Put simply, meta-tags refer to small snippets of text that attempt to describe a web page. These snippets are ‘hidden’ in the code (HTML) and therefore, are invisible to website visitors.
For instance, if a web page explains the quick response handyman services a company provides, meta-tags can come handy for defining the page’s contents with a small, keyword optimized summary.

Are Meta Tags Important for SEO?

Yes and no.
As far as search engine optimization (SEO) is concerned, meta-tags may or may not prove to be useful. This holds true even though Google’s official standpoint is that the search engine does not use meta-tags for search rankings. Not many know that Google had, at the same time, explained that there were no guarantees the search engine won’t change its stand on considering meta-tags for rankings. Yahoo! on the other hand had announced that the search engine does use meta-tags at times for page rankings.

What are the Different Meta Tags and what you must know about them?

There are 4 types of meta-tags that you should know about.

1. Meta Keywords – This is just a series of target keywords; this one has been devalued a great deal because many resorted to keyword stuffing
2. Title tag – It is the meta title of a web page and the most important of all meta tags; when you visit a web page, you will see these tags on top of the web browser tab; so they are, in a way, visible to the site visitor
3. Meta description – This description is much like a web page’s summary and explains what it is about. The description appears in search engine results and is therefore very important; better the summary, higher will be the click through rate (in the event your page makes it higher up in search results)
4. Meta robots – With this, you can inform the search engines to index, no-index, follow or no-follow your web page.

Final Words

Google meta-title tags can help in SEO and great meta-descriptions can help encourage people to visit your website from search engine results pages.