"This is high-quality information..."
Every Tag Counts On Your Quest For Inbound Links
Did you know what tags are for. I bet some of you have wondered what they actually do and whether they are absolutely necessary when posting blog posts. Actually, tags have a great functionality built into their use.
Tags and widgets
If you have a widgetized WordPress blog, you would have noticed that there is also a tag widget to display your tags on your blog. If you are not sure on what to do and whether to use it, I suggest you do.
Why?
Because it will enable your visitors to find relevant content on your blog much faster - provided of course that you are using appropriate tags. If for example you write about WordPress and place a WordPress tag beneath your blog post before you publish, this will then show users a tag called WordPress in your sidebar (if you have widgets enabled) (or else use a hard coded sidebar with tags).
When your visitor clicks on the WordPress tag, he will be directed to all relevant posts which reduces the time he would have had to search for it.
Tags on social networking sites
Most social networking and bookmarking sites have also incorporated tags a long time ago. Just like on your blog, tags will allow users to find relevant information on the topic they want.
Imagine how long it would take to browse through all the links to find something related otherwise. Tags have been a god send in terms of saving us a lot of time, but the best is yet to come!
Tags improve your inbound links
Yep, that’s right. Even though most of the social networking sites use a “nofollow” attribute when they link out to your posts, you should still use tags when you construct blog posts because every tag will create one inbound link to your blog.
I repeat for those who didn’t listen: every tag will produce a new incoming link to your blog!
Right below your WordPress editor is a field that allows you to write related tags before you post. Don’t worry, you can still do this after you have published your post in case your forgot.
For those of you who use the All In One SEO Plugin, this will replace this function.
But hold on, there is more
There is actually a serious side to tagging whether you believe it or not. Excessive tagging can get you banned by the search engines and effectively achieve the exact opposite you are trying to do.
Some programs in the market allow us to tag automatically and they need to be used with extreme caution. Like the Bookmarking Demon for example. Can be used quite effectively but is also very dangerous.
To stay within the radar I suggest you use no more than 10 tags when constructing blog posts. This will keep your blog search engine friendly and help you to build those incoming links.
Comments »
Gobala Krisnan is a direct-response marketer turned blogger who makes over $10,000 a month from his blog empire. If you want to make money online from blogs, he is the only person who can reveal the secret of merging time-tested direct marketing strategies with web 2.0 traffic. Read more about him >>
Most Active
Readers who have left the most amount of comments in the past 7 daysRecent Comments
- Play Games Win Prizes on Firepow Blog Software Review and Coupon
- Dave on Adsense Earnings Vs Adsense Profits
- Ali on How to Add an Add-on Domain in Cpanel
- I make money online too on Firepow Blog Software Review and Coupon
- Firepow Blog Software Review and Coupon | Autoblogging on JetSubmitter Review – Article Marketing Reloaded
Polls
Loading ...
I have the SEO plugin thing but I’m not sure if I am using it correctly. I also realize after reading this post that you don’t necessary have to fill up both the built-in wordpress tags and the plugins..
Should I use single words for the tags or it’s ok to have a combination of 1-2 words per tag?
Monika, you brought up a nice post today. I wonder what’s the major difference between Tag and Category in terms of creating inbound links.
When I chose a category in Wordpress, it automatically creates an internal link and tags do the same. I was thinking how it must have been helping in SEO in wordpress blogs? Could you please explain a little.
I foresee, this might be a question in many wordpress bloggers after they start seeing the “tag” textfield under the post text area. Your reply is appreciated.
Every Tag Counts On Your Quest For Inbound Links…
Did you know what tags are for. I bet some of you have wondered what they actually do and whether they are absolutely necessary when posting blog posts. Actually, tags have a great functionality built into their use….
@ Kai: you can use both single and multiple phrase tags. Just imagine how people would search for information on Google. Those search terms are what you want to use in your tags. :-)As for filling both. I normally do that but it isn’t necessary if you have the SEO Plugin.
@ Life is Colourful: inbound links are different from incoming links. Tags are bringing incoming links so in this regard categories have nothing to do with it.
categories can help if you set a custom permalink structure as when they contain the keyword, it will help to rank your post better. But the best permalink structure is actually just using /%postname%/ as this will prevent possible penalties from having the keyword in the category and the post.
Hope this helps
Nice post Monika. I use anywhere from 5 to 10 tags per post w/ the SEO plugin. I guess I should be careful not to go over 10 to avoid penalization. I really wasn’t sure if too many tags would cause Google to penalize me. Thanks for the suggestion to use “no more than 10 tags” per post! Keep up the good work
@ Monika: Thanks for clearing up the confusion between incoming links and inbound links.
@ Andrew: Can you share the SEO plugin link. I don’t use any to generate tags as of now.
Thanks again Monika for another great post! I knew a little about tagging each posts from some several blogging videos I have watched on the net. I just didn’t know each tag can create an in bound link to my blog. Wow! That is really great. I just started a new blog and currently generating traffic to it, but I’ll be sure to tag all my posts as always.
@ Lifeiscolourful, you can just do a quick search on google for the keyword, “SEO Wordpress Plugin” and that should come with a reliable site to download the plugin. Cheers!
@ Femi: you are welcome and I’m glad it helped.
@ Femi, thanks for the suggestion - I appreciate that. I found the desired plugin.
I kind of knew what tagging was all about, but I realized from reading your post that their is a lot more to it than what I thought. Thanks for the warning about not tagging to much. I was not aware of that at all!