Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Child’s Play—Learn to Tag Your Blog Post Successfully

Last week I promised a post about tagging, today I deliver. Even though successful tagging may seem like a complicated formula—one part magic and two parts luck—it’s more of a game and not nearly as difficult as you may think.

Tagging, sometimes called labeling, is closely related to key words. If you missed last week’s post on key words you can click here to catch up.

I used to be rather lacadaisical about tagging until I accidently stumbled on success. . .then I was hooked. This picture is a screenshot of where my blog post about Facebook showed up in a Google search. Just FYI, it's number 3 out of about 237,000,000. Not bad. 

Warning, Brief Geek Content
To understand how tagging can help your blog post get found (or lost in the sea of other blogs) you do have to understand a little about search engines. Search engines crawl the Internet searching and sorting all the information. In the simplest of terms, the more your information about and on your page matches up, the higher you rank.

Now, for those of you who truly understand search engines, you know this is way over simplifying the concept. Lots of other things come into count when your post is ranked, but tagging correctly will get you way on down the road!

Here are some of the basics of how to tag successfully.
  • Start with your title. Like I said last week, make certain your title is literal.
  • Repeat key words throughout the blog post. Don’t overload your copy with words. Always make sure the writing is good. Think of it as an exercise in focus!
  • Re-use your title in the first couple of lines. It doesn’t have to be an exact repeat of the phrase, just be sure to include the key words.
  • Tag with phrases, not just words. This is something a lot of people miss. When you tag (or label) your post, use your entire title. Then, if you have room, you can also include individual words. Think of it this way, when you enter something into Google’s search box, do you enter just one word or a phrase?

Like Shellie Braeuner reminded us in the comments of last week’s blog, you can also use Google Adwords to help you make wise selections for key words.

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but I spend almost as much time on my title and keywords as I do on composing a blog post. And it's paid off time and again. This post on using headline techniques with social media is number 3 out of about 151,000,000. Like I said, it can be totally habit forming!

So what successes have you had in the blog-o-sphere? What questions?

Don’t forget to join the conversation!
Blessings,
Edie

13 comments:

  1. Great summary. My question is I have always heard you are only supposed to have 8-10 labels, tags etc. I understand your idea of using the entire title in the label but that is the opposite of other advice I see. I am confused. what do you think?

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  2. Your previous post and this post have been very helpful. I need to start working on my seo and tagging!

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  3. I feel clueless about all this. Thanks for the information. I'm like Jean. I thought you are supposed to keep your tags to a minimum. Or is that the key, focus on those words/tags that work for your site?

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  4. Thanks for all this great information as I get closer to getting my new site up. I haven't had tagging capability on my current site, so this is great stuff for me right now!

    Congrats on your #3 spot! :-)

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  5. Jean and Stacy, there is conflicting info out there. But this method is the one I KNOW works.
    Depending on where you have your blog, you only have a certain number of characters to use for tagging. That's the only limit you should worry about.

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  6. I loved the post. Thank you I found it very informative. I will work on that.
    Glenda Parker
    http://glendaparkerfictionwriter.blogspot.com

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  7. Yes! Very helpful... thanks so much for posting this!

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  8. Good post and am going to try it as I re-do my blog.

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  9. Wow, started adding tags; went from @50 page views a day to over 300. WTG Edie.

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  10. This and the previous post on SEO have been very helpful to me, a baby blogger! I see my early mistakes and plan to correct them. Do you know anything about blog directories like "blogarama"? Keep the tips coming!

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  11. Thank you Edie, this was informative & helpful!! Now to do it :)
    Merissa

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  12. I admire the way you express yourself through writing. Your post is such a refreshing one to read. This is such an interesting and informative article to share with others. Keep up the good work and more power. Thanks!

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  13. Thanks for the helpful info. I never thought of tagging the title. I have noticed that the times I have hit the front page of google, it doesn't stay there forever (makes sense). I am guessing that continuing to write on that topic may help with that?

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