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When talking about the correctness of the head section of a website in the context of SEO, we actually mean several of its elements, which for SEO efforts are very significant. The analysis of what is contained in the head section is a sizable part of any comprehensive SEO audit, and its optimization has a direct impact on the positioning of a given page.
What is the head section of a website?
The <head> section in the source code of a website is one of the fundamental parts of an HTML document. It is the place where you put metadata and other information about the page that is not directly visible on the page, but is relevant to web browsers and search engines.
What is in the head section of a website?
There are many elements in the head section of the website, here are the most common ones:
- Title
- Description
- Links to CSS style sheets
- Links to JavaScript scripts
- Links to site icons (favicon)
- Links to alternative versions of the site, e.g. for mobile devices
- Instructions on browser compatibility
Why is meta title important for SEO?
The meta title as a tag that defines the title of a page and its subpages is particularly important because it appears in organic search results, and it is its content that is supposed to be one of the elements that encourages the user to visit that particular site.
Title is also taken into account by search engine robots in the process of determining organic results for particular keywords, so it is worth ensuring that it is completed according to the guidelines.
The length of the title should be between 60-70 characters. This is primarily due to the fact that Google in organic results simply does not show more characters, so a longer sentence may be dropped at a random place, which does not look good to the user. In addition, it’s a good idea to include one or two of the most important keywords for the subpage in the title in a contextually natural way.
The title is also visible as a tab title in the browser for a given website, so it should clearly indicate what site it relates to, so that a person who has multiple tabs open will be able to easily return to it.
Why is the meta description important for SEO?
Meta description is the second element of the head section visible in organic search results. It is a description that, like the title, is meant to entice our potential customer to just visit our site. It should be so interesting that, having a choice of 5 sites in high positions for a given phrase, a search engine user will decide to enter our site.
Description should also meet the length requirement, it is about 155 characters. Best practices also indicate that it is worth including in its content a call to action, addressing directly to the potential customer, and keywords most accurately describing the content of a given sub-page.
The content of the sub-page should also be the same.
Is it still worthwhile to complete meta keywords for subpages of a website?
When SEO as a marketing service was still in its infancy and search engine algorithms were far less complicated, one method of optimizing pages was to include in the head section, meta keywords. This is no longer practiced today, as it can do more harm than good. Google has already started to simply ignore meta keywords many years ago, so supplementing them can only be an indication to the competition of what keywords we care about.
What does content=”index,follow” mean and when should it be used?
By including the line <meta name=”robots” content=”index,follow”/> in the head section, we inform the search engine robots that we want our website to be indexed by them and taken into account when determining the position on keywords. We can establish this for the entire site or only for a designated part of the subpages that we want to “show the world”. For the rest, we then apply the inverse of this command.
What does content=”noindex,nofollow” mean and when should it be used?
The inverse, of course, is <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow”/>, which is intended to indicate that you do not want a subpage to be indexed by search engine robots, that is, its content is not accessible from search engine results. A sub-page containing noindex and nofollow is, of course, possible to be visited by users and can be fully functional, it just will not be visible organically.
Noindex and nofollow are worth including for pages that are still being worked on, such as on test versions of sites that are still very much evolving.
What is rel=””canonical” and why is it important in SEO?
The rel=”canonical” attribute is used in HTML to indicate which version of a web page is “main” when there are multiple copies or subpages of the page with similar content available at different URLs. The main purpose of the rel=”canonical” attribute is to help search engines understand which of these versions should be preferred and displayed in search results.
The main uses of the rel=”canonical” attribute are:
- Eliminate duplicate content – if we have several pages with virtually identical content (e.g., due to URL parameters, sorting, filters, etc.), we can use rel=”canonical” to indicate which version is original and should be indexed by search engines
- Solving problems with content stored at different URLs – when there are multiple copies of the same content available at different URLs (e.g., with and without www, with HTTP and HTTPS), we can use rel=”canonical” to determine the preferred version that should appear in organic search results
- Redirect content from multiple pages to a single canonical page – if we have multiple pages with content that we want to consolidate into a single canonical version, rel=”canonical” can help with this process
Why optimizing the head section of a website is a very high priority as part of implementing changes from an SEO audit?
In addition to optimizing the technical aspects of a website’s performance, optimizing the head section should be one of the higher priorities when implementing changes. A complete SEO audit should always indicate which elements of the head section are to be improved and on which pages, due to the fact that they affect how our site is seen by a search engine robot and, consequently, by our potential customer in search results.
Optimizing the head section is a very high priority.
It is worth taking the time to create or edit the content of the meta title and meta description attributes, as they represent the first contact a user has with our site and have an impact on building our image.
Wondering if the head section of your site needs to be optimized?
If you have doubts whether the head section of your website is properly optimized, it most likely is not. If this is the case, it’s a good idea to get a professional SEO audit and dispel any doubts, so your site can achieve high organic rankings!
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She has 11 years of professional experience, she started her career at the Emarketing Experts agency as a junior SEO specialist. In addition to website positioning, she was responsible for conducting 360° marketing projects as an Account Manager at They.pl. She worked for companies from the financial sector (Bank Millennium, Bank Meritum, Finai S.A.) and e-commerce (e.g. Black Red White, Autoland, Mumla). At Up&More, he is responsible for, among others, SEO projects for Panek Car Sharing, Amerigas, Interparking, H+H and Autoplaza.