Date Published: 14-Dec-2011
Have you ever wondered why even some well written articles fail to attract the desired audience? Do you know what goes into making more number of people read your content? Tagging your article with an appropriate word or phrase is the answer. It helps you in effectively showcasing your article and helps readers in easy navigation through the website. Let us understand the different aspects of a tag in this article.
What is a tag?
Tags are labels that are put on articles or content, grouped together. They classify the content available in a website. A tag is a non-hierarchical keyword attached to different pieces of related information. A good tag helps a reader in identifying the article of his interest and browsing through related content. Tags form an unstructured classification of content. They can be individual or grouped together to form a tag cloud.
Tag clouds
A tag cloud is a set of tags grouped together. They are interpretations of content where tags are positioned close together with some visual properties. These properties can be varying font size or color. The underlying idea of a tag cloud is to represent tags in line with their meaning, importance and frequency relative to other tags. They help the reader in quickly finding the most prominent term associated with his topic of interest.
Tag is unique
A tag should not be confused with keywords or categories. Keywords are the ones which users search for in the Internet. They are used by SEO professionals to rank a website higher in the search results. Categories help visitors in finding content in a website. Mostly, the content in a category is unique. They form a hierarchical management of content in a website. A tag, on the other hand, helps visitors find related content from your website and other websites.
Uses of tag
Tags simplify navigation process. They help readers in finding the content easily, avoiding the hassle of going through different categories to find the required information. For the website owner, a tag helps in classification of content, making the website easy to use. Most search engines lay a lot of emphasis on tags, that is, a content well supported by tags is likely to take a higher place in search results.
Choosing a good tag
A tag must be chosen in such a way that it increases curiosity in the minds of the visitors. This enables the visitor to find more about the content provided by the tag. For example, visitors will be curious to know more about “10 ways of losing weight” rather than “losing weight”. The tags must also be relevant and specific to the article that it is leading to. If the tag provided is not appropriate to the content, visitors may not continue having the same levels of trust going with the website further. So, it is preferable to choose tags that are specific and relevant to the content.
Tags are categorization tools that help visitors in finding content easily. Tags can help find the nearer ideas, quotes concept that people discussed in the article, but do not form the core or main idea. They form minor points that help better understand the major point.