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