Meta tags are snippets of HTML code that play an essential part of on-page SEO because they tell search engine bots important info about each page. The meta title and description are visible in listings that display in organic search engine results pages and play an important role in driving traffic to your site.
Sites built with modern content management systems, like WordPress, all have various meta tags that can be used to improve search engine optimization.
How to Update Meta Tags on a WordPress Site
There are multiple ways to edit meta tags on a WordPress site so it’s important to make sure to find a method that works and stick with it. Being consistent with how you make changes to a site for SEO will help you keep track of what’s been done and what’s working. The Yoast SEO plugin is a fantastic tool for making changes to meta info that will be displayed in search results and analyzing how effectively content on any page/post is targeting a specific term. Other meta tag settings can be updated with native settings available in the WordPress Admin Dashboard.
Once you have a tool to update meta info with and you’ve confirmed it’s working you can start optimizing pages for your SEO goals. Here is a review of the most important meta tags for SEO.
Meta Robots
Confirming the meta robots tag is configured correctly is important because it tells search engine bots if they should crawl your web pages. Web pages that can’t be crawled can’t be indexed which makes it impossible to rank on Google.
Making sure the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” option in the Settings > Reading tab is disabled is essential for WordPress sites to allow for indexing.
Meta Title
The meta title is the page title that Google displays on search engine results pages after indexing your site. Google acknowledges that titles are a critical component of any page because they give people quick insight into why content on your page is relevant to their query. The best meta titles include valuable search keywords and are able to entice people to click to find out more.
Tips for Writing the Best SEO Meta Titles for your Site
- Each title should be unique to avoid duplicate content
- Use titles that are relevant to page content
- Stay away from vague titles
- Consider search intent
- Always include focus keywords where relevant
- Keep title length under 60 characters
Meta Description
The meta description, like the meta title, is displayed with page listings on SERPs. Meta descriptions should be used to give potential visitors more info about the content found on a particular page and convince them your site has what they’re looking for.
Tips for Writing Effective Meta Descriptions
- Each description should be unique
- Should be related to page content
- Stay away from vague descriptions
- Consider search intent
- Always include focus keywords where relevant
- Keep description length under 160 characters
Schema Markup
Schema markup is used to specify how content on a specific page relates to site as a whole and is a huge boost for SEO. Adding structured data to a page gives search engine bots the info they need to understand how keywords relate to user search intent and how to display info effectively on SERPs.
Using custom post types with structured data for things like products, events and reviews is a no-brainer for improving organic rankings.
Connect Meta Tags with Overall SEO Strategy
Using your meta titles and descriptions to map out SEO content and find opportunities where content may be lacking is a good way to keep content fresh and related to your focus keywords. Unique info for each will help ensure you avoid duplicate content and continue to post new pages or posts that will do the most to improve organic search rankings.