One of the key ways to elevate your website’s search rank is to develop a complete approach to search engine optimization. Known as SEO for short, search engine optimization promotes your company’s website and brand online so that you receive more leads and increase total revenue. Optimizing a website to increase visitor traffic has become something of an art, and usually requires an SEO expert for outstanding results. Tags are one of the most important aspects of on-page SEO, but they often generate much confusion. Here we take a look at exactly what tags are, and how they help you achieve better search engine optimization.
Types of Tags And What They Do
Tags are words used to classify and organize information on a page. This makes it easier for both the reader and the search engines to find the relevant informational your site. Tags may or may not be seen by the website visitor, but they can always be ‘seen’ by the search engine. Because tags are read and analyzed by search engines, they are important to optimize. However, the importance of tags has changed drastically over the years.
There are a number of different types of tags used on websites with different levels of importance including title tags, header tags, meta tags, and blog post tags.
Title tags
Title tags are an element that is written into the code of your website that displays the title of your webpage. The title tag is what you see and click on a search engine when you find the page you want. Because title tags are so visible to both the visitor and the search engine, they are very important. Keywords in your title tag should match what the page is about, and help direct visitors and search engines to the right content for the right search. However, while title tags are important, they won’t make up for poorly written content or a lack of keyword research. With Google’s new semantic search analysis, ensuring that your content is high quality and contains relevant keywords is also key.
Header Tags
Just as a title tag describes what your whole page is about, header tags describe the content in smaller subsections or subheadings of your page. Headers tags can be given various levels of importance, from H1-H6 accordingly. While many websites neglect to add header tags, trends are showing that those sites with well planned header tags are viewed more favorably by search engines. In the last few years, the number of sites using header tags has increased. It’s important to speak with your web designer to establish whether your site is optimized with appropriate header tags for better SEO results.
Blog Post Tags
Blog post tags are a little different to other types of on-page tags in that they work within the platform or site that you post your blogs on. Blog post tags give quick indications of perhaps just a few words regarding what each of your blog posts are about. These tags act like an index of your posts. While blog post tags might not directly influence search engines, they can help to promote your content and website indirectly. Firstly they help to direct readers looking for specific topics to your content. Quality tagging can also help search engines better understand what your site is about. So while blog post tags won’t directly contribute to search engine optimization, they can influence the overall popularity and performance of your site.
Meta Tags
Meta tags were popular in the past as a way of including more keywords on your site for search engines to read. However, meta tags are no longer read by search engines, and adding in meta tag keywords could actually hurt your SEO strategy. Search engines won’t take your meta tag into account, but it can give away your SEO strategy to competitors, which never helps!
Learning what tags are and what they do can help you plan a better SEO strategy for greater website visits and revenue. Talk to your local web designer about how to best optimize your website using tags.
