WordPress Tags should be added to your post, but this is another item that many people overlook – and so do I at times! (Sound like Categories that I wrote about recently, huh?) These are Categories and Tags. You can use them to categorize the information in your blog by topic and by its content. This will help your readers find what they want to read and even skip the stuff they might not care to read.
WordPress Tags are used as shorthand for describing the topics covered in a particular blog post. Unlike posts that might have only one or two categories, a long blog post may have anywhere from 10 – 20 tags assigned. If you look over the posts that are in this blog, you will find each post to have 3 – 8 WordPress tags associated with each post. Keeping with the Telephone Blog example, posts could be tagged with: cell phone, iPhone, Verizon, Touchtone, plans, Apple, Driod.
To see how this adding a WordPress Tag works, start by creating a new blog post. Once the post is written, you will see the Post Tags area on the right side of your post underneath the Categories area. To add your tags, just type your list of tags into the Tags box. When you add multiple tags, separate them by commas.When have entered them all, click on the Add button. The tags you just typed in will appear below the text field with little x’s next to them. If you made a mistake, you can click on an x to delete a tag. Once you’ve used some tags in your blog, you’ll be able to click on the Choose from the most popular tags link in this box so that you can easily re-use tags.
By utilizing WordPress tags, you can enrich your readers’ experience while on your site.
You’re going to love this one, Paul …
For the first year or so of blogging, I didn’t tag ANY of my posts. I knew that little box and feature was there for a reason but I was convinced it wasn’t all that important. Let’s just call it sheer ignorance. I viewed tagging as some little ‘addendum’ thing you could do that didn’t really matter. Yikes!
And that was just because I hadn’t educated myself. I focused on the writing and nothing else. Thank goodness we make a little progress along the way, eh?
The tips you’re sharing here will definitely help WP bloggers, especially newbies, shorten their learning curve.
@Melanie – That is very common! Most people don’t bother with Categories or Tags initially! They are powerful and should be used. Thanks for commenting.