Add Meta Tags to Blogger for Better SEO

By Unknown 24 comments

In this tutorial we will discuss, how to add meta tags to blogger blogspot blog, to improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of blog, and go beyond the limitations of the blogger platform.

You must have been to many articles that are telling, how to add meta tags to blogger

What are Meta Tags?
A meta tag is a line of HTML code that describes your site. It used to be the case that you placed meta tags at the top of every web page; one meta tag for keyword, another for a description. Although they would not be seen by viewers of your web page, search engines (such as Google) used them.

Keywords are those that best describe you business or blog's purpose. The description contains your keywords, but is sentence style. If someone used Google to search for one of your keywords (for example "blogging hub") and you were listed on the search results page, the meta description would appear under your listing providing the user with a brief summary of your blog.

However, because so many people abused meta keywords, many search engines don't use the meta tags in their algorithms anymore. But it doesn't hurt to include them on your blog.

Limitations of Blogger and SEO
Well, by default Blogger is not properly optimized for SEO. Meta descriptions and keywords are not supported. Title tags are also not optimized.

However meta tags and meta description can be inserted into Blogger template to make it Optimized. But make sure that you have done correction of your title tags, but if you don't know anything about title tags then please refer to adjust blogger title tags to improve SEO first.

How to Add Meta Tags to your Blog Home Page

1. Login to Blogger if not already logged in.

2. From the Dashboard, go to Design, Edit HTML.

3. Back up your template as a precaution by downloading full template to your computer.

4. Check the Expand Widget Templates box.

5. Find these lines which will be near the top of your template:

<head>
<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

6. Paste the following code immediately below
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
<title><data:blog./>

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta content='Place your blog description here' name='description'/>
<meta content='Place your blog keywords here(separated by commas)'
name='keywords'/>
</b:if>

7. The blog description should be more then 120 characters and less then 150 characters including spaces.

8. It's important to use keywords, it is just as important not to overuse them. If you do, your site will be flagged as "spam" and won't show up at all on results pages. My recommendation is to keep your keyword usage to 4-8 percent. So out of 100 words, you should only use a keyword 4 to 8 times.

Example below shows the meta tags i use for the home page of Blogging Hub:

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://blogginghubblog.blogspot.com/"'>
<meta content='Blogging Hub is about tips, tricks, tutorial about blogger blogspot blog, Technology Review, Photshop Tutorials, Photography, Recipes, and lot more' name='description'/>
<meta content='blogger.com, tutorials, tips, SEO, analytics, blogging hub, technology, photoshop tutorials, photography' name='keywords'/>
</b:if>

9. Click on Save Template button and you are done.

How to Add Meta Tags to Individual Post of Blogger

1. Follow steps 1 to 4 as for adding meta tags for Home Page.

2. Add the following in the <head> section of your blogger template. Enter this code below the Home Page code above you have just entered:

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://url of your post"'>
<meta content='keywords pertaining to your post' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='crafted description of your post' name='description'/>
</b:if>

Here is an example of optimized meta tags for one of my post:

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://blogginghubblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/adjust-blogger-title-tags-to-improve.html"'>

<meta content='Title tags for SEO is about how to adjust title tags to improve search engine results and high rankings. Title tags play very important role in search engine optimization. Popular search engines like Google gives more importance on title tags.' name='description'/>

<meta content='search engine optimization for blogger, blogger title tags, improve seo, get higher in search results' name='keywords'/></b:if>

3. Add your post URL, keywords and description. To find the URL of your post navigate to the post's page and copy the link showing in the address bar of your browser including the http:// prefix

4. Click on Save Template button

5. To check your description you can use the view source in your browser by simply pressing Ctrl+U.

Troubleshooting and Tips

Observe Character Limits

Title Tag - Maximum Character is 60

Site Description - Maximum Character is 150

Keywords - Maximum Character is 200

Title Tag Tweak
Keywords

As you have seen that meta tags are very important for home page and for every other page of blogger, and in this article you have learned both the ways of adding meta tags to home page and each post of blogger.

I hope that this tutorial will helped you alot in "Adding Meta Tags to Blogger and Individual Post of Blogger" for your blogger blogspot blog. To learn more about Blogger that How to Adjust Blogger Title Tags to Improve SEO, How to Submit Blog in directories, how to Add Categories Section, or how to Setup Feedburner follow the links.