Find out what meta tags are, how to fill them in correctly, and the new rules for writing Title and Description meta tags that were released by Google in 2021. Collect effective keywords for meta tags with Serpstat to generate more traffic to your website.
Enter a keyword to optimize the Title:
Enter a keyword to optimize the Title:
How to correctly fill in meta tags on the page: Title, Description
What are meta tags?
Meta tags are part of the program code in HTML format, which is enclosed between the <head>...</head> tags and is the title of the page.
Meta tags are optional attributes because they are not visible to the user, but are focused on search engines. However, search engines get information about the title, keywords and page content from tags, so the presence of tags is important .
Meta tags are universal and supported by specific search engines, they can only be seen in the HTML code.
Meta tags can be displayed in a snippet, so it's important to keep the text of the tags consistent with the content of the page.
Meta tags are optional attributes because they are not visible to the user, but are focused on search engines. However, search engines get information about the title, keywords and page content from tags, so the presence of tags is important .
Meta tags are universal and supported by specific search engines, they can only be seen in the HTML code.
Meta tags can be displayed in a snippet, so it's important to keep the text of the tags consistent with the content of the page.
Why write meta tags?
There are several important reasons why you should write meta tags:
For good ranking of your website page, displaying a clickable title and highlighting the main competitive advantages. Meta tags are markers that highlight the main content of a page.
In order to prevent the search engine from independently selecting a piece of content and pulling it into a snippet: in this case, less relevant information may be displayed.
In order for the site to be displayed for relevant search queries.
To improve rankings and boost traffic.
How to format the Title on the page?
The title tag contains the main title of the page. The title affects the ranking in search engines, so it is important to format it correctly.
The main criteria for a correctly written Title are as follows:
The main criteria for a correctly written Title are as follows:
You can compose the Title according to this format :
[Commodity category] [Product | Model], price, description | Name of shop
[Commodity category] [Product | Model], price, description | Name of shop
Up to 70 characters and up to 600 pixels (for Google, because it measures the size in pixels).
Keywords should be located closer to the beginning of the text - 1 — 4 words in a row. It is important that these are the target words used for site promotion.
Keywords should be used once, without duplication.
It is advisable to use the same Title tags for mobile and desktop versions of pages.
The text should not be written in caps lock, should be confirmed and not consist solely of listing keywords.
The page title must be different from the H1 title.
Do not write text in two or more languages - the only exception would be for bilingual regions.
An example of a good Title:
Buy boots in Kiev at low prices | shoes planet
Buy boots in Kiev at low prices | shoes planet
An example of a bad Title:
Boots. Prices in Kiev. Buy boots in Kiev.
Boots. Prices in Kiev. Buy boots in Kiev.
What should be written in the meta Description?
The description must be accurate and match the content of the page with a relevant referring link. It is important to monitor and adapt the relevance of the Description tag if needed when changing the content on the page.
The description of the tag should be unique for each page of the site, or at least for the most key pages. You should not use ready-made Description templates.
The description language should match the language in which the page content is written. It should not use 2 or more languages.
The content of the tag should convey the main idea of the page, for example: the main features of the product or the stages of the process.
The text of the description should be human-readable: easy to read, not consisting only of keywords.
An example of a good Description:
Women's leather boots with heels at a price from the manufacturer. Comfortable, high-quality shoes in Kiev. Over 300 positive reviews. Photo and video review of women's boots.
Women's leather boots with heels at a price from the manufacturer. Comfortable, high-quality shoes in Kiev. Over 300 positive reviews. Photo and video review of women's boots.
An example of a bad Description:
Leather boots to buy Kiev. Boots at affordable prices. Inexpensive shoes. Buy women's, men's and children's shoes.
Leather boots to buy Kiev. Boots at affordable prices. Inexpensive shoes. Buy women's, men's and children's shoes.
The optimal Description length is about 160 characters. It is not recommended to use either too short (a few words) or too long (more than 200 characters) descriptions.
How to check meta tags for errors?
There are a number of ways to check meta tags for errors:
View the source code of the page. Using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + U, you need to go to the code view page and check the contents of the meta tags in the <head> section
Using browser extensions. There are many extensions for different types of browsers. Serpstat has created such extensions for different browsers, just choose one to quickly view the content of tags and find errors: for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge.
