Meta Tags Are Still Important To SERP
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| Add structured data to your site to boost SERP! |
Even if you have heard that meta tags don't weigh as much on your SERP as they used to, you should know that they still do. It's just that not all the meta tags weigh exactly how they did back in the early 2000's. Really the only meta tag that no longer has a lot of weight is the meta tag for keywords. The other meta tags are still very much important and have actually been added to, in a sense.
Meta tags are part of the code of a website that search engines read to know what your page is about. These meta tags tell the search engine many things, one of which is what to display as the call to action text in the search engine results page. That particular tag would be the description meta tag, and is included in the head of the website code.
The meta tag for keywords were also put in the head of the website code before it was deprecated. What got it deprecated? Black hatters who went overboard making their meta keywords list longer than a 700 word article on a webpage that was filled with advertisement and gibberish. To try to prevent phishing, other scams, and spam, search engines replaced the use of keyword meta tags with other tags that would help describe the page contents better.
As I have been adding recipes and guides, as well as working on the code for this blog, I have been reminded to get this organic SEO meta tag information shared. Further on you'll see how recipes and guides kept reminding me to get this shared to help you learn white hat meta tag search engine optimization.
What Meta Tags Are Important In SEO To Rank On First Page?
There of course is the description meta tag, but did you know about recipe tags, and how to tags? Actually they are called structured data tags. I'm sure you can guess what these structured data tags do.
If your niche business shares recipes, travel hot spots, how to guides, vehicles, or pretty much any other niche, you definitely want to make sure that you're including these tags in the code of your website on the pages that need them.
Some platforms like HubPages have these structured data recipe tags and how to tags built in the widgets that you add to the page you are submitting content on. However, the widgets at HubPages come with a few price tags out of the normal cost of the programs you can buy for WordPress. The link explains those costs as well as let's those who read my work on HubPages know that I am putting all my current work here.
Another tag that helps optimize your page to get on the first page of search results is the ALT tag for images. Without the alt tag placed on an image, the search engine has no idea what the image is about, therefore cannot list it where it properly belongs in the search results.
We cannot use the alt tag on video, as video tags are html mark up attributions, and the alt tag is also an attribute. However, we can use the video title attribute to give the video some optimization for the search engines.
I happen to have found this Schema Markup Generator with many different structured data html templates that you can copy and paste into the html body of your page. You will need to be on a hosting platform that allows you the access to edit the HTML code to your blog or site.
Not only are there free how to and recipe schematic markup templates, but there are free product structured data templates, event schema markup templates, local business structured data templates, and a few more.
If you use a hosting platform like the blogger platform, you can use these free structured data html templates without worrying about messing up the main code, as they go directly into the post html.
I would share the ones I use here but the recipe and how to guide structured data templates on my blog are minus videos, aggregate ratings and nutritional values. Granted those are the only things not added or working, partly because I believe the Blogger Dynamic Views theme doesn't like to work with other scripts. Those structured data elements aren't on my recipes or guides because of a few reasons.
- I need to research the nutritional values for the recipes that I have shared (being as they are my own, and don't come with values that I can just copy from a cookbook).
- I'm still working on trying to get an aggregate code to work with my main blog template code.
- A lack of a good camera operator does not make a viral worthy video.
I only recently found the structured data generator, which is why mine are missing some elements, as I wrote my own templates for the articles on this blog due to Blogger theme interference issues with other templates I had found previously. However, I did try it out, and again I believe the Blogger Dynamic Views theme is interfering with the templates from the structured data generator.
As a side note; there will be a slight makeover to the Melting Pot Of How To's. Since I have been using the Dynamic Views template offered by blogger, which doesn't like to work with JavaScript out side the original template, nor does it like to provide a user friendly mobile layout. In order to get aggregate ratings working I will need to make my own blog template. I may share the Blogger template making process once I'm finished, so check back here often to see if I have added that guide.
