If you are a bit confused about how to use tags for WordPress SEO, trust me, you’re are not alone. A large chunk of our traffic on GET FOUND NOW comes from people like you, searching for information about how to use WordPress tags for SEO and whether tags are even worth the bother. The answer is YES, but only if you tag your posts correctly.
I have found that a lot people confuse tags with keywords or they create redundant tags for the same topic or they get tag slap happy (more isn’t always better) and use every tag in their arsenal, relevent or not. And usually, it’s a combination of all of the above.
Hot Topic Navigation
All content management systems like WordPress now use tags and most social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube and Myspace use tags to identity videos, pictures, music, etc. If you have a pretty (as in organized) and organized tag cloud, tags offer your site visitors a quick way to find topics of interest on your website. Trust me, users like hot navigation tag clouds because it speeds up the delivery time for information. One CLICK and they can find the quintessential topic or info they’re looking for.
Wading through Monthly Post Archives – No
If done right, your site visitors can click on a tag within your tag cloud which takes them to an archival page of related post excerpts with thumbnail images, if you set that piece up the the correct way. The bottom line is that your site visitors are not going to wade through months of post archives to find the information they’re looking for, no matter how amazing your content is, and you can take that one to the bank.
Uniformity is Key for Tag Topic Authority and Usability
Tags can help build your website topic authority if you allow tags to be indexed and use them correctly. Tag uniformity is important so get into the habit of choosing from “most used tags” rather than make redundant tags for the same topic. Tags are also case sensitive so make all your tags upper case or lower case and stick to it.
Let’s say for example that you write a post about foreclosures in North Carolina and tag your post “Foreclosures North Carolina.” Down the road you write another post and tag it “North Carolina Foreclosures.“ Further down the road you write another post and tag it “foreclosures (lower case f) North Carolina.”
In the above example, three separate tag feed pages were created for the exact same topic and tag topic authority was diluted. Not only that, when a visitor clicks on ”Foreclosures North Carolina“ within the tag cloud, they access only those posts tagged in the exact same way, even though there maybe other posts on the same topic, tagged in a slightly different way.
Cleaning Up Your Tags and Tag Cloud
If your tag cloud is messy and filled with a lot of redundant tags, I highly recommend that you do a little tag house cleaning. Yes, this may seem like a tedious task, but trust me, the topic authority and usability benefits you will garner from taking a few steps back and fixing your tags so your tag cloud is pretty and neat will be worth the effort.
Neat and Pretty Tags and Tag Cloud
The tag cloud to the right, created by http://www.stynesgroup.com/, is a good example of how a tag cloud should look . The tags are neat, organized, uniform and geo-targeted (real estate). Nice job StynesGroup. You get it!
Opening up Tags or Categories in Your Sitemap and SEO Settings
Either categories OR tags should be indexed, never both and you can choose what you allow in your XML Sitemap under ”Sitemap Content.” Next, make sure “Use No- index for Archives” and “Use No-index for Categories” is checked and “Use No-index for Posts” is unchecked.
When to Use Tags or Categories
If you publish 2 to 3 blog posts per week, I recommend indexing tags. If you are only writing 1 to 4 blog posts per month, I recommend indexing categories. Again, choose one or the other, not both. If you choose to open up tags to search engines, make sure your tag archival pages display post excerpts (400 characters or less) rather than the entire posts to avoid duplicate content and usability issues (it’s not all about SEO).
Setting WordPress for Tags
If you are blogging on a Genesis WordPress framework (highly recommended) or another updated version of WordPress, you can choose “Display Post Excerpts” in Archives under Theme Settings. The content archives option will affect any blog listings page including: archive, author, blog, category, search and tag pages. If you are running an older version of WordPress, you can modify your archives.php or use an archive limit content plug in.
That’s my story on how to use tags for WordPress. Hope it helps!!
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How exactly are you limiting the search engines to either spidering the tags or the category pages? Are you doing it within WordPress itself or are you using a robot text file to lead the robots where you want?
