The meta tag generator is a nifty tool that can ease up Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work, particularly any on-page SEO to-dos. The generator automatically creates a meta data code with just a few input of information which can then be copied and pasted on the “head” of the page in question. This tool is particularly useful for HTML or flash websites or sites without a Content Management System (CMS).
Using it will indeed make on-page SEO a bit easier, but inputting data blindly will still lead to nowhere - knowing what information to put on the meta tag generator is still necessary to create effective meta tags.
This article will delve on the parts of meta tag generator and will include tips on what to put on those parts.
The title tag is probably the most important part of the meta data. It is the blue and largest text seen on the search results. That being said, it is the first bit of information that readers will see so creative title tags are needed in order to increase click-through rates. The characters that are visible on search results are also limited so one should keep the approximately (search engines vary on the character limit) 70-character limit in mind when putting information on the meta tag generator. Furthermore, it is also recommended that the main keyword be used in the title tag.
The meta description is the small snippet of text at the bottom of the title tag. Search engines use the meta description to identify what a page is about so carefully planning what the description contains is very important.
The meta description has a limit of about 150 characters (again, the limit varies from search engine to search engine) and is recommended to have the main keyword in it. Furthermore, a creative description is also advised and should be intriguing or curious enough to encourage clicks.
The meta keywords tag is the section where the most relevant – usually twenty keywords – are written so that search engine crawlers can categorize what the web page is all about. The practice has fallen out of favor however because search engines have actually evolved to be smart enough to not need meta keywords anymore. Therefore, if this section still exists on a meta tag generator, it is recommended to leave it blank.
There are pages that, for some reason, only benefit people but frowned upon by search engines. Examples of these pages are category and tag pages. While they may be useful for readers in terms of searching blog posts according to categories or tags, search engines will find them as duplicate content because of URL issues.
This is the reason why the robots tag is quite important – this tag tells search engine crawlers if the page should be indexed or not. Aside from that, more advanced generators will also include options if a page is desired to be “followed” or “nofollowed”. Some robots combinations include: index and followed, noindex and followed, index and nofollowed, and noindex and nofollowed.
A more advanced meta tag generator would often include miscellaneous tags like the re-visit tag and the abstraction tag. The re-visit tag defines how often a crawler checks up on a website. The frequency could range from daily to months. The abstraction tag simply adds the most important keywords (usually three) of the given page.
While these may not be necessities in the meta data, these options provided by a meta tag generator give a bit of flexibility when it comes to crawling preferences.
Conclusion
The tips outlined above on “designing” the meta data should help the reader become more acquainted with the meta tag generator.