Structured Data HTML Recipe Template Installation Directions
I have installed my structured data recipe template in the body of my posts towards the bottom of the page, but you can install them anywhere within the html <body> and </body> tags. You will need to copy the template code from the schema generator for the templates you want as the code snippets are just way to long to place in the text of this article and y'all would be hunting me down for making you scroll through such. Plus the generator allows you to put in all your site details in a form that inserts the information directly in the code so you don't have to edit any of the code.
Step 1: To install the structured data recipe template, go to the structured data generator at the link above. Select the structured data template you want. Fill out the information about your site on the form. Make sure you hit the button to add any recipe ingredients. Select the code then copy and paste it to your post's html code.
Step 2: Find where you want to put your recipe between the two body html tags I showed above. Paste the code where you have chosen. Please note: if you're using the blogger platform, the html editor will not show the <body> tags that is because the outer code of the webpage is hidden and not accessable in the html editor. However, you can paste the code anywhere in the editing field as it is within the <body> tags.You may skip steps 3 & 4 if you filled out the form completely.
Step 3: If you did not fill in the form you could be missing some important structured data elements and will need to not only add those elements, but fill in the text for all the values of the ingredients, directions, yeild, cuisine, author, etc. with your recipe values.
Step 4: If you did not fill out the form you will need to put the address of any images or video You want in the template by selecting the whole http:// address to the image or video and just copy and paste it into the double quotations " " in this html tag <img href=" " for images and paste video addresses again inside the " " in this script "contentUrl": " " or "embedUrl": " ".
Step 5: Save your work and take a look at your new recipe post so you can bask in the glory of your hard work.
Structured Data HTML How To Template Installation Directions
The how to structured data template is also installed between the body tags of the HTML document
and installing it is exactly the same as the recipe template. The only difference is the code you will be copying and pasting.
Step 1: To install the structured data How To template, go to the schema data generator at the link above. Select the structured data template you want. Fill out the information about your site on the form. Make sure you hit those buttons to add any supplies and tools needed for the project. Select the code then copy and paste it to your post's html code.
Step 2: Find where you want to put your how to guide between the two body html tags I talked about above. Paste the code where you have chosen. You may skip steps 3 & 4 if you filled out the form completely.
Step 3: If you did not fill in the form you could be missing some important structured data elements and will need to add those elements, as well as fill in the text for all the missing values of the html elements.
Step 4: If you did not fill out the form you will need to put the address of any images or video You want in the template by selecting the whole http:// address to the image or video and just copy and paste it into the " " in this html tag <img href=" " for images and paste video addresses again inside the " " in this script "contentUrl": " " or "embedUrl": " ".
Step 5: Save your work and take a look at your new how to post so you can bask in the glory of your hard work.
Structured Data Not Bringing Visitors Like You Thought?
Following all this information on optimizing html meta and structured data tags for a better search engine rank will help you get your page ranked on first page. However, I should warn that structured data may affect traffic in an unexpected manner.
As structured data provides the search engine with all the important information about the page, enough information may be displayed on the search engine to provide the person with what they were looking for in a rich snippet on the results page, thus they never visit your page.
I have caught myself just accepting the rich snippet full of all the important information offered by the search engines on the results page as a sufficient answer. As I've been caught not clicking onto the page, there are probably others doing the same.
However, not getting that particular traffic, is not actually a bad thing, because you really only want people visiting your site that want to spend time on your site. The ones that just grab a quick rich snippet of information will only do your analytics harm. If you have read: Organic SEO Can Stop Visitors Bringing SERP Down, you already know about the kind of traffic you need to get on page one of the search engines. If not you may want to hit that link now. Feel free to hit that SEO link in the menu to see what other page one SEO tips I have here.
If these html meta and structured data SEO techniques have helped you out, or if you need any help with the templates or otherwise, please let me know in the comments below. I appreciate your feedback, and hope you have a blessed day! Much love to you💕!