- what are blog tags?
- are they the same as categories? or keywords?
- should you use them on your blog?
What Are Blog Tags?
A blog tag is simply a phrase that best describes your post.
For instance, this post is about blog tags. ðĪŊð
So, my blog tags for this post might be… ‘blog tags‘ (duh! ðĪŠ), ‘seo‘ (since readers might wonder whether blog tags have any impact on SEO), ‘website traffic‘ (since readers might wonder whether blog tags have any impact on website traffic), etc.
Blog tags are to blogs as hashtags are to social media.
Blog Tags vs Keywords
Are blog tags the same as keywords? Yes and no.
Keyword research is a MUST when creating any piece of content – after all, keywords are exactly what Google users type into a search box!
To learn how to do keyword research the non-SEO ‘for the average website owner’ kind of way, read my Semrush review and tutorial.
Blog tags, on the other hand, have little to do with Google bringing visitors to your blog, but everything with you providing your visitors with an additional way to discover even more of your blog content.
Once again, if I ‘tag’ this post with ‘blog tags‘, ‘seo‘, ‘website traffic‘, etc., you, my Reader, will see those tags while reading this post and might think to yourself, ‘Hey, I really want to know more about website traffic!‘, click on that blog tag, and be taken to a page where you read all you ever wanted to know about web traffic. ð
That’s exactly what blog tags do: they create pages of content that’s centered around that particular topic… a tag in wordpress terms.
Blog Tags vs Categories
Are they the same?
Both blog tags and categories are a way to organize your content.
However, categories are much more general in nature than tags.
Let’s say you have a travel blog.
Your possible categories could be “Cruises”, “Family Travel”, “Travel Abroad”, etc. For each of your category, WordPress will create a separate page that could be ranked by search engines – just like with tags.
Now, let’s say you want to create separate pages for different states or countries. You wouldn’t want to have hundreds of categories, each named with a different geographical location, would you?
THAT’s the perfect job for tags.
Should you bother using blog tags?
There was a time when using blog tags had its definite benefits.
Not so much these days.
Google doesn’t like them.
Blog tags unnecessary inflate your content pages while providing no real value to your readers.
Readers don’t like them.
Too many better things to do than click around some random blog tags hoping to discover… what? more content? They barely read the first one… ð
You shouldn’t like them either.
You’ve got a shot to grab readers’ attention and get them to do something other than leave – don’t waste it on a click to a blog tag.
Marketing Takeaway
Blog tags? They are so yesterday.
You’ve got better things to do than worry about those. ð
Well that’s great. Having a good understanding with Google helps!
Geat post, Ana! The Analytics info is particularly useful here! All too often I skip over tags in my blog posts. It seems like the last thing on the page I need to pay attention to. Never again. Thankyouthankyouthankyou!
The thing with blogging is that there is so much to pay attention to and most of it is quite important. Hope this helps you.
Ana,
Being new to blogging, I can’t tell you how much that cleared up in my mind regarding the difference between categories and tags. Not to mention, you helped me understand things I didn’t even know regarding tags.
I have to tell you, I am really glad to have found you on twitter and subsequently finding your blog. Very timely, I think that makes you a God Sent ð
Warmest Regards,
~Robert
That’s good to hear, Robert.
Nice post, but I say that,
Depending on what blog platform you’re using, there are a number of ways that your blog can benefit from specified tags. Some blogs offer plugins such as tag clouds where each tag that has been designated to a blog post will show up in the sidebar, and the most commonly-used tags are in larger font. Most blog platforms also include a page for each blog tag.
Tag clouds are not great for SEO, Ken: https://trafficgenerationcafe.com/google-tag-clouds/
Hi Ana,
What an informative article. I really didn’t know there was
much difference between tags and keywords.
I use the same for both. But I can see how using them over will
increase your searches.
I will definitely be trying this strategy
Thanks for all you do,
Jeff Faldalen
Yet another way to maximize our Google exposure, Jeff.
Oh. Now i get it. I was always afraid to use tags because of duplicate content. At least that’s what i thought, that they create duplicate content. Now i don’t know what to believe anymore, but you make a strong case.
No. Tags don’t create duplicate content.
Hi Martin,
I wasn’t sure what duplicate content meant either,
but I do know, if Ana says it, I will do it.
She puts a lot of effort into providing great info for her
readers. I have passed on a lot of her posts
best wishes,
Jeff Faldalen
Very kind of you, Jeff.
Thanks, Lisa and you are welcome, as always! ð
During my first two year of blogging I didn’t pay much attention to tags so all my posts now have zero tags in it ! Will concentrate on tags next time. Thanks for wonderful article ð
You’re welcome, Nasif.
Can you please explain to me, if I add keywords to my post with the all in one SEO plugin, will these keywords be the meta keywords for the post? And the same question for the description that I add with the all in one SEO plugin.
Great explanation of the difference between categories and tags. It was especially helpful to find out that I shouldn’t be using too many tags, since that’s just throwing links at tons of different pages.
Other than the internal links from your own posts, do you try to get links for your tag pages (can’t even think of how you would do that, other than perhaps guest posting)?
