Search Engine Optimisation & Meta Tags

Connectica • May 26, 2017 • SEO

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What are ‘meta tags’?
Rules to keep in mind

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Proper search engine optimization means the difference between your company website being noticed and fading away into the seemingly endless information on the internet. Making a website prominent on the search results page to the modern day ‘Googler’ is the equivalent of a giant highway billboard. This is what search engine optimization aims to do. It means adjusting your website in specific ways to increase traffic to your website, ensure other websites link back to you, and make it easier for search engines to read and share your information so that users may find you by typing in simple search terms that pertain to your website.

Much of this work is done through what are called ‘meta tags’, which are used to pinpoint keywords that people search for, linking your content directly to the user. With the increasing amount of online companies, and the reliance of a successful online presence through mediums such as social media, search engine optimization is highly important. The more optimized your website is, the easier it will be for people to find you. The majority of users will often click on the first link they see, and meta tags help with this because they include usage of the exact search terms that people would use when browsing the internet, affecting how search engines read and display a website online. Additionally, through advertising on social media a company may also extend their reach by creating pages that contain the meta tags that new customers would be looking for through informative articles.

What are ‘meta tags’?

Think of meta tags as the special ingredient to a website’s success. They form the part of the code on a website which the search engine will read and use to determine whether a page should be displayed in the search results. Meta tags are the headings and use of targeted keywords in articles, optimized specially to better advertise a company. For example, Connectica makes sure to optimize our own website by making our content contain the meta tags pertaining to search engine optimization. Headings on each page will contain relevant keywords about optimization, so that a company searching for information on it in the Florida area will be more likely to find our website.

Another useful meta tag in search engine optimization is the ‘meta description’. This is the blurb that a user sees under a page link when they use a search engine like Google, and is helpful to determine which link is the best to follow. This tag is highly valuable, as it becomes the first impression of the website, and is one of the biggest influences over a user in choosing which link to follow. By being informative and specific you make it easier for users to understand what a website is about and whether it is worth visiting.

Rules to keep in mind

Meta tags require a certain amount of knowledge and finesse when being used so as not to be too obvious or prevent a search engine being able to read it. As a website’s ‘special ingredient’ they need to be used creatively to create a website that the search engine will want to read and display. The title and headline need to be carefully worded to include the specific keywords that a website intends to pull the customer in with. The title needs to have the exact keyword without exceeding a 50 character limit. The headline must be short and sweet, about 4-9 words. The meta description should also retain a 155 word limit to be able to stay within search engine rules, and avoid important information being truncated.

Technical rules are important, but even more important is seamless quality. Over-salting a page with meta tags and keywords won’t look or sound good. Online companies rely on accessibility, because they need to be found amongst the ocean of information that users are already being bombarded with in the form of adverts and suggested links. Meta tags ensure that by typing in simple search terms users can have streamlined access to online companies, which is a highly valuable resource to have. Learning to create your own meta tags, or hiring a company like Connectica to optimize your online presence for you is a worthwhile investment.

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