Using bookmarklets. The bookmarklet looks like a browser bookmark. It is a clickable extension that displays a list of the page's meta tags.
With tools. In order to check the meta tags of all pages of the site, it is convenient to use the Serpstat audit, which will help you detect errors in the meta tags. After scanning the site, you can select tabs with tags of interest and analyze them in detail.
Using SaaS services. For example, Serpstat allows you to analyze meta-data and detect errors, indicating the priority of the error's correction.
What are common mistakes when filling in meta tags?
In order for the site to rank well in search engines, and for users to easily find the pages they need, it is important not to make the following mistakes when filling out meta tags:
Using too long a title. More than 200 characters is not recommended.
Using a title that is too short and does not reveal the content of the page.
Too many keywords in the text. The text should be easy to read, the keywords should be consistent.
Ignoring keywords in the text. The title and description must include at least one keyword each.
Not using unique text. You should not create meta tags according to a template or copy from competitors. The text must be created for a specific page.
Why does Google replace Title and Description in search results?
In September 2021, there were changes in the display of meta tags in Google, which were called Titlepocalypse. From that moment, new search engine recommendations for filling in the Title and description tags began to operate. Therefore, in order for meta tags to be displayed correctly, it is important to write them according to the following rules:
The search engine can independently pull up the description from the site's text, thereby perhaps choosing an irrelevant fragment. To prevent this from happening:
A unique title for each page, indicated by the <title> tag and up to 70 characters long.
The title should contain information about the product / service and its main advantages, a moderate number of keywords should be used.
The text is unique, it is not created according to a template and without the use of formal descriptions (for example, "Site Gallery").
The text should be unique, human-readable and relevant to the page.
The text of the description should contain important and concise information: the cost of the goods, the name of the manufacturer, the phone number of the company, etc.
The length of the text should be between 150 and 170 characters on average.
How to improve page meta tags
To improve page meta tags, use Serpstat's Text Analytics tool. It was created to optimize texts and search for errors on site pages, including meta tags. If the content of the page isn't relevant to the page topic, its contentshould be changed to increase the relevance to search queries.
Create a statement of work for copywriters based on competitor content from the top 15 Google search results.
Analyze page text ranking factor and expand semantic core.
Select effective keywords and LSI.
How to collect semantic core for meta tags
You can collect an effective semantic core for meta tags using the keyword analysis tool. Collect relevant keywords in your topic, select synonyms, as well as search suggestions and search questions.
With filters, it is easy to select the most relevant keywords, and then add them to meta tags so that users find your page more often.
With filters, it is easy to select the most relevant keywords, and then add them to meta tags so that users find your page more often.
Collect relevant keywords by analyzing your audience's search queries. Crawl competitors' keywords to add an effective semantic core to your site's meta tags.
Learn more about Serpstat's SEO and PPC in a free 30-minute consultation.
Learn more about Serpstat's SEO and PPC in a free 30-minute consultation.
Generate correct and traffic-converting meta tags with Serpstat keywords
FAQ. Common questions about meta tags
1. How to add a meta tag to the site?
- The webmaster will need access to an HTML editor to add a meta tag to a site.
- In the editor, you need to find the "Snippets" section and switch to the section, which contains the code needed for meta tags.
- The code needs to be inserted at the end of the document in the editor and the changes are saved.
2. What are meta tags in HTML?
Meta tags are categories that are needed to structure metadata about a site page. Most often, tags are specified in the heading
of an HTML document. The meta element accepts 4 attributes: name, content, http-equiv and scheme, only the content attribute is required, the rest are optional.3. Keywords: need to fill in?
Keywords is a meta tag in the form of a code snippet that is needed to specify a list of keywords on a page. In the 90s, optimizers tried to fit as many keywords into the semantic core as possible, which made the keywords tag irrelevant because it did not display the exact content of the page. Search engines made penalties for pages with an oversaturated keywords tag. Since the 2000s, filling in the keywords meta tag has been optional and does not affect rankings. However, some experts believe that the tag is still worth filling in, because search engine algorithms can change.
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