Wordpress why use tags

Can you get an SEO boost by tagging your posts with relevant keywords? Distinguish Between Categories And Tags Creating a category and a tag for the same term is usually a bad idea. If you follow this system, you should find that your taxonomies are well-organized and helpful. Yoast makes it really easy to noindex your tag archives. Next Post. Lynne Garner says:.

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Essential Resources. Get The Newsletter. Join our newsletter to get the best WordPress tips and tutorials every week. Site Links. Follow Us. Welcome Back! Login to your account below. Forgotten Password? The choice is yours! On a technical level, both tags and categories are types of taxonomies. A taxonomy is just a fancy word for a way to group things together like your WordPress posts. Categories are hierarchical, while tags are not hierarchical.

Basically, this means that you can have a parent category with child subcategories. While categories should be broad topics that apply to many different posts, tags are usually more specific and unique to the actual content in that post. For example, say you wrote a post about Michael Jordan, the famous Chicago Bulls basketball player.

In this interface, you can both add new tags and manage the existing tags used on your site:. Usually, these tags will be shown at either the beginning or end of the post.

A tag cloud is basically a big list of the tags used on your site, oftentimes with more frequently used tags marked by larger text though the exact styling depends on your specific theme. You can see an example of a tag cloud below:. By default, each tag that you use creates a separate archive page that lists all the posts using that tag.

It allows WordPress website operators to create a huge fan base and help visitors to find their favorite posts under various tag options. But, when you run a WordPress. Search engines may assume your action using several tags as the duplication of categories and they might not consider your content relevant for displaying in their results. While operating multi-author WordPress websites, most of the site admins make specific categories for each and every author in a bit to separate their posts and streamline their works.

But, this is not needed. Because WordPress already has author categorization system. When you publish a new post on a WordPress site with your name, your name is displayed on that page. When you publish your content, you often seem confused whether you should use the singular or plural form of categories and tags. You face such issues quite often, especially when two tags use the same word- one in singular form and other in plural form.

For example- A dog or dogs. Based on your needs, you may select either singular or plural form of categories and tags without feeling any hesitation. As categories and tags are used to help people find the exact content easily and quickly, you should not use a category and a tag on your website with the same name. Search engines may penalize websites that have inappropriate categories and tags.

This creates a wave of panic among various website operators. This is not a fair practice in website optimization. It also affects the performance of such web pages and you may get low placement in search engine results and fewer clicks on your website. So, never develop such ideas in your mind. Use both of them whenever you needed. If you are confused about their appropriate use, you can seek advice from expert SEO professionals having experience in WordPress website optimization.

To get the most of your WordPress categories, make sure you use clear and descriptive names. This allows new visitors to have a clear idea about your website and the type of posts you have. They can easily find the desired content with the help of simple and clear category name. So, instead of complicating the things, you should focus on creating user-centric and descriptive categories for your multiple blog posts. Using too many tags could affect the usability and accessibility of your site.

Well, it is not clear that how many tags are enough to use in a single blog post, but you should be aware of the fact that each tag that you create will generate a separate archive page on your site. So, if you have a huge amount of blog posts, then it is better to compress the tags that link at least 2 to 3 posts. You just need to be consistent while using tags for your posts.

Since WordPress wants each post to belong to at least one category, make sure you do it before publishing your content. This can help both the search engines and web readers to find the blog posts available in specific categories. The use of categories and tags are largely determined by the keywords and the content you are using. Just keep the above-mentioned tips in mind, create legitimate categories and tags and capitalize their SEO benefits for your WordPress site.

She also happens to be a blogger and loves to contribute technical posts at top blogs. We are a team of SEO copywriters and editors who work both individually and in the team.

ThemeGrill author is where one of the editors here is working on one project personally. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Amazing content. Thanks for all the info about tags.

Specifically hashtags and tags. For example, if I have a blog about Fortune Cookies I might put the following in the tag area: humorousblog fortunecookies badfortunecookie funny blog, cookies, fortune cookies.

Help please! Hello Annabelle, Usually, your thought on the hashtags and regular tags are quite accurate. Hashtags are mostly used for social media whereas regular tags are helpful for search engines.

However, the tags can be fully useful for your website only if you follow the correct techniques like those listed on this blog.