Yes, Camden – building links to your tag pages is always a great idea, just like with any other pages on your blog.
You would do it with guest posting, social media sharing, blog commenting, etc – just treat it like you would a regular page.
Ana
Nice one Ana
I really must get into tags?
I’m not bad on SEO but for some reason I’ve never used tags.
Appreciate the kick up the proverbial.
LOL, Keith – yes you should!
Always find your blog chock full of goodies I need to learn – RT’d and hooked yet again, Ana. Thanks for the awesome tips you keep churning out (and you guest bloggers – problem is: I’m not sure if I want to generate content or camp out and devour what I’ve missed…ugh!).
It’s funny, though – I’ve been using tags haphazardly in the past, and now keep coming across great posts about how impactful they are. One plugin suggestion on the topic (since I didn’t read the other 70+ comments, forgive me if this is repetitive): Simple Tags.
I found it by reading Yoast, though he didn’t develop it from what I can tell – it queries 3-4 different APIs like Yahoo! and Tag the Net, and others I’ve never heard of until now. Really helpful, though!
You’re welcome, James.
I know some readers use Simple Tags.
No prob; your comment went through just fine.
That’s the best way to do it, Arfan – structure your blog right from the start.
Let me know how it goes; if it works like it should, would be a great topic for a post.
Thanks for this Anna.
I have always wondered what the purpose of tags were. I’ve been using my keywords as tags but from reading this, I’ve realized that I could be doing a lot more with my tags.
I’m glad you found more uses for your tags, Ruth.
As always, great addition to the post, Wayne.
I actually do have SEO Power installed on my blog, but don’t utilize it as much as I could or should – great tool indeed.
Making your blog sticky… does sound like an interesting topic to discuss; thanks for the idea!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! ð
I am trying to figure out for a while now what to do with these tags, and you here had the best tutorial so far hands down.
I will be sending this to my team who are asking about the same thing.
You’re most welcome, Hezi! ð
Thanks, Anna,
It can be a lot of work to come up with unique product descriptions, especially on a large site, but a failure to do so can be costly.
Customer reviews and other user generated content can not only be helpful to a site owner, but also other visitors to the site
Absolutely. That’s why I enjoy doing those.
Hi Ana,
This makes a clear view to me how this Tags would hugely help me out with my SEO.. A great idea in making tags would really make a difference.. Thank you for this very informative post.
You are very welcome, Mary.
Very good article Ana, I always considered duplicate content a problem and that’s why I have tried to avoid indexing my tags. But I think that someone will follow the advises that you have described here it will have no problem with duplicate content.
I will try to do as you recommended from now one and see how it will go. Thanks for the info.
Yes, writing from the heart will usually go a long way to avoiding duplicate content ð Thanks for stopping by.
Ana,
What does the page look like for the blog tag.
Do you have a URL of one?
I haven’t changed the title and description for it yet (I’d need to go into the Dashboard for that) and this is the only post in it, but I have a couple more that I will add in the future.
What I usually do with tags is go through them every once in a while to see which ones need titles, descriptions, and if I can add any additional posts to them.
Interesting.
What program do you use to create your blog tags?
Do you know if it is available for Joomla? That is the CMS I use.
I am not familiar with Joomla, Chris, but with WordPress, you just add your tags in your sidebar when editing a post and WP will do all the work of creating tag pages automatically.
Sounds like it’s time to switch. ð
Tags are not only important in blogs -various ecommerce platforms allow you to have tags in your product pages-. I have an ecommerce site and this platform that I’m using has the capability of genereting tags of your product description. Great to know the power of tags.
That’s right, Mario. That sounds like a handy tool.
Hey Ana,
All I can say is Thank You! This post has opened my eyes to the world of tags. I had no idea they could be used in the ways you explained.
One of your best posts yet!
Thanks for sharing this, I am going to change my archive pages right now.
PS Did you get my email containing the first draft of the charity PDF?
Anytime, Ian.
Thank you, Mark. Yes, that does make sense!
Bad news: I found out why my sales dried up literally overnight a few months back. We confirmed 2 days ago I had been hacked.
Good news: By having to go through everything, I now know a LOT more about the inner workings of WordPress.
More bad news: Now I have to re-create my entire blog from scratch.
More good news: At least I still have access to all my previous posts, so I can now make it better than ever thanks to your helpful tag hints!
Thanks once again, Ana. ð
They say that good always comes from bad. Sorry to hear about your bad news, but I can see that good has already come from it.
I love this kind of post because it gives me things to do! Fired up with enthusiasm I charged into my archives.php.
Why?
Well – ” To accomplish that, open your archive.php of your theme and replace the_content with the_excerpt.”
I found the_content but no sign of the_excerpt, so I’m guessing that only some themes support “excerpts”?
If understand you correctly Ana unless you have excerpts on your archive and tags pages then you have a dupe content issue.
I think I’ve seen some folk put no index on their archives to stop this happening…
Any options here apart from changing themes?
Thanks!
You certainly don’t have to index your archives, Sandy – that’s always an option.
However, you can’t do it with your tag pages – obviously, that would defeat the purpose of having them to begin with.