If I use the NotDoFollow plugin at Firefox I see that the spider can follow both tag link and categorie links. Yet you recommend closing one of them…
Are you using a robot file or is there a reason why you allow SE spiders to spider both tag cloud and categories?
Sebastiaan,
Good question. I use a noindex, follow attribute that tells spiders not to index possible duplicate content pages, but follow the links on them. This function is default in most WordPress SEO plugins like All In One SEO Pack. The robots.txt file can be used to block them to certain pages, but you have to use on page meta robots tags to fine tune how the bots spider your site. I run a lot of tests on this site so be careful about copying the code. I am running specific tests on opening tag pages over category pages for example. I think people need to understand their own content to choose whether they should open one or the other up. A site that doesn’t have a lot of categories for instance would benefit more with opening tag pages. I do recommend that whichever you do allow spiders to crawl only show excerpts and titles, not the entire article.
There has been a lot of talk lately about Google not penalizing webmasters for ON SITE duplicate content. That may be the case, but that isn’t an open invitation to have the same content on multiple websites!
Fantastic Blog! As a fellow Network Marketer and Internet Marketer, I know just how difficult setting up and maintaining a Website can be.
I’m currently working on SEO on my WordPress blog and I love your content as well. I’ll be back often I’m sure!
To Your Success!
Karl
I have 4 wordpress blogs and I found this information to be very helpful. I never knew much about tags or categories and now I do. I was also interested in how much search engines used tags,etc.
I now have some adjustments that need made on all of my blogs and again I really appreciate this article.
Thanks for the tips on tagging for SEO… This is a process i am becoming very intimate with and when the lights are off and the candles lit, sometimes it takes a while to feel around. Going in with some instruction steps the game up. Thanks!
Good points about tag uniformity. I wish I had read this when I first started blogging. Now I have 350 posts, many on related topics, but I probably have 350 tags too. Not good for consumers or search engines. Take head newer bloggers! It’s not fun to go abck and retag that many posts!
I’m still learning from you, while I’m making my way to the top as well. I certainly liked reading all that is written on your website.Keep the tips coming. I liked it! A guide to shutterstock online.
I’m just getting my feet wet into the WordPress world and this post helped me realize how much I can’t swim. Thank you very much and I’ll continue to follow your lead so I don’t drowned.
Why do you suggest we block search engines from crawling tags & categories at the same time?
We don’t feel that both tags AND categories need to be blocked within either xml-sitemap plugin or all in one seo pack or studiopress genesis seo settings. Many sites use multiple plugins that can block tags or categories, it is imperative that you have them all set up the same way.
If you have a lot of categories, that is better IF AND ONLY IF your archive page (archive.php) settings are ONLY showing the title of the post and no more than 400 characters (good themes also will show a thumbnail).
Tags can also be used in the same manner as long as you don’t tag a post with a multitude of tags, as Google won’t know which page to give authority to. How tag pages are formatted usually also controlled by the archive.php editor.
Every time you add a new post to a category page, it changes and acts as a simple syndication method! xml-sitemap is the best tool because it allows you to control when a page gets updated insuring that the full original post gets index authority!
Wow – great article. I’ve been using too many tags and using “no index” all wrong. Loved the info on “tag topic authority.” I’m busy re-tagging now. Thanks for all the tips.
exactly what I was looking for. I was getting my tag pages higher up in google search. I wanted to deindex all the tag pages so that my actual content can rank higher.
Thanks for such informative article
I always get confused while tagging. This post have different ideas on tagging. It surely will help me understand while posting. Thanks
The more tags you use the more results you seem to get from search engines but i am noticeing they must rank the traffic that they send to you im quite sure of this so they have pretty good idear of who is going to click etc and where if there are to many tags you just get useless traffic and a very high click threw rate
Useful information about tags, especially tag cleaning and tag clouds.
How to Use Tags for WordPress SEO, Tagging for WordPress, SEO Tags, WordPress Tags I was suggested this website by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my difficulty. You are amazing! Thanks! your article about How to Use Tags for WordPress SEO, Tagging for WordPress, SEO Tags, WordPress TagsBest Regards Nick