One of the most important parts of running an online business – whether it’s a retail website or a blog on WordPress – is that search engines understand what kind of content your website provides.
A great way to get this across is by using meta tags – but what are they and how can you add them in WordPress?
If your business uses WordPress but you are not sure how to add meta tags, then this is the guide for you.
We are going to guide you through step by step so you can use meta tags to your business’s advantage and hopefully see a huge improvement in your SERP results.
So, let’s take a look at meta tags in WordPress!
What Are Meta Tags?
First, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page when it comes to meta tags. So, what are they exactly?
Meta tags are basically a very small bit of text that describes the content of a webpage.
You cannot find them on the web page itself but it is secretly there so search engines can use it as a quick summary of what the webpage is about and what it contains – a bit like a tiny blurb for every web page!
You can see a meta tag when you use a search engine like Google. Underneath each link to the resulting websites and pages will be a very short sentence or snippet or text – this is the meta tag!
Search engines use these to decide if your website or webpage is relevant to someone’s search or query and so, a meta can improve your website’s SERP results.
A lot of internet users will quickly glance at the meta tag to see if the content of the webpage is relevant to our search and they can be a huge deciding factor on whether or not a visitor even clicks on your website.
So, metas can also improve click-through rates (CTRs) and can have a huge effect on your website’s revenue.
As a result, meta tags are super important – so let’s take a look at how you can add them to your WordPress website and webpages!
How To Add Meta Tags In WordPress
There are two different methods you can use to add meta tags to your WordPress website and web pages – using a plugin, or without a plugin.
Using a plugin can help streamline the process and makes adding meta tags a lot easier but if you don’t want to use one then there is a way around this too.
So, let’s take a look at both methods that you can use.
The Yoast SEO pugin is the most popular WordPress plugin that provides support for adding keyword meta tags and descriptions to your WordPress website and webpages.
There is a free and premium version available so this option is open to all.
First you will need to follow the above link and download the plugin. Then, log into your WordPress website and access the dashboard.
Under ‘Plugins’ you will be able to search for ‘Yoast SEO’ and then select ‘install’.
Once the plugin is installed, select the ‘activate’ button and the plugin will now be able to add meta tags to your posts and pages.
To do so, head to your post or page using the selections on the dashboard. Click on your desired page or post and then select the ‘edit’ button.
Scroll to the bottom of the edit page for your selected post or page, and there you will see the Yoast SEO section.
Here, you can enter keywords into the ‘Focus Keyphrase’ section. This allows you to enter your meta tags, and then enter your meta description by selecting ‘Edit Snippet’.
Here, you should insert a short description of your page’s content to encourage visitors. This will then be displayed on the search engine results page.
Remember to save the post or page, and to publish so it can be accessed by the public!
There are other plugins you can use to achieve the same goal, but Yoast SEO is acclaimed as the best plugin for meta tags because it’s free, easy to use, and effective.
So, if you want to use a plugin, we’d strongly recommend that you use Yoast SEO.
Adding Meta Tags Without A Plugin
If for whatever reason you don’t want to use the Yoast SEO plugin (it’s free!), then it’s still possible to add meta tags to your WordPress website.
You will have to open the header.php file for your website. To do this, open File Manager and find the <head> tag. Here, you can find your metadata and make additions or adjustments.
Under the opening <head> tag, your should paste this meta tag:
<meta name=”relevant keywords” content=”relevant keywords related to the content of your website” />
To add a meta description, paste the following underneath the above line and make adjustments to suit your website and its content:
<meta name=”meta description” content=”meta description for the content of your website” />
Fill in the placeholders with your own relevant keywords and descriptions so you can give a fair and accurate description of what kind of content your website produces.
Remember to save before you exit and soon, you should be able to see an improvement with your SERP results.
Final Thoughts
Meta tags and descriptions are super important to the success of an online business but new business owners can sometimes struggle to find where they can input them.
If you are using the popular platform of WordPress, then you have more than one free method available to you!
Follow the above guidance and soon, you will be able to input your relevant keywords and meta descriptions to help visitors find your website.
Although you will still have to do your own independent keyword research for better SEO results, at least you won’t have to struggle finding a way to input the fruits of your research.
So, choose the best method for you and follow the steps above! Good luck!
Hi, my name is Ollie Wilson and I have been a keen blogger since I was a young teen. I was growing up with the rise of YouTube and bloggers, and the people I followed influenced me to start blogging. They were making a lot of money from their blogs, and I wanted that too!
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