SEO Checklist - Part 4 - Meta Tag

Last blog post was about Domain Authority, Page Authority and Rank Checking concepts and techniques. Today I will talk about Meta Tag Analysis for your website.

Website Analysis: Meta Tag Analysis

What is Meta Data? Proper Title & Description with keywords incorporated in the right position and in the right ratio. 

The meta description tag in HTML is the 160 character snippet used to summarize a web page’s content. Search engines sometimes use these snippets in search results to let visitors know what a page is about before they click on it.

Image Source: Wix.com

This is the snapshot of a Meta Description that appears in the search results.

The significance of Meta Tags

In this data-driven world, Meta Description & Title play the important role of conveying the underlying definition or description of the web page. The importance of meta tags is that the search engines read them in order to compare if the keywords and the description are related to the visible content.

Tricks for writing good Title:-

1. Example: We are trying to write the Title for Edible Grocery category page for Chase.pk.
2. The page is about edible groceries available for online purchase from Chase.pk website in Pakistan
3. Find out the keywords that are closely related to the page content. The Keywords are: 
• grocery items, 
• grocery list, 
• groceries, 
• grocery, 
• grocery store, 
• online grocery, 
• online grocery
4. Basically, we have to use the following words in the title:-
   grocery, items, list, store, online. We can call these primary keywords.
5. We can also add the keywords: Pakistan, Karachi, Edible. We can call them secondary keywords.
6. According to Moz's handy reference, a title tag should follow this structure:
   Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name. So we can write the title like this:
   <title>Online Edible Grocery Store in Karachi, Pakistan chase.pk</title>
   Observe, the title consists of the primary keywords: Online, Grocery, Store, and the secondary keywords: Edible, Karachi, Pakistan along with the brand name: Chase.pk. 

Title Tag Checklist

According to Kristine Schachinger, a good title should consider the following aspects:-

1. Length: Title tags should be a maximum of 65-70 characters long, including spaces.
2. Keyword Placement: Your most important words (keywords) need to be first in your title tag, with your least important words being last in the title tag (most to least). However, if you’re working in a language that reads right-to-left, then it is reversed, and it would be least important to most important.
3. Keyword Separation: Use pipes | to separate important (keyword) phrases (no commas, underscores, dashes or any other punctuation unless the keyword is written that way).
4. Wording: Keep your important phrases short and simple. Leave out words that would make it read like a sentence. (e.g., and, if, but, then, etc.)
5. Company Name: If your company name is not part of the important (keyword) phrases, put it at the end of the title tag; if it is part of your important words, put it as the first words in the title tag. Some SEOs will tell you to leave it out. You can leave it in for branding purposes – so people will see the brand and click. This isn’t valid for all sites.
6. DON’T DUPLICATE Title Tags: They must be written differently for every page. Don’t mass replicate your title tags.
7. Make It Relevant: Title tags must be written to be descriptive of the content on the page. (e.g., the About Page would be:
   About | Important Keywords | Company Name or Important Keywords | About Us | Company Name

Find some examples of good Title Tags:

• Thebalancecareers.com
• Searchenginewatch.com

Tricks for writing good Meta Description:-

1. Example: Now are trying to write the Meta Description for Edible Grocery category page for Chase.pk.
2. The page is about edible groceries available for online purchase from Chase.pk website in Pakistan
3. Find out the keywords that are closely related to the page content. The Keywords are: 
• grocery items, 
• grocery list, 
• groceries, 
• grocery, 
• grocery store, 
• online grocery, 
• online grocery
4. Again, we have to use the following words in the description:-
   Primary Keywords: grocery, items, list, store, online.
   Secondary Keywords: shop, shopping, home delivery. 
5. We can write the title like this:
   <meta name="description" content="Avail wide range of grocery item list to shop online from Chase.pk. Experience the hassle-free grocery shopping with home delivery facilities."/>
   Observe, the meta description consists of the primary keywords: Online, Grocery, Item, List, and the secondary keywords: Shop, Shopping, Home Delivery along with the brand name: Chase.pk. 

Meta Description Checklist

According to Search Engine Watch, a good meta description should consider the following aspects:-

1. Keywords: do make sure your most important keywords for the webpage show up in the meta description. Often search engines will highlight in bold where it finds the searchers query in your snippet.
2. Write legible, readable copy: this is essential. Keyword stuffing your meta description is bad and it doesn’t help the searcher as they’ll assume your result leads to a spammy website. Make sure your description reads like a normal, human-written sentence.
3. Treat the meta description as if it’s an advert for your web-page: make it as compelling and as relevant as possible. The description MUST match the content on the page, but you should also make it as appealing as possible.
4. Length: a meta description should be no longer than 135 – 160 characters long (although Google has recently been testing longer snippets). Any longer and search engines will chop the end off, so make sure any important keywords are nearer the front.
5. Do not duplicate meta descriptions: As with title tags, the meta descriptions must be written differently for every page. Google may penalize you for mass duplicating your meta descriptions.
6. Consider using rich snippets: by using schema markup you can add elements to the snippets to increase their appeal. For instance: star ratings, customer ratings, product information, calorie counts etc.

Find some examples of good Title Tags:

• Kissmetrics.com
• Searchenginewatch.com
• Searchengineland.com

Use of Meta Tag Analyzer:

If you do not have time to analyze the meta tags for a website page manually use a meta tag analyzer like Seocentro's Meta Tag Analyzer. An example of how the analysis might look like is given below:-

Analyze the website meta well before you start doing on-page SEO for the site. This analysis is one of the vital considerations in case of search engine optimization.