Now let's take a detailed look at each of them in turn.

Title Tag

First, let's look at the so-called title tag, or meta title, whose optimization may be considered a ranking factor.

The title tag is an HTML element that forms the main text describing a web page, and is one of the first elements that search bots examine closely when analyzing page content.

The keywords in the meta title are extremely important because they are the main indicators search engines use to analyze page content.

A well-structured meta title:

• uses all the most important and relevant keywords;
• has the right length;
• is descriptive;
• includes the brand name at the end, not the beginning.

There are a number of best practices to follow when writing title tags for your website:

1. Every page on the site should have a unique title tag. If the title is duplicated across multiple pages, search engines won't be able to tell which one contains the most important content or which page to show in the SERP.
2. They should be about 60 characters long. Although titles are measured in pixels, 60 characters is a good guide to their length. If you exceed 60 characters, part of the title may be cut off, making it less readable.
3. It's important to structure the page title so that the main keyword comes first. A company's brand name often appears at the beginning of the page title. But it's better to put the keywords first. Follow them with a description of what's on the page, and put the brand name at the end.

Meta Description

Meta descriptions appear directly below the title tag on search engine results pages. They are used to preview the content of a web page. Like title tags, meta descriptions are a very important factor in getting clicks from users in the SERP. A well-structured meta description gives users an idea of what kind of content to expect from a web page and encourages them to click through.

Here are some best practices for writing meta descriptions:

1. As with title tags, it's important for descriptions to be unique, with no duplicates on the site. Search engines don't tolerate duplicate content.
2. Stick to the character limit: they should be between 130 and 150 characters long.
3. They should present the main keywords and ideally include a call to action.

Image Alt Text

It's designed to inform search engines about the contents of an image and describe it for users with visual impairments.

Screen readers actually use information from alt text to describe images.

This matters because people can find a website through its images.

When a user searches for images, they often then visit the website the image came from.

This gives the page an extra chance to appear in Google Images results simply because the image was optimized for SEO.

Structured Data

It provides valuable information about a web page and helps classify its content so it can be interpreted more effectively.

For example, for a recipe page, it's easy to identify important information such as:

• ingredients used;
• preparation time;
• cooking temperature;
• nutritional information (for example, calories).

But search engines have to work much harder to understand what this data actually means.

So, by marking the information above with structured data, Google can read and understand the exact content of the page.