It’s easy to overlook the little box (usually on the right in your post editing screen) that says Post Tags – but don’t! Using Post Tags on your WordPress blog not only helps your readers find related articles by clicking on the tags, but it is also a great way to add relevant keywords to your posts, which help it become found by the search engines.
Think about your blog post Categories as the file cabinets that your articles are stored in. Each file cabinet has a broad category name.
Then think about your Post Tags as the individual file folder that each article goes in – sub-topics I guess is a better way to say it.
The words you use for your Post Tags should follow these guidelines for the best search engine optimization:
- Include no less than 2 but no more than 4 tags. The more tags you use, the more diluted each tag becomes.
- Tags can be single words or short phrases.
- Ideally Post Tags use key words that are already in the content of your post.
- Post tags can also include words that are closely related to words in the content.
- Post tags should be words that your potential customers and clients would be searching on, not obscure or technical words.
WordPress has a link to open up the most used tags from your blog. You can simply click one of those to select it, or you can add new Post Tags any time. Thinking about the usefulness to your readers, using commonly used Post Tags does give them more posts to read when clicking on the tag vs. using a unique tag. I like to include at least one common tag and one unique but powerful new tag whenever possible, that way I am serving existing readers but also attracting new ones.
I have heard of bloggers that were able to get to page 1 of Google within a couple of hours simply by writing a news-related post that included good keywords in their Post Tags. Google (and other search engines) pay attention to Post Tags even though they no longer index meta keywords. So make sure you are using them to your advantage!
Questions?
