Tags are certainly one of the most useful pieces of metadata out there. It helps content creators, analysts, content managers and searchers! You will be, with some practice, able to easily use tagging to maximise the effect on content. That’s amazing.

Tags are basically terms which are related to or are kind of an index to the content they are attached with, but there is a lot more to them.

What is tagging?

The tagging process involves using keywords that are directly associated with the content. Tagging is primarily used to make information easier to locate or link to.

Sometimes, we also incorporate tag clouds, in which the keywords are displayed in larger or smaller sizes depending on their popularity, frequency, etc. A site’s tag cloud, therefore, tells you which popular and frequently looked for topics that content contains through cloud tags.

Most commonly, a tag is a section, typically referred to as a “snippet”, of JavaScript code that is embedded in an HTML web page. Html tags are sometimes also single pixels that are small and transparent, and therefore visually undetectable on an HTML web page.

There are primarily two types of tagging-

1. Blog Tags

When you click on a blog tag keyword, you will land on a list of content that speaks about or covers that particular keyword as a topic or theme. Every post connected to that keyword will also appear on this list.

When blogging, the author tags their posts by including relevant tags when they upload them to a content management system. All articles on the system will utilise tags, so anyone employing several authors to publish blog posts should establish and agree on a common spelling methodology for all tags unless the CMS gives its own fixed set of tags to choose from.

2. Social Media Tags

I bet that the term hashtag is very familiar to you. Social Media Tags are basically Hashtags. When you search for a hashtag, you get a feed full of content related to that hashtag. When you tag another user on your post, you are creating a link. That’s pretty much what tagging is explained in the simplest way possible.

Categories Vs Tagging

Categories are the terms which broadly classify your content into categories, for instance, Health and Fitness, Education, TV Series, etc. This is done to segregate the content available on the Internet into groups and promote them to people who look for that particular group of content. Categories also help your content be located in your Industry or Niche.

Tagging on the other hand can be used quite randomly. Not that you should use tags randomly, you can but don’t. Basically, you can be more specific and dissect here. Categories have already made your content part of the industry it should be a part of. Now tags can help describe solely the content that it contains.

Why Is Tagging Important?

A lot of functional search engine arrangements are solely dependent on tags. Without tagging your content, you won’t be able to experience the glory of search engines.

• SEO

• Content Analytics

• Pay-Per-Click

• Ad Tracking

• Testing

• Personalization

• Marketing Autonomation

These are a few of the many algorithms and functions of a search engine which are heavily based on tagging. Apart from that, the Content Management System has natural features for tagging and utilises tags to serve external and internal purposes. For internal purposes, it means using the metadata to organise your data in a way that it’s easier to locate.

How To Properly Tag Your Content For Maximum Engagement

We have a simple tried-and-tested content marketing type strategy for you to begin or elevate your tagging journey with. This might get a little overwhelming if you are a complete beginner but trust me, even the best tagger I know thinks that they are a complete mess. Tagging is inherently frustrating like filing taxes, no one enjoys it but we still use it. We all are on the same boat, being said that, let’s get into the actual stuff-

• Be Specific: They say in poetry “the more specific it is, the more universal it gets”. It is the same in tagging. Except that for broadly terming your content you have categories. So when you tag, be oddly specific. Pro Tip: Always use an SEO analyzing tool to see the rank of your keywords before uploading them.
• Be Informative: This tip is more for the content creators. The content must give out a decent amount of information as it pretty much needs to find its place on its own. The more crispy and juicy information you are giving out, the longer the visitors will stay on your page. The longer the stay on your page, the more the tagging algorithm will favour you.
• Be sure to think about SEO: This one should give you deja vu. I shared it as a pro tip after all. SEO is the way to measure the reach and competition of your tags. So be very sure that you have done your keyword research before planning out your content. And that your content has all the keywords very conveniently embroidered in it.
• Straight to the Point: if you have done your keyword research and content planning simultaneously, then this would be a no-brainer, but as a writer myself I understand how easy it is to get swayed away from the tags while researching and developing your content. In such cases, you need to make it a point to still not complicate the tags and keep them simple, straight to the point and scorable in SEO.

Quick Recap

Tagging is a kind of metadata of the content and an engagement strategy. Tags are basically keywords that help spread your content to the right audience. It creates a link between those keywords and your content, so whenever someone searches that keyword, your content will show up on that listing. There are broadly two kinds of tagging- i. Blog Tagging and ii. Social Media Tagging.

Tagging is crucial as it is heavily responsible for the SEO of your content, Ad Tracking, Pay-Per-Click, Personalization, etc.

In order to do decent tagging as a beginner, you need to be very specific about your tags, they should just give an outline of your content. Always use an SEO tool to check the competition and search volume of the keywords that you are using. Then you have to be informative.

If someone finds your article because of a specific keyword that you have tagged but it doesn’t contain that much information, that person will be disappointed. You wouldn’t want that to happen, so cover keywords you use well in your content. Make sure that your SEO scoring is good and lastly, keep the tags simple and very likely to be searched. And yes, that’s it.

Tagging can really change the game for you. Even though it’s super frustrating and demands a lot of time and brain cells. In the end, it is very much worth the pain, unlike your middle school relationships.

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