Tag, Label or Categorize Your Blog Posts

That's a lot of verbs for one headline. Why not just say "tag your blog posts" and call it a day? Well, different blogging platforms have different names for what I consider the same basic process. Maybe it's a legal thing. If you're writing a Blogger post (which I am) you have the option of attaching labels to it, which will classify it with other posts into a handy subject-specific archive. Way more useful and interesting than the standard date-based archives, imho.

If you're using WordPress, the same classification dealies are called "tags." In TypePad, they're known as "categories." In LiveJournal, which is owned by the same people as TypePad, they're also called "tags." To be frank I don't know what the subtle differences are, but I'm pretty sure they're a matter of degree, not of kind. If I had to come up with a single generic name for the things I'd probably go with "standard categorization nomenclature," or "SCM". Yeah, SCM. You know, on second thought, scratch that - "tags" is probably the best all-around name. Though it does make you feel like you're running some sort of yard sale.

Why use these tabs/labels/categories, anyway? (Ya know, I think I'll just call them tags from here on out. Sorry Blogger.) For one thing, they make your blog easier and more interesting to navigate. People can click on a topic of interest in your tags and immediately jump to all your posts on that subject. To make sure your tags get used to the fullest extent possible, it's a good idea to include a list of them in a prominent place on your blog. For example, you could list out all your current tags in the sidebar, so your readers see them as they're scrolling through your posts. If your tags are well-chosen, you're likely to get a lot more page-views from each visitor as they click through them. One challenge of blogging is that valuable older posts can get buried and forgotten in the archives. By tagging them, you can help them continue to get the attention they deserve from interested readers.

Another advantage of tags is they expand your blog's virtual "footprint" in search engines like Google. All those new, subject-specific tag pages should start appearing in search results, attracting visitors searching for the topic you've tagged - people who might not find your blog otherwise. In addition, because tags are by definition highly relevant keywords, having them embedded in each blog post adds to that post's search relevance. To put it another way, if a search engine had to decide whether to display two nearly identical posts, one with tags and one without them, it's likely to rank the tagged one higher because of all those meaningful keywords.

In general, the best features you can add to your blog have multiple positive effects, and that's definitely true of tags (or labels, or categories, or SCMs, or whatever...) They improve the user experience, increase your page views per visitor, help keep old content from languishing unloved in the archives, and can help your search rankings. Why do you think I use so many of them?

Key terms: tags, tagging, taging, labels, labelling, labeling, categories, catagories, subjects, topics

Increase Your Blog's Audience With Post Pages

If you're looking for easy ways to boost your blog's readership, one of the easiest may be just a couple clicks away. I'm talking about the ability to create "post pages," which simply means that each blog post you create will exist as its own stand-alone web page. But you'll need to make sure you're taking advantage of this feature in whatever blog software you use.

In Blogger, for example, blogs don't automatically come with post pages enabled. In a blog without post pages, the posts are strung together on the main blog page and in the archive pages, but can't be accessed individually through their own URLs. To give each post its own URL and web page, you'll need to click the Settings tab and then go to the Archiving settings. Here you should see an option called "Enable Post Pages." Select "Yes" from the pulldown menu and republish your blog, and each post will then have its very own web page. Using this post as an example, scroll down to the bottom and click the link where it says "10:57 AM". See how it brings up a separate page? Every post on this blog has the same time-stamped link at the bottom, which leads to its own web page.

What are the advantages of post pages? Well, one of the biggest ones is that they increase your blog's search engine exposure. When a search engine like Google crawls through your blog, it will find each of those post pages and index them separately in its search results. So when someone searches for the subject of that particular post, there's a good chance they'll find it in their search results. On the other hand, if the post doesn't have its own URL and web page, there's not a subject-specific page for the search engine to direct them to, so the blog is less likely to appear in those search results.

Another advantage of post pages is that it's easy to copy and paste their URLs into an email. If you want to show a friend only a specific post from your blog, having a handy URL to drop into an email makes it very easy.

Are there any disadvantages to post pages? Ummm....none that I can think of. So make sure they're switched on and get ready to attract some new readers!