Meta tags and local SEO optimization. How to take care of them?

If you’re using local tactics to drive more customers to your business, it’s important to optimize your website properly, so it ranks highly in search engines like Google and Bing. One way to increase your organic rankings is by optimizing your meta tags, the data that web crawlers read as they read the code on your site in order to display content correctly. Here are some tips on how to optimize your meta tags for local SEO strategy!

What are meta tags?

Meta tags are descriptive bits of text embedded in the code of your web page. These tags let search engines such as Google understand more about what your website is about and what the best way would be to list it in their search results. The most important thing you can do with your meta tags is make sure that the most important keywords and phrases show up within them.

Types of meta tags

• Tag title,
• Meta description,
• Meta robots:
  • index,
  • noindex,
  • follow,
  • nofollow,
  • verify,
  • ALT.

How do I add tag tags?

Setting up meta tags is not very difficult. You just need to edit the HTML code, selecting the desired type for each line, depending on the requirements. If you have a website on WordPress, it’s much easier – One SEO plugin is all you need.

Love at first sight: SEO and tags

SEO is all about attracting organic traffic from search engines by providing them with well-optimized content. Meta tags are the little bits of code you insert in your site’s code to tell search engines what your page is about, where it’s located, and more. By optimizing these meta tags correctly, you can help your site rank higher in local search results and give searchers relevant information that they’re looking for.

Meta tags and click-through rate (CTR)

They are necessary in any local optimization strategy because of their link with click-through rate (CTR). Website visitors who come from organic and non-organic sources can be considered prospective customers that need to be incentivized with call-to-actions, or social media engagement for conversion. The best way to optimize your meta tags is by experimenting with different combinations of meta tags and content types until you find the perfect formula.

How you can optimize your meta tags?

Title Tag

The meta title, which appears as a blue hyperlink in the search results, should not exceed 70 characters. However, be sure to not adhere to the dimensions too strictly; it is more about the height of the letters and how much space they take.

Put your city name in tagline

Does your blog have a tagline? If not, it’s time to get one. Like a slogan or catchphrase, a tagline should be short and memorable. Think of it as your website’s slogan.

Meta description

The page’s description is displayed in the SERP right below the title to give an overview of the page’s content. Use keywords and call to action – but avoid being too intrusive, just like in the title. The description should be between 150 and 170 characters long, otherwise it may be truncated.

Include business address in the meta description

It is important that your meta description contains the address of your business, especially if you are a brick and mortar establishment. The meta description is the first text people will see when they click on your listing, so it’s crucial that they can find you by either entering in your address or by searching close to where you are located.

Meta robots

The tag serves various purposes, the index tag allows you to index the page and is set as the default, the noindex tag is designed to block indexing, the follow tag allows you to follow links, and the nofollow tag blocks indexing on the contrary, while the verify tag is a verification tag. when referring to the owner of a domain, while the ALT tag is used to identify graphics on the site.

Geo-tagging

The geo-tagging of a webpage can help search engines understand where the webpage’s content is specifically relevant and how it should be ranked. The tag includes the country code and state or province code, separated by a comma, so that both elements are clear. You’ll also want to consider adding other geographical information about your business such as the city and even down to street level details if you have them.

Image ALT Tag

Image ALT tags are important to optimize. Images can have text that can help define the business, and local search engines like Google Business Photos will recognize the address, phone number, and other metadata in the photo. The key here is making sure your images include relevant information about your business.

Worth knowing

1. Keep in mind that Google sometimes alters your meta tags, but don’t worry. We’re quick to notify you. An algorithm is an analysis tool that determines what is the most important part of the content in the user’s intention in order to scan the web. If they are changed, it means that the browser is doing the best it can to match the results to the user’s queries.
2. It’s a good idea to include your domain name in your meta tags if you operate an e-commerce site. This is not mandatory, but allows you to search for the page in your own name. We are able to mark our place in the ranking list due to our image on the Internet.

Last words

The idea of optimizing your meta tags can seem daunting at first. However, there are a few things you can do that will have a major impact on how often you rank for local searches and generate more organic traffic. It’s important to remember that most platforms like LinkedIn, Yelp, and Google+ allow you to fully customize the title, description, and other meta tags in the platform profile fields.