The importance of tags for SEO

The importance of tags for SEO

The importance of tags for SEO

This content describes the main TAGS for an ONPAGE optimization of a page (URL). This improves the results in Google SERP. The importance of tags for SEO

Understand the importance of tags for SEO

If your goal is to improve the visibility of your website and increase traffic, the tip is to look for a comprehensive and careful strategy. SEO.

While off-page tactics like link building are still recommended, SEO is of great importance in semantic search, which uses several sources to perform a search, not just secondary words.

It is not enough to just have authority, for search engines the quality of the content also makes a difference. The structure, relevance and user experience counts points for successful results.

How about investigating tags and their importance for SEO a little?

Tags generate new debates

In the past, tags had a significant impact on rankings. Now, however, they have sparked some debate. Are there any outdated tags? Which ones will always be of fundamental importance?

But to do this, you need to understand the role of each tag and assess whether its use will generate easier results for the search.

Whether these meta tags have title and description attributes, or even other tags classifying or organizing the content, in order to generate highlights in the content at hierarchical levels, the way we use tags and their impact on rankings is changing over time.

This is because search engines have become more intelligent, making much more connections between reading and interpreting data. Therefore, simply using tags in a manipulative way is already an outdated tactic.

But that doesn't mean that tagging is dead. Quite the contrary, it's alive and well, but new tags and ways of organizing data have emerged, which have generated a new approach.

Let's see some possibilities!

Title Tag

This tag belongs to the section , that specifies the title of a web page. It typically appears as a clickable title in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), social networks, and browsers.

Title tags provide a clearer and more comprehensive idea of ​​the content of the page. But they alone do not have a significant impact on rankings. In Google search engines, optimized, well-written titles and higher rankings still go hand in hand.

But in recent years, user behavior factors were being discussed as a key element of relevance, and a ranking signal for Google.

If we think about it, the page title is still the first thing a user will identify in their search results and that alone can encourage them to understand that that title corresponds to their query.

So, we can certainly consider that a good title can increase the number of clicks and traffic to a piece of content.

And this will certainly have an impact on rankings! But be careful because Google also no longer needs your title tag to include an exact match keyword to understand what the page is about.

Search engines are becoming much more efficient at reading and understanding content and context.

Now they also take a broader picture into account and are more likely to evaluate the content of the page as a whole. Have you ever heard that story that a book's cover can help sell it?

So, follow these tips to meet SEO best practices:

  • Create a good, catchy and strong title that describes the page content objectively.
  • Keep titles between 50 and 60 characters (so they don't get truncated)
  • Put meaningful keywords first, but in a natural way. Titles should be written for your visitors, not just for Google.
  • Use your brand in titles

Meta Description

The Meta Description is another paragraph of text that is also placed in the of a web page, typically displayed in a SERP snippet along with a page title and URL.

The objective is to convey to the visitor the essence of the content, with a few more details about the context.  

We can also consider it an essential ranking factor, because it has the opportunity to make a perfect invitation for the visitor to enter your page, based on the promise of a clear and comprehensive solution to their problem.

A good Meta Description can affect the number of clicks your page receives, as well as improving your CTR and reducing bounce rates. That is, if the content actually delivers on its promises, that is, if the Meta Description is realistic and inviting.

You can make your Meta Description as long as you want, but Google only considers it to be about 160 characters long. It really seems a bit difficult to present the answer to all your visitors' questions there.

So, pay attention to best practices:

  • Give each page a meta description that is clear about the value of the content.
  • Remember that Google snippets have a maximum of 160 characters to fill in the Meta Description.
  • Include important keywords but don't overdo it. Remember again: you write for people, not for Google's little robot.
  • If you want, you can use an eye-catching call-to-action, with a unique proposal or additional tips, for example.
  • Header Tags

Heading tags are HTML tags used to identify headings and subheadings in your content from other types of text.

The hierarchy goes from H1 to H6 with a sense of hierarchy. That is, H1 is the page header title and the most prominent tag that displays the page.

From H2 onwards, these are optional tags and are not considered important for search engines. They will organize – and a lot – the content in a way that provides a text architecture, for an easier way to navigate.

But using H1 correctly has been highlighted as an important element for good ranking, optimized classification and improved traffic.

In other words, for search engines, it is much easier to read and understand well-organized content with H1; and for users, titles and subtitles are like anchors in blocks of text, making it easier to digest the content.

Consider some elements to improve according to SEO best practices using title tags:

  • Give each page a unique H1, using primary keywords;
  • Use H2 to H6 tags using secondary keywords. But here's a friendly tip: in many pieces of content, it's not necessary to go beyond H3.
  • Don't overuse tags and keywords. They need to be legible to users.

Tags in italics or bold

Italic or bold tags can be used to highlight certain parts of the context and to add semantic emphasis.

But it's fair to say that robots aren't too concerned about this. On the other hand, they can improve readability and user experience, even though they aren't essential.

So, follow these tips:

  • Use only when it makes sense, avoid excess of these tags.
  • Scan a portion of the content to make sure it is not overloaded with bold and italics, which will make it difficult to read.

Meta keyword tags

In the early days of optimization, meta keywords were small snippets of text that were only visible in the code.

Over time, its use has become commonplace, a breeding ground for spam, rather than optimization.

Please note that Google now ignores meta keywords and does not give them any credit in rankings. In other words, they are completely obsolete.

Image Alt Attributes

Important in terms of optimization, image Alt attributes are in addition to any image tag to describe its content.

