How To Add Meta Tags To Your Website
Meta tags are little snippets of information that live inside of your HTML code. They help search engines understand your content. When Google or Bing sends crawlers over a page, meta tags help them understand what the content of the page is about through the use of meta tags.
Meta tags are typically used in three different ways: Title Tag, Description Tag, and Keyword Tag. You can learn more about each of them below:
Title Tag
The title tag is an important part of the SEO process because titles generally contain important keyword and branding information.
Description Tag
Description tags appear just below the title in search engine results. They communicate to both search engines and users exactly what the page will be about.
Keyword Tag
While keyword tags are no longer used for page ranking, they are quite helpful for internal organization.
For example, this page is titled “How To Add Meta Tags To Your Website”. The description tag will explain what the post is about and how it is helpful to readers, and the keyword is “add meta tags” for easy search.
It’s all so very meta…
Before you get lost in an unending cycle of websites and metadata, let’s take a look at some methods you can use to include meta tags for your own website.
WordPress Websites
For WordPress websites, there are a number of plugins that can help you easily add your meta tags. Yoast is a popular option that also provides you with additional tools to manage your website SEO. However, any meta tag plugin will do as long as it has a high rating, is updated often, and cooperates with the other tools you have installed.
DIY
You don’t have to install a plugin to update your meta tags. With a few spare minutes and some HTML basic knowledge, you can be on your way to meta tag heaven. Simply follow the steps below to add meta information to your web pages.
#1: Open a blank Notepad document.
#2: Log into the website and locate the web page you would like to add meta tags for.
#3: If you are using a website building interface like Website Builder or WordPress, locate the plain text option.
#4: In your notepad document, prepare the meta information to be copied and pasted into the HTML of your webpage. See the example below for the HTML you will need to include.
**Note: Text written in red needs to be replaced with your information.
<html>
<head>
<title>INSERT YOUR TITLE HERE</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”ENTER YOUR META DESCRIPTION HERE”>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”ENTER YOUR KEYWORDS HERE, SEPARATE WITH COMMAS”>
</head>
#5: Save the Notepad document. For a webpage, simply copy and paste the information into the header of your website. For an entire website, upload the Notepad document to your web server.