How Metadata Increases Your Google Rankings
November 23. 2021
When you are managing a website, your main goal is to attract as many visitors as possible. One of the best ways to achieve this is to boost SEO and improve your website’s ranking. But how to do this? The answer is simple – by writing good metadata. Metadata increases your google rankings and boosts the traffic on your website. If you are wondering how you can improve your SEO using metadata, continue reading. We’ll explain why metadata is important, how it influences your website’s ranking, and give you the best ways to write it.
What is metadata and why is it important?
When creating a website, you need to follow design trends and standards. On top of that, you will need to make sure that it’s among the first results in Google search and therefore, easily accessible to visitors. The best way to ensure your website ranks well is to write good metadata. But what is metadata and how does it actually work?
Metadata is data that describes other data. To put it in more simple terms, it’s almost like watching trailers before picking a movie to watch. Trailers give us an insight into a story and help us decide if the movie is worth watching. Metadata practically works in the same way – it gives search engines highlights of your websites and gives both visitors and Google context of the content you have there. Without metadata, Google or any other search engine would have to guess what your website is about, and consequently, you would have less chance to be ranked well.
Metadata is important for two reasons:
- Metadata gives Google insights into what your page is about. By having this information, Google can easier sort and rank your page as one of the results in user search inquiries.
- Metadata also let potential visitors know what your page is regarding. That way, it will be easier for them to decide if your website is worth visiting.
Most important metadata elements
The number of visitors on your websites is one of the most important site metrics to track when managing a website. As you’ll aim to attract as many visitors as possible, you need to make sure to incorporate different metadata elements into your website. Here are the most important ones:
- The meta title is basically the name of the page. It appears as the title in Google search results.
- The meta description is a longer description with relevant information that tells site visitors what your page is about.
- Headings and subheadings are the title of the page and main topic headings.
Making these three meta elements work for you is how metadata increases your Google rankings. The math is simple – the higher your site is ranked the more audience will you attract.
Ways metadata increases your Google rankings
Further in this article, we’ll explain how to write three metadata elements in a way that will help you improve your Google rankings. Make sure to install one of the best SEO checkers and make your job much easier.
How metadata increases your google rankings? By writing a killer meta title!
The first step towards improving your Google ranking is to think of a great title. However, have in mind that there is a big difference between good and bad meta titles. A good meta title succinctly describes what the page is about and makes it understandable to the audience. When writing a meta title, here’s what you should have in mind:
- Lenght of meta title – Try to keep it short and not longer than 50-60 words. You want it to appear whole in the search results.
- Keywords – Be mindful as Google and many other search engines look metadata when ranking results. Basically, the closer your meta title matches the exact term people are using, your page will be ranked higher. You need to do your research and find out which keywords have a decent volume of searches and include them in your meta titles.
Meta description helps visitors choose to read your page
The meta description is usually displayed on a search engine result page below the title and URL. Its’ purpose is to highlight the essence of your page but with a little bit more context and details. However, it doesn’t necessarily have to be displayed and it’s not an official SEO ranking factor. However, it still has a lot of benefits. The most important one is that it impacts the interest of potential visitors as it briefly explains why your page is worth checking.
In order to write a good meta description, pay attention to its length. Google search usually only shows the first 150-160 characters and make sure that it’s descriptive enough. To make this task as easy as possible, install one of the excellent WordPress plugins that can help you write the best possible meta description.
Metadata increases your Google rankings through headings and subheadings, too
Headings are very important for the readability of the page as well as for SEO. When reading the page, most readers will first scroll through it and only read headings and subheadings. If they look interesting and relevant to the main topic, they will make sure to read the paragraphs, too.
When it comes to increasing your Google rankings, headings help the bots know which keywords are most relevant for your page. Any key phrases included in heading and subheadings will have much more weight than any other text on your website’s page.
The bottom line
As you can see, metadata increases your google rankings in many ways and helps your content reach the widest possible audience. You need to make the content of your site easy for search engines to understand as that way you’ll make it easier for people to find. And the best part about it is that using metadata to boost your SEO is easy to do by yourself. With a little bit of effort, you can quickly master it.