Meta tags explained for business owners

What meta tags are

Meta tags are short pieces of HTML code that live in the head section of a web page — the part of the code that loads before the visible content. They are not displayed on the page itself; they are instructions and descriptions intended for browsers, search engines, and social media platforms.

You can see the meta tags on any web page by right-clicking and selecting View Page Source, then looking for lines that start with <meta or <title near the top of the code.

There are several types of meta tags, but only a handful matter for most business websites. This guide covers the ones worth understanding and getting right.

The title tag

The title tag is the most important meta element on any page. It appears as the clickable blue headline in Google search results, and as the tab label in your browser. It is the single strongest on-page signal Google uses to understand what a page is about.

What a good title tag looks like

• → Under 60 characters (longer titles get cut off in search results)
• → Describes what the page is actually about
• → Includes the primary keyword or topic naturally
• → Includes your brand name, typically at the end
• → Is unique — every page on your site should have a different title

A common mistake is using the same title tag on every page, or using generic titles like Home or About Us. Each page should have a title that accurately describes its specific content.

The meta description

The meta description is the short paragraph of text that appears below the title in search results. It does not directly affect your search rankings — Google has confirmed this — but it has a significant indirect effect through click-through rate.

A well-written meta description acts as an advertisement for your page. It tells the searcher what they will find if they click, and why your result is the right one for their query. A compelling description can meaningfully increase the percentage of people who click on your result versus a competitor.

What a good meta description looks like

• → Under 155 characters (longer descriptions get truncated)
• → Accurately summarises what the page contains
• → Includes a clear reason to click — what will the visitor get?
• → Written for a human reader, not stuffed with keywords
• → Unique for every page

Note that Google does not always use your meta description. If Google determines that a different excerpt from your page better matches the search query, it will use that instead. This is normal and not something you can control — but writing a good description still matters, because Google uses it when it is relevant.

Open Graph tags for social sharing

Open Graph tags control how your pages appear when shared on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp. Without them, social platforms will attempt to generate a preview automatically — often with poor results: a random image, a truncated title, or no image at all.

The key Open Graph tags are:

• → og:title — the title shown in the social preview (can differ from your page title)
• → og:description — the description shown in the social preview
• → og:image — the image shown in the social preview (recommended size: 1200x630 pixels)
• → og:url — the canonical URL of the page

If your website is built on a modern CMS like WordPress, Squarespace, or Webflow, there are plugins and built-in settings that handle Open Graph tags without requiring you to edit code directly.

Meta keywords: why they no longer matter

The meta keywords tag was once used to tell search engines which keywords a page was targeting. Google stopped using it as a ranking signal in 2009, and no major search engine gives it any weight today.

If you see advice suggesting you add meta keywords to your pages, that advice is outdated. You do not need to add them, and having them does not help. The only exception is if you are using a site search tool that relies on them internally — but for external search engines, they are irrelevant.

The canonical tag

The canonical tag tells search engines which version of a URL is the definitive one. This matters when the same content is accessible at multiple URLs — for example, with and without a trailing slash, or via both HTTP and HTTPS.

For most small business websites, the canonical tag is handled automatically by your CMS or developer. But if you have duplicate content issues — the same page accessible at multiple URLs — a canonical tag is the correct way to resolve them.