{"id":3288,"date":"2019-05-13T12:54:16","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T12:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/colibriwp.com\/blog\/?p=3288"},"modified":"2020-12-11T12:28:30","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T12:28:30","slug":"wordpress-meta-tags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colibriwp.com\/blog\/wordpress-meta-tags\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress Meta Tags (what they are and how to use them)"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve probably heard a lot about WordPress meta tags and just how important they are for a website.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In this post we\u2019ll make it clear why meta tags still count for a quality website, together with describing their setting up and customization in WordPress.<\/p>\n

Tags are customized for each type of content defined in the Source Code of a page. META signifies \u201cinformation about information\u201d. So META TAGS are pieces of information about specific fields in the source code of a page, that might be of interest for users and SEO alike.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are the most important META TAGS for a website?<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some META TAGs help a website appear as a relevant result in Google results pages.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Take this example:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The most important META TAGS, that help a website rank in search engine results pages, are Title and META Description.<\/p>\n

Both Title and Meta tags help you rank better in search ways, both directly and indirectly.<\/p>\n

They help so directly by helping Google figure out the subject of your article, and thus matching it to a user\u2019s search intent. For instance, titling a page simply as \u201cshoes\u201d won\u2019t help you much because of how general and vague it is. But titling it as \u201cWinter Shoes for 2019\u201d will make it much more descriptive and help Google understand the page better.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Indirectly, tags help you rank better by getting you more clicks. Users are more likely to click pages with descriptive and informative titles, which in turn tells Google that your article is better able to solve a user\u2019s question. This then slowly lifts up your article on the Google search results.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Title Tag<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Title tag includes information that sums up what a page is about. It can be used widely all over the WordPress website, or it can be customized for every page.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s recommended that you use a unique title for each page in the website. As the content of every page is unique, so too must it\u2019s title be. It has to reflect the page topic in a catchy and interesting way.<\/p>\n

The title tag appears in blue in search engine results pages, serving as a trigger for people to click on the link and explore that website page.<\/p>\n

You should take care to include relevant keywords in the title tag. Search engines will judge the page relevance for a certain query depending on the keywords the title contains.<\/p>\n

However, you should pay attention not to squeeze too many keywords in the title tag, as it might look spammy. This would be detrimental for SEO, and users will not much appreciate it.<\/p>\n

When it comes to best practice, it\u2019s best to include your target keyword just once in your title, and ideally right at the beginning.<\/p>\n

The length of the title tag should not surpass 60 characters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A peek into the Title tag secrets:<\/em><\/p>\n

To write a concise, yet highly relevant title, think this way: if it were to use a small bunch of words for your business\/page uniqueness, what should they be? More than informative, the title should be brandable.<\/p>\n

You have this tool<\/a> to play with many versions of your titles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Description Tag<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

The description tag is a more extensive version of the title of the page. It should be a more detailed presentation of what the page is about.<\/p>\n

Like in the case of the title, the description should be unique and representative of the page it presents.<\/p>\n

In search engine results pages, the description (as marked in the image above) appears after the title and the URL of the page. It informs readers of what they should expect from the content of that page, if they click the link and choose to continue exploring the website.<\/p>\n

Like the title, the description should include keywords. Use them wisely, or else a great number of keyword occurrences would be considered spammy. A maximum of 2 keyword occurrences are enough for the META Description.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The length of the description tag should be between 150 and 160 characters, as Google will truncate descriptions that have more than 160 characters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A peek into the META Description secrets:<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n

The META Description is the final step in a search process. Be mindful of that. Don\u2019t turn users away and encourage pogo sticking (users returning to the SERPs after a result disappointed them). <\/em><\/p>\n

META Descriptions, without being very technical in the list of SEO do to\u2019s, are known to influence Click-Through-Rates. And CTRs are important for Google indexing and particularly ranking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A study from Semrush.com<\/a> shows these results of experiments related to improving META Descriptions:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n