Google SEO and the H1, Title and Description meta tags

How to use Meta Tags

Google SEO and the H1, Title and Description meta tags

In this article on how to use meta tags, we teach you everything you need to know about these important meta tags. If you are trying to optimize your website for google search results then you need to pay attention to the title and  Description meta tags  and H1 – H6 header tags.  This information is straight and to the point. It is from the Google Search engine Optimization Starter Guide. It is "White Hat" SEO and you will dop your readers a favor by following these practices AND get more free search engine traffic. You can click on this link to read our article which tells you all about White Hat and Black Hat SEO.

How these Meta tag helps your readers and Search Engines

1) The Title Meta Tag and SEO and Search engine results:

You must create unique, accurate page titles for each page of your blog just as you would have unique keywords and content.. The Title Meta Tags purpose is to tell both readers and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. The Title Meta tag should be placed within the header tag of the HTML document. Ideally you should create a unique title that reflects the contents of the article.

Good practices for page title meta tags

• Accurately describe the page's content – Choose a title that effectively communicates the topic of the page's content.

Don’t:

  • Use Title Meta Tags that have nothing to do with the page just to fool the search engines
  • Use meaningless or default titles like “an Article” or my blog entry 7”

Be sure to Create unique Title Meta tags for each page – Each of your pages should ideally have a unique title meta tag, which helps Google know how the page is distinct from the others on your site.

Avoid using a single title meta tag across all of your site's pages or a large group of pages

Use brief, but descriptive titles – Titles can be both short and informative. If the title is too long, Google will show only a portion of it in the search result

Don't:

  • Use extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users
  • Stuff unneeded keywords in your title meta tags. It won't help your search rankings and it will keep users from clicking on your article in the search engine results page (because they won't know what the article is about and will skip it).

2) Why the Description Meta Tag is critical to driving FREE search engine traffic to your blog

A page's description meta tag gives Google and other search engines a summary of what the page is about. Where as a page's title may be a few words or a phrase, a page's description meta tag might be a sentence or two or a short paragraph. Google Webmaster Tools provides a handy content analysis section that'll tell you about any description meta tags that are either too short, long, or duplicated too many times (the same information is also shown for the Title Meta tags). Like the Title Meta tag, the description meta tag is placed within the <head> tag of your HTML document of  your site.

Good practices for description meta tags

Accurately summarize the page's content – Write a description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result.

Don’t:

  • Be vague or misleading. The Description Meta Tag must describe the pages content
  • Use generic descriptions that lack detail. Tell the reader what the subject is about
  • Try to be clever and fill the description meta tag with keywords. It is meant to be read by human
  • Try to fit the entire article into the description meta tag

DO use unique descriptions for each page – Having a different description meta tag for each page helps both users and Google, especially in searches where users may bring up multiple pages on your domain (e.g. searches using the site: operator). If your site has thousands or even millions of pages, hand-crafting description meta tags probably isn't feasible. In this case, you could automatically generate description meta tags based on each page's content.

Don’t

• Use  Description or Title meta tags across multiple pages.

3) Use heading tags (H1 – H6 tags) appropriately

Heading tags (not to be confused with the <head> HTML tag or HTTP headers) are used to present structure on the page to users. There are six sizes of heading tags, beginning with H1 tag, the most important, and ending with H6 header tag, the least important

Since heading tags typically make text contained in them larger than normal text on the page, this is a visual cue to users that this text is important and could help them understand something about the type of content underneath the heading text. Multiple heading sizes used in order create a hierarchical structure for your content, making it easier for users to navigate through your document

Google SEO and the H1, Title and Description meta tags - Basic rules of thumb for the H1 – H6 Meta Tags according to Google

• Imagine you're writing an outline – Similar to writing an outline for a large paper, put some thought into what the main points and sub-points of the content on the page will be and decide where to use heading tags appropriately

Don’t

• Go crazy with the H1 Meta Tag thinking it will make Google rank your page higher. The H1 – H6 Meta tags should guide your reader thru the structure of your article. If you do this correctly it will guide Google thru it as well and your page may rank higher for what it is about. This would translate into better traffic for your site.

• Use H1 – H6 heading tags where other tags like <em> and <strong> may be more appropriate

• Be inconsistent  by jumping from one header tag size to another all over the place. Readability and structure that makes sense is the goal

DO Use headings sparingly across the page – Use heading tags where it makes sense. Too

many heading tags on a page can create that screaming affect and readers quickly ignore it or tire of it and leave.  For those readers who stay it can make it hard for users to scan the content and determine where one topic ends and another begins.

Finally, Don’t put an entire paragraph in a  heading tag and don’t use the heading tags and color for styling. Use the fonts, sizes and color for that.

Do these things and your readers, and Google will be able to understand your article better and you should rank higher and have users who stick around longer.

 

WordPress Meta Tag Plugins -here is an automated On Page SEO WordPress plugin to consider: 

If you are struggling with On Page SEO or don't know what on page SEO is then click the link below and read our review of the Clickbump SEO WordPress Plugin:

The Clickbump SEO Plugin for WordPress

This blog uses the Clickbump SEO Plugin as do many of my other blogs.

Here is what I like about the Clickbump SEO PLugin

1) It is a wordpress plugin that works while you work on your blog.

2) That means no jumping back and forth between an off page tool and your blog post.

3) It automatically performs some of the tasks and the rest it keeps a running list on to the right of your blog.

4) It keeps an SEO score for the article your writing, the goal is to get the   SEO to 100% and it tracks your progress.

5) It tells you exactly what problems that remain that you need to fix.

6) Everyone knows that on page SEO is half the battle and this solves it for you

7) Its inexpensive and comes with a money back guarantee

8) You get to use it to Optimize your sites pages. If their positions in Google don't improve you can return it and get a 100% refund right away. Cool. No risk.

Finally you can click on this link to go to our main page for more great WordPress SEO Articles!

OK thats it for our Meta Tags Usage Article!

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6 Comments

  1. Thanks for this! I’ve been searching all over the web for the data.

  2. I will use your advice from now on. Jaap

  3. Random question: I am starting my own blog to share my photography experiences. Do you find it hard or easy to post consistently?

  4. Landon says:

    I just recently purchased Seoprocessor and am going through some of my posts to try and "clean" them up.  Hopefully, it will do what it promises to do!  Good information on the H1 tag information as well.

  5. Magnificent issues altogether, you just gained a emblem new reader. What may you recommend about your submit that you made a few days in the past? Any certain?

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