Websites are built to promote businesses and to drive traffic. A vast majority of web visitors generally, come from search engines. One of the most effective ways of engaging with your target audience is via the use of HTML tags for search engine optimization. HTML tags are mini snippets of perfect HTML coding that are capable of telling search engines on how to effectively read your content. Moreover, you could immensely enhance search engine visibility simply by incorporating SEO tags precisely in HTML.
HTML tags are supposed to be code elements associated with the back-end of every web page. However, certain precise HTML code types are known for providing search engines with strategic information for the SERP display. These elements would necessarily highlight just a few precise parts of the content that seem to be relevant and just right for search engines and they would be describing those elements specifically to facilitate search crawlers. You no longer need to consider utilizing all these additional code tools. Search engines are certainly becoming smarter and today, HTML tags are not used frequently as the past. However, a few tags still seem to be very much in vogue while some tags have gained tremendously in terms of digital marketing agency Auckland value.
As per Searchenginejournal.com, the focus and attention of search engines have shifted steadily towards content quality, its relevance, its structure, and overall UX from authority. Hence, if a business is aspiring for online success, all these factors must be taken care of. We know that previously SEO tags have been successful in leaving a profound impact on your SERP rankings. However, today, SEO tags are regarded as the most debated facets of on-page SEO. Currently, some tags are still very crucial while some have become obsolete. Let us explore some of the key HTML tags for search engine optimization that are still very much in vogue in 2020.
Title Tags
A truly critical HTML tag for SEO is the title tag. This is supposed to be your content’s label and precisely how searches would be seeing your webpage on Bing and Google. All results that are visible in a search engine come from specifically the title tag. We understand that title tags are utilized for setting up all the clickable headlines that are visible in the search engine results page. Usually, Google has the responsibility of creating a SERP headline for every page and it could be using any section heading that is present within the page. Alternatively, it could consider creating a new headline. However, the very first place Google would be heading for checking out headline ideas would be the title tag. Google would be most probably using the title tag as the main headline in the related listing. Hence, you must focus on optimizing your content’s title tag for gaining a firm grip over how your specific page is being represented in the search engine ranking page.
Title Tags Best Practices
Remember that your title must have the specific keywords that should be helping it to appear higher in the search results. Moreover, your title must necessarily be enticing enough for users to feel like clicking through hence, a balance is necessary between user experience and search engine optimization.
Google would be showcasing only the first fifty to sixty characters of the content’s title and leave out the rest. So you need to watch the length. Your title could be longer than just 60 characters but you must ensure that you have incorporated all the critical information before the specified cut-off point. Moreover, you must keep in mind that keyword stuffing would surely be penalized, however, you could consider including a couple of keywords within the title. You need to pay attention to the fact that your title is successful in forming an intelligible and coherent sentence. You must focus on writing a good copy. Refrain from being too generic. Come up with truly descriptive titles highlighting the inherent worth of your content and establish proper expectations making sure users are not disappointed once they end up visiting your page. Consider adding your unique brand name to the title provided you are having a recognizable brand that has the potential of boosting your CTR.
Image Alt Text
Alt-text has been one of the fundamental accessibility features included in web standards for a long time. Vision impaired visitors or those with poor internet connections can pick up on the content of an image using the alt text if the image doesn’t load. This is equally valid for a case in which the site is poorly configured and the browser is not able to load the images. That said a vital secondary use of alt-text is search engine image indexing. Google and major search engine crawlers use alt text to index images on web pages, and this is something you absolutely must factor into your SEO strategy. If you have visual content on your web pages, whether it is stock photos, art, or product images, you should always have relevant and adequately descriptive alt text.
Image Alt Text Best Practices
All visual content on your website should have alt text. While you can definitely remember this when setting up the page, human error is an element that always creeps in. This is why it is a good idea to use a tool like WebSite Auditor that can crawl your webpage and list out all the images that don’t have alt text. You can then address them individually.
Good alt text is anywhere between one to two sentences long. It must adequately but concisely describe the pictured content to a visitor who is not able to see it. While conciseness is generally a good idea, it is something that can very easily be overdone. A few words might be too brief and might do a poor job of differentiating the image from other images on your site, as well as, the web in general. You should imagine all properties being shown in the image, ranging from objects, shape, finish, color, material, background, lighting, and so on. Keyword stuffing is a terrible SEO practice that is ineffective and might do more harm than good, and this is equally valid for your alt text. Don’t try it.
Conclusion
These are the top two HTML tags that are still critical in 2020 to my mind. However, we must realize that search engines are fast becoming smarter than ever hence, there is very little need or scope for optimization of HTML tags since most things could be effectively derived algorithmically. Moreover, most cutting-edge CMS systems would be adding these elements easily with WYSIWYG HTML Editor in some capacity at least.