Meta tags are an important element for the natural referencing of your website. They allow search engines to understand the key information of your site and to display it in search results.

In this article, we will take a tour to present the most important Meta tags for SEO and discover how to use them effectively to optimize its positioning on the search engine results pages (SERP).

Meta tags: Definition and function

Meta tags are information hidden in the HTML code of a web page that provide information about the page to search engines. They are inserted in theheader of the web page and are not visible on the page itself. Meta tags are very important for SEO because they allow search engines to quickly understand the content of your web page and display it appropriately in search results.

The essential Meta tags

The most common Meta tags include the Title, Meta description and Robots tags. The Title defines the title of your web page that appears in search results, while the Meta description provides a short description of your page that also appears in search results. The Robots tags help control the indexing of your page by search engines.

It's important to understand Meta tags and how to use them correctly to improve your website's SEO. By using Meta tags effectively, you can increase your website's visibility on search results, attract more qualified traffic and improve the user experience.

The list of Meta tags

Meta Title tag

The Title, or Meta Title tag, is one of the most important Meta tags for SEO. It defines the title of your web page that appears in search results. It is important to choose a catchy title that concisely describes the content of your page. It is recommended to limit the number of characters to 55 so that the title is complete and readable in search results.

Meta Description tag

The Meta description, or Meta Description tag, is another crucial Meta tag for SEO. It provides a short description of your web page that appears in search results. This description should be informative and catchy to entice users to click on your link. It is recommended to limit the length of the description to 160 characters to ensure optimal readability in search results.

Meta Keywords tag (obsolete)

The Meta Keywords tag was once used to provide a list of keywords that described the content of your web page. However, this tag has become obsolete as many webmasters have abused this feature by using an excessive list of keywords to trick search engines. Modern search engines no longer consider the Meta Keywords tag in their ranking algorithm.

Meta Robots tag

The Robots tag, also known as the Meta Robots tag, allows you to control the indexing of your web page by search engines. You can use this tag to prevent search engines from indexing certain pages on your website, such as duplicate content pages or test pages. There are several values for this tag, such as "index" to allow indexing or "noindex" to prevent indexing.

Link Rel Canonical tag

The Canonical Link Rel tag is used to tell search engines which is thepreferred version of a web page that has similar URLs or duplicate content. This tag helps prevent duplicate content and improves your website's ranking. You can use this tag to tell search engines that you prefer the original version of your web page to be indexed.

Meta Viewport tag

The Meta Viewport tag is used to define the width your website is displayed on mobile devices. This tag is important for mobile SEO, as it helps control how your website displays on mobile devices and can improve the user experience. It is recommended to use the value "width=device-width" so that your website automatically adapts to the user's screen width.

Meta Refresh tag (obsolete)

The Meta Refresh tag used to be used to automatically redirect users to another web page after a certain time. However, this tag has become obsolete and is no longer recommended for SEO, as it can be considered an abusive practice by search engines and can hurt your ranking. It is better to use HTTP redirects (301 or 302) to redirect users to another page.

Meta Property tag for social networks

Meta Property tags are used to add additional meta-data to your website for social networks. They allow you to control how your website is displayed on social networks when it is shared. For example, the "og:title" tag defines the title of your web page for social networks, while the "og:description" tag defines the description of your web page for social networks. It is important to use these tags to improve the visibility of your website on social networks and attract more traffic. This is also why it is important to configure Open Graph Image.

Meta Charset tag

The Meta Charset tag is an important element for the correct rendering of characters on your web page. It allows browsers to understand how to display the characters on your page, by specifying the character encoding used.

This tag is often included at the top of your HTML page and looks like this:

<!-- fs-richtext-ignore --><meta charset="UTF-8">

The UTF-8 character encoding is generally the most widely used and compatible with most browsers, so it is highly recommended to use UTF-8 for your Meta Charset tag.

Meta Author tag (obsolete)

The Meta Author tagidentifies the author of the content on your web page. This information can be useful for search engines, content aggregators and readers who want to know more about the content author.

The Meta Author tag looks like this:

<!-- fs-richtext-ignore --><meta name="author" content="John Doe">

It is now recommended by Google to use rel=author instead.

Meta Generator tag

The Meta Generator tag identifies the software used to generate the web page. This information can be useful for web developers and administrators who want to know more about the technology used to generate the site.

The Meta Generator tag looks like this:

<!-- fs-richtext-ignore --><meta name="generator" content="WordPress 5.7">

It is optional to include the Meta Generator tag on your website, but it can be useful to provide information about the technology used to generate your site.

Meta Language tag

The Meta Language tag is used to define the language of your web page. This information is important for search engines to understand the language of your content and thus provide relevant search results for users.

The Meta Language tag looks like this:

<!-- fs-richtext-ignore --><meta name="language" content="fr-FR">

Meta Site Verification tag

The Meta Site Verification tag is used to verify the ownership of a website with search engines such as Google, Bing, etc. This step is necessary to be able to use search performance tracking tools, competition tracking tools and search engine optimization tools.

The Meta Site Verification tag looks like this:

<!-- fs-richtext-ignore --><meta name="google-site-verification" content="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890">

The value contained in the Meta Site Verification tag will depend on the search engine you wish to verify. It is important to follow the instructions provided by the search engine to properly include the Meta Site Verification tag on your website. In particular, you can validate your property for Google Search Console.

In conclusion, Meta tags play a crucial role in optimizing your website for search engines. They provide key information about the content and structure of your website, as well as how you want your pages to be displayed in search results.

It is important to understand each Meta tag and use them correctly to maximize the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. From the Meta Title tag to the Meta Site Verification tag, each element has an impact on how your website is perceived and ranked by search engines.

By including these Meta tags on all pages of your website, you can improve your search rankings, increase your website's visibility and ultimately attract more qualified traffic to your website.

Discover the checklist to optimize your Webflow website for SEO or our complete Webflow SEO Guide!