They serve to provide context since search engines cannot “see” images.

For Google, image alt attributes help search engines understand what images are and how they relate to the content.

In other words, a clear and relevant description increases the chances of appearing among Google image results.

Follow the tips:

  • Do your best to optimize the most meaningful images (products, infographics, or training images);
  • Add alt text to pages that don't have much content other than images;
  • Keep the Alt text clear and descriptive enough, using keywords embedded naturally.

Nofollow Attributes

External links are links on your website that point to other websites. They are used to refer to reliable sources or to direct you to other useful resources.

So realize that they are very important for SEO, because they can demonstrate that your content is a comprehensive, hand-crafted piece.

Note that Google really hates any manipulative linking tactics. These attributes can help the robot better understand the context of your page.

By default, all hyperlinks are dofollow, and when you place a dofollow link on your website, you are casting a vote of confidence in the linked page.

When you add a nofollow attribute to a link, it instructs search engine bots not to follow the link. By keeping your SEO clean, you would maintain a healthy balance between follow and nofollow links on your pages.

Consider the following types of links for nofollow:

  • Links to any resources that may be considered unreliable;
  • Any paid and sponsored links;
  • Comment links or other user-generated links, which may be beyond your control;
  • The internal “Login” and “Register” links follow, which is just a waste of budget and tracking.

Bots meta tag

A page-level robots meta tag with the content+= “noindex” attribute instructs search engines not to index a given page.

A nofollow attribute instructs not to follow any links on that page.

While these pages do not directly relate to rankings, they can have an impact on the overall appearance of the site.

For whatever reason, you may want to keep certain pages out of the SERPs. In these cases, Google recommends closing personalized results pages, which can be crawled indefinitely and waste bots on no unique content.

Therefore, in some cases the noindex and nofollow tags help a lot, because they offer more control over the website, as seen by search engines.

To follow best practices:

  • Close unnecessary or unfinished pages (such as drafts) that have little value and no intention of appearing in searches;
  • Close pages that waste crawl budget resources;
  • Make sure you don't accidentally restrict important pages from indexing.

Link Tag Rel = “canonical”

The Rel= “canonical” link tag is a way to tell search engines which version of a page you consider to be the main one.

This is the page that you would like to be indexed by search engines and for people to find.

It is typically used in cases where the same page is available at multiple URLs or different pages with very similar content.

We cannot say that internal duplicate content is treated as copied content, because there is usually no manipulative intent there.

But this can be confusing for search engines, unless you indicate which URL you prefer to rank, otherwise the engines may choose it for you.

This means that the selected URL will be crawled more frequently, while the others are left behind.

There is no risk of penalties for this, but it is not an ideal situation.

Canonicalizing a page also makes it easier to track performance statistics associated with the content.

Using a rel=canonical helps Google consolidate its efforts in one direction.

You should canonicalize the following pages:

  • Pages with similar content on the same topic;
  • Duplicate pages available at multiple URLs;
  • Versions of the same with session IDs or other URL parameters that do not affect the content.

Schema Markup (Structured Data)

This is a shared markup vocabulary recognized by search engines that allows you to organize data in a logical way via html.

A “semantic web” is a “meaningful web” where the focus shifts from keyword instances and backlinks to underlying concepts and relationships to those concepts.

Structured data markup is exactly what helps search engines not only read content, but also understand how certain words relate to each other.

SERPs have evolved so much that you don’t even need to click on the results to get an answer to your search.

If you combine a good image or photo with a rich snippet, which can be A 5-star rating, specified price range, stock status, hours of operation, or anything else that is useful and appealing to your consumer is much more likely to grab more attention and attract more clicks than plain text.

And user behavior factors like CTR and bounce rate also add to how search engines decide to rank your site.

Try to follow these tips:

  • Study the diagrams available in schema.org;
  • Create a map of your most important pages and decide on the most relevant concepts for each one;
  • Implement markup carefully (you can even use structured data markup helper);
  • Carefully test your markup to ensure it is not misleading or added incorrectly.

Social Media Meta Tags

Open Graph was introduced by Facebook to allow you to control how a page would look when shared on social media.

It is now also recognized by Google+ and Linkedin, while Twitter has its own exclusive cards.

By using these social media meta tags, you will provide a little more information about your page to social networks.

It's not essential, but by improving the appearance, you make the shared page more professional and inviting to click.

Follow these tips to improve the appearance of your page:

  • Add basic, relevant meta data using the Open Graph protocol and test your URLs to see how they will display;
  • Configure Twitter cards and validate them.

Viewport meta tag

The Viewport meta allows you to configure how a page will be sized and displayed on any device, whether on mobile devices or desktop.

It usually looks like this:

Where “width= device-width” will make the page match the screen width in pixels regardless of a device.

And “initial scale = 1” will establish a 1:1 relationship between CSS pixels and device-independent pixels, taking into account the screen orientation.

The Viewport meta tag has nothing to do with rankings, but it does have to do with user experience.

To reinforce about the tags

Keep in mind that some tags are still mandatory because they will make up the page's taxonomy. Others are not mandatory, but can position your site much better than its competitors.

Don't neglect the necessary adjustments to your strategy. SEO.

Small changes to tags can improve the user experience and help search engines understand your site better. This will improve your authority and also please the user, meaning these are adjustments that will make a difference in the long run.

 

The importance of tags for SEO

If you want to talk more about this topic, just call me, Rodrigo Sanchez.

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