In the world of SEO, metadata is definitely considered one of the most important factors when optimising.
And, while Google is lessening the importance of metadata, it’s certainly not ignoring it.
Let’s take a look at some metadata best practices that’ll help you get your site seen.

Metadata Best Practices

What Is Metadata?

In short, metadata is data about the data on your site.
It’s a brief summary you give to crawlers to let them know what your page is about.

Metadata can be broken up into 3 parts:

1. Meta titles (AKA page title)
2. Meta descriptions
3. URL structures

Meta Titles

Meta titles are the first thing you see on Google search results.
When it comes to figuring these out, it’s important to include your keywords early on.
Adding in your company name is great for branding purposes, since most people don’t usually keep the company name in mind when they’re looking for results – they just want what’s relevant to them.
When you write your meta titles, make sure it’s designed for humans – not search engines.
While they help crawlers figure out who to show your site to, it’s ultimately up to the user to decide what’s relevant to them.

Meta Title Best Practices

• Give each page a unique title
• Keep your title between 50 – 60 characters (including spaces)
• Put your most important keywords in first as naturally as possible

Meta Descriptions

Metadata best practices usually focus on meta descriptions, since they’re the most important as far as which metadata is focused on by crawlers.
The meta description’s job is to elaborate on your meta title by offering a short summary of what users can expect to find on your page.
While meta titles are more important in ranking from search engines, meta descriptions are ultimately what determines if the user will click through to your site.
If you’ve done well in your keyword research, your keyphrase will appear in bold for the user result, which will catch their attention, and make it more inviting for them to click through.

Meta Description Best practices

• Give each page a unique description that clearly indicates what the page is about
• Keep it between 150-160 characters (including spaces)
• Include the most important keywords as naturally as possible
• Avoid keyword stuffing – Google doesn’t like that
• You can make use of call-to-actions to grab attention as well.

URL Structure

URL structures are one of the most basic elements of metadata – and one of the most important.
At its core, your URL structure is the one that has the most sway on search engine crawlers.
Your URL structure’s job is to tell Google exactly what you’re talking about on each page.
If your meta title and description talks about one thing, but your URL says something else, chances are users won’t click through – and crawlers won’t show your page.

URL Structure Best Practices

• Make sure you’ve got an SSL certificate
• Stick to 50 characters
• Use “-” in place of your spaces
• Aim for 3 – 5 words in the URL.

Conclusion

If you’re looking to optimise your site to rank better, it’s definitely advised that you follow metadata best practice guidelines.
This is a place where user experience and search engine crawlers merge, and being able to find the balance isn’t just beneficial to your ranking – it teaches you how to create SEO-friendly content on the rest of your site, too.
With all of that being said, SEO can be difficult to do properly.
That’s why it’s always good to have an SEO agency helping you to help you ensure you’re giving Google the best possible results.