Categories, Tags and Keywords
The World Wide Web works to classify content published every day so that when web users type words and phrases in a search engine browser they find exactly what they are looking for. These words and phrases are known as keywords and keyword phrases. Search engines find the searcher’s desired content in a number of ways by measuring commonly used words and phrases within a web page’s content or as they are tagged or labeled by the site owner. When a user visits a site they can further select a visible label, category or tag ling to find related content.
Content is defined as written content, images, documents and video or audio podcasts. Bloggers and site owners use many different content entry programs to format and classify their content. In terms of blogging the most commonly used are WordPress or Google’s Blogger. When planning a site a blogger usually has 10-20 categories to classify their posts in broad terms of their topic area. Tags or labels help further classify the content in more detail.
Common terms found in content entry programs are:
Labels – Blogger allows users to enter tags or categories as labels. Depending on how a blogger intends users to navigate through their blog they may limit the Label entry as a category and reserve it to fewer than 20 labels for their site. If they use it as a tag and their blog covers a variety of topics they may easily run over 20 labels. Note: Blogger uses only labels to categorize their posts.
Categories and Tags – WordPress sites use categories and tags to classify content. A blogger keeps their categories narrowed down as a useful navigation tool for users when they visit a blog or website. Tags are an index of your content, a searchable set of keywords for search engines or visitors to drill down into relevant content in a website or blog and find related content from one blog post to the next.
Keywords – Where categories, tags and labels are most useful to users when they visit a site and wish to navigate through relevant content, keywords are useful to bringing users to a blog or web page via the search engines. They are the words used most in a blog post that get indexed by the search engines. In many cases keywords are the same words as those used to tag a blog post.
The value of each to a blog:
Think of keywords as the invitation to visit your blog post. Every time you write a post think about what a user would type to find content relevant to that post. Then, use those key words and phrases in the post inviting visitors who have an interest in that topic.
Use labels, categories and tags for people who want to learn more once they have accepted the invitation and made it to your site. Perhaps they visited your blog from a direct link to your home page, maybe they are a repeat visitor looking for more relevant content, or they came to a blog post that didn’t quite answer their question but would like to search for a post that will.
Remembering to use all these blog content elements assist visitors in one way or another, before and during their visit to your blog. Using keywords in your blog content however, helps boost your search engine optimization (SEO) the most and should not be overlooked at all. It is recommended to at least use a keyword in your title, the first paragraph and if possible once more every 100 words.
Content is defined as written content, images, documents and video or audio podcasts. Bloggers and site owners use many different content entry programs to format and classify their content. In terms of blogging the most commonly used are WordPress or Google’s Blogger. When planning a site a blogger usually has 10-20 categories to classify their posts in broad terms of their topic area. Tags or labels help further classify the content in more detail.
Common terms found in content entry programs are:
Labels – Blogger allows users to enter tags or categories as labels. Depending on how a blogger intends users to navigate through their blog they may limit the Label entry as a category and reserve it to fewer than 20 labels for their site. If they use it as a tag and their blog covers a variety of topics they may easily run over 20 labels. Note: Blogger uses only labels to categorize their posts.
Categories and Tags – WordPress sites use categories and tags to classify content. A blogger keeps their categories narrowed down as a useful navigation tool for users when they visit a blog or website. Tags are an index of your content, a searchable set of keywords for search engines or visitors to drill down into relevant content in a website or blog and find related content from one blog post to the next.
Keywords – Where categories, tags and labels are most useful to users when they visit a site and wish to navigate through relevant content, keywords are useful to bringing users to a blog or web page via the search engines. They are the words used most in a blog post that get indexed by the search engines. In many cases keywords are the same words as those used to tag a blog post.
The value of each to a blog:
Think of keywords as the invitation to visit your blog post. Every time you write a post think about what a user would type to find content relevant to that post. Then, use those key words and phrases in the post inviting visitors who have an interest in that topic.
Use labels, categories and tags for people who want to learn more once they have accepted the invitation and made it to your site. Perhaps they visited your blog from a direct link to your home page, maybe they are a repeat visitor looking for more relevant content, or they came to a blog post that didn’t quite answer their question but would like to search for a post that will.
Remembering to use all these blog content elements assist visitors in one way or another, before and during their visit to your blog. Using keywords in your blog content however, helps boost your search engine optimization (SEO) the most and should not be overlooked at all. It is recommended to at least use a keyword in your title, the first paragraph and if possible once more every 100 words.
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