You said that you went into your archive.php and saw “the_content” – now all you need to do is to replace that with “the_excerpt” and that should take care of it.
As always, make sure to back up your files before making any changes; you never know. ð
Ana,
I have always used tags almost like categories but a little more in depth. For instance, I write a post about “Good vs Bad SEO”. (I never have but I’ll use it as an example. The post would fall under category : SEO. But tags would include “Bad SEO” “Good SEO” or “SEO Resources”. And then I would use that category and tags over again later.
I have been doing this for a while and I am so relieved to know I am doing it right. I must have read it somewhere but as you go along you forget if you are actually doing things right or not. Whoo! So relieved.
Also, I run a free blog over at blogspot. You are not allowed to use keywords (well, I guess I can place them in the HTML, I don’t have time, it’s a quick posting blog for referrals to another site, kinda experimental) so I use tags extensively.
Thanks for the reassurance.
~Allie
I’m glad you’ve been doing it right, too, Allie.
Thanks for that, Ana.
I just did the set up in Google Analytics. Hey! curiosity got the better of me.
I had always thought of tags as labels, more or less. Or as using a few words or terms, that would point to the posts content. Labels/tags come up as crawl errors in webmaster tools(restricted by robots text). This is a good thing, as it is done to avoid the perception of duplicate content(Label/post).
That’s correct, Daniel. Google Analytics is helpful!
Now you’ve got me thinking about tags again. I read another blogger, who opinion I value, that said tags were a waste of time. So I removed all of them and haven’t added any since.
Would it be ok to go back to old post and add 4-5 tags to each one? Or should I just focus on future posts?
Hope you’ve been doing well Ana!
I’ve done that in the past as well, Benny, before I did my research on tags and why it’s good to use them. ð
I wouldn’t waste your time going back to old posts; just start now.
OK–did I read correctly that you’re not much of a techie, Ana?…Lol!
That’s like saying I rarely come in contact with passive-aggressive personality traits in my biz…:P.
I suppose I know just enough to be dangerous, Linda. ð
But seriously, I do learn just enough to know how to make this work on my blog, but if you dig any deeper, well… there won’t be anything there.
Wow, looks like I need to clean out some of my tags. I have a question about this: WordPress allows you to enter a tag and a description for that tag. Are the descriptions for tags important anymore?
Yes, Matt, descriptions do matter.
Tag description is the same as page description – this is where it’s good to use some keywords to describe your tag and this is what the search engines will use to rank your tag pages.
Think of it this page: a tag page is just that – a blog page, and you need to do everything you would do with a regular page to optimize it.
Awesome Ana,
Thank you!
I think I finally understand categories vs. tags!!
My eyes still glaze over though, when I see all the instructions on how change things inside the blog……I think the fear that I’ll “break” something is what makes it so hard to do all these technological things on my site.
I completely understand about your fear of “breaking something”, Angela – I am not much of a tech either.
We both have to learn though if we want to stay in this business, don’t we? ð
One step at a time!
You’re welcome talbot for finding this information on tagging useful. I have learned so much myself, and if you ask me, Ana has done great.
You are so very welcome, Oliver – pleasure to see you in my neck of the woods.
You are very welcome, John.
I was aware of tags but I have not used them because I was affraid of the duplicate content problems you also mentioned. Even though I used excerpts I still didn’t created tags. However they are very nice for a better user experience and easier navigation.
Adding tags is still on my do to list for a while now. Thanks for the reminder.
You should definitely try using them, Cristian – as you can see, duplicate content should not be an issue in this case.
Thanks Mike & Anna,
That is really interesting stuff on Tags. I have been over-tagging, sometimes up to fifty tags, found using Google Keyword Tool. Should I go back and remove some of the tags?
You talk about using the same tags consistently, there must also be value in using a wide range of tags, to increase the number of entry points into the site? You just have to use each one several times. This would make sense if you posted very frequently.
Thanks again
Geoff Talbot
Just because you have a gazillion tags doesn’t mean that your site will ever rank for any of those tags, Geoff.
As I mentioned in the post, by using too many tags, you dilute your post theme – it’s very important for rankings to keep it on the topic as much as possible.
Stuffing every single possible keyword combination as a tag is not a good way to go.
Thanks Anna,
I understand what you are saying; just trying to create a tagging strategy that is wide and focused.
Great stuff
G
Great explanation on tags vs keywords, tags vs categories. I didn’t realize tags created additional search rankings but I was using them anyway. I figured they had something to do with searches.
Better safe than sorry. ð
Yes, that’s how it works! ð
Glad you learned something, Mike.
I will take a look at your guest post when I have a chance.
Thanks for this Ana! I was just wondering this morning if Tags were even important anymore since keywords are no longer a factor. And here’s your post giving me the answer. Love it!
Hugs,
Melody
Well, keywords still do matter on every level other than meta keywords, Melody.
You should still use your keywords in your titles, descriptions, etc. – that still stands.
Eeek! Sorry, Ana, I did mean Meta keywords. I was wondering if the tags on my blog were the same as that… So, thanks again for clearing it up.
m