Meta tags are short snippets of HTML that live in your page’s <head>. Search engines and social platforms read them — your visitors don’t see them directly. Getting them right is one of the lowest-effort, highest-return on-page SEO tasks.
The tags that matter
<title> — The most important tag. Keep it under 60 characters. Put the primary keyword near the front.
<meta name="description"> — Not a ranking factor, but it shows up in snippets. Write for click-through, not for robots. Under 160 characters.
<link rel="canonical"> — Tells Google which URL is the authoritative version of a page. Essential when you have pagination, faceted navigation, or syndicated content.
Open Graph tags — og:title, og:description, og:image. These control how your pages look when shared on social platforms. Use a 1200×630 image.
What to skip
<meta name="keywords">— ignored by every major search engine.<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">— redundant; that’s the default.- Duplicate descriptions across pages — write a unique description for each URL.