Meta tags are used by Google in so many ways and we don’t even know them all. All we know is that the search engines use them in order to find out more information about the websites they index.

Are meta tags still useful in 2018?

Google states that meta tags are not a factor that determines the ranking. However, it’s important to know that they indirectly influence the website's performance and play a major role if we talk about the click-through-rate. Meta tags are shown in the results pages. If they are well optimized and they include a good call-to-action, they could influence the users to access your website. And Google will see this and will rank your website better. The more users are interested in what you want to communicate, the bigger your chances to rank better in Google. Also, Google uses meta tags when it decides what snippets to show to the users. These boxes appear under your meta description and they can include information about prices, other website’s pages, reviews and many more.

But, if you want to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), the meta tags optimization is not the only thing you should have in mind. You have to create high-quality content, and the popularity you build in online must be as high as possible. Speaking about meta tags, there are two types: meta titles and meta descriptions.

The connection between meta tags and Google ranking

Once upon a time, Google used to search for hidden HTML codes in order to determine the rank that every website deserved to have. Nowadays, most of the search engines had evolved. Google doesn’t use anymore the information found in meta tags. It only analyses them so it can find the most relevant information that could be included in snippets.

What’s the importance of meta tags in SEO?

Basically, meta tags describe every single page in a way that can be read by search engines. Even so, Google pays attention to the ways they are created, so it can identify patterns of keyword stuffing. Also, meta tags can be an indicator for the quality of a page. Google takes into consideration the unicity of your meta tags, the quality of the information you provide to your users and the way your website pages are connected to each other.

Also, your meta tags can influence the way the users appreciate your website. Just think about this: every time you search on Google using a specific keyword, the first thing you see in the results page are the meta tags. If they are relevant to the search you’ve just made and they are appealing, you’re going to access that website just because they made you curious to find out more information.

How to write efficient meta tags

As we have already stated, your meta tags have to be unique and appealing. But make sure they represent your website 100%. Meta tags have to give some answers to Google and they have to indicate what’s your website about. If you help Google, you can consider that you gained a profitable friendship.

Your meta tags must suit you and they have to be relevant to your website. Also, you have to spend some time to decide what are the keywords that represent your activity. Think about the subject you cover and the concepts you treat on every single page and then decide what are your aims and your advantages in terms of user experience. Just after you have decided what is the most relevant keyword for every page of your website you can start writing your meta tags.

If you fulfill all these aspects, your chances to build a great reputation on Google and other social channels will grow. Don’t think according to articles or pages, think about the topics or the subjects you approach. Google wants to offer a great experience to his users, so you have to offer high-quality information. If you can accomplish all these standards, then you will have the possibility to rank better in search engine results pages.

The best SEO practices

Meta title example

<title>IQF - Individual Quick Freezing | IQF Tunnel Freezer | OctoFrost</title>

Meta description example

<meta property="description" content="The OctoFrost IQF tunnel freezer is the optimal solution for freezing a wide range of products, such as fruit, vegetables, seafood, cheese, pasta, meat & poultry. Unlike other freezers, the OctoFrost IQF freezer uses bedplates, which translates in a higher quality of the products and better energy efficiency!"/> </span></span></span></p>

As we have already said, your meta tags have to be unique. Be sensitive when you write them and don’t just copy-paste a text that you already have on that web page. If you have automatized writings, you won’t attract the users, so you won’t have any benefits. Also, it’s very important to use relevant keywords – use the same keywords you have already used when you optimized the content on that page. More than this, always keep in mind that appealing meta tags will bring you a better click-through-rate.

Meta titles

In 2018 it’s very important to have succinct meta titles that focus on the relevant keyword of every page. Last year, the length of the meta titles was limited to 65 characters. This year, Google changes the rules, so meta titles can have now maximum 70 characters.

Meta descriptions

Fortunately, Google decided to double the 160 characters limit of the meta descriptions. This is a very good change. If in the past we had to condense the essential information in just a few words, now we are able to create a more appealing meta description that will attract more visitors. Also, we have to take advantage of all those 320 characters. In case they are too short, Google is going to replace our meta descriptions with excerpts from our web page. This thing could affect the click-through-rate of the website.

Does Google use Googlebot meta tags to rank the websites?

These meta tags control the way that Google indexes the pages, telling them some specific rules. These are the values that Google understands:

• Noindex: prevents the page from being indexed ;
• Nofollow: don’t follow links from this page when looking for new pages to crawl;
• Nosnippet: don’t show a snippet of this page when displaying it in the search results;
• Noarchive: don’t display a “Cached” link for this page in the search results;
• Unavailable_after:[date]: remove this page from the search results after the specified date and time.