construction business. While meta tags directly may not help much with getting your pages to rank higher, search engine robots still need to validate them with your content. If you don’t know how to use meta tags or how to add meta tags, you could seek out the help of an SEO specialist for your construction company.
CMGurus is the best SEO agency for construction companies. We offer highly affordable SEO services for construction marketing.