For those of you who might now know what meta data is, here is a brief definition:
Meta data is information about a particular online object that search engines use to index the object. The meta data that you would use on a blog post includes a meta title, meta description, and meta keywords.
Let’s break these down:
Meta Title: The meta title is a keyword-rich title that only search engines see. They use this to index your page. The search engines can also see your meta description and meta keywords, which also assists them in indexing your page properly.
A title tag should start with keywords and be anywhere from 8 to 12 words in length, with important keywords toward the beginning of the title. Use only 1 – 2 keywords in your title. This is the MOST important location for keywords in a document used to rank web pages.
It’s also extremely important to note the difference between meta titles and post titles. The difference is that meta titles should be keyword rich for optimization purposes. The meta title has to be both catchy and keyword-rich. The reason for this is because the meta title is what appears on the search engine results page and must be enticing enough to encourage browsers to click through your title on the search results pages. Also, keep in mind that your meta title should be 60 characters or less.
Meta Description: The meta description for a blog post is an elaboration of the meta title. The description is used to describe the page or post in search results. The description is NOT used for rankings. Your meta description for each post should be informative and 165 characters or less to ensure that the full description can be seen on the search engine results page. Your main keyword phrase for the post should also be incorporated into the description of the blog and should be toward the very beginning of your description to ensure that the search engines index the keyword.
Meta Keywords: Lastly, meta keywords are the main keywords your readers will be using in search engines to search for your blog.
One thing to always keep in mind when adding meta data to your blog posts is that you never want to duplicate title tags. This is frowned upon by search engines.
If your blog is on WordPress.org, you can upload the All in One SEO pack plugin, which enables you to add meta data to each blog post.
The All in One SEO Pack plugin is used to describe your post to the search engines. When the search engines read your customized meta data in your All in One SEO Pack for each blog post, they can then index and rank your post based on the information you provided in the meta data sections.
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