Question about using tags in WordPress

1. 86

   Dorsiposted 10 years ago

   I've finally found my niche in writing (hey it only took 5 years to realize this - duh) Anyway, it's all about creative stuff - art lessons, design, etc. So when using WordPress for my own website where I am posting alot of my art related stuff, how many tags do I want to keep my site too? Do I tag all my posts with every tag that has anything to do with the post and image or do I tone it down and stick to just the main ones? I am finding myself with alot of tags and am thinking this is not a good ideas. Any advice or help on this would be appreciated. Thanks!

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      It depends what you are using your tags for.
      
      The best way to think of them, IMO is this:  If your blog was a book, your Categories would be your Table of Contents.  Your tags are your Index.  If you were preparing an index in a book, you probably wouldn't include 'airplanes' and "aeroplanes" and "aircraft", because they'd be listed so close together they're not all necessary. 
      
      Your keywords are in your text already - adding the same words as tags won't help Google work out what they are.  And adding synonyms as tags, but not using them in your text, is keyword stuffing. 
      
      Several people have advised me not to use a 'tag cloud' at all - apparently there's a Matt Cutts video somewhere saying Google doesn't like them (unfortunately I haven't been able to find it yet).  So you might want to look at various plugins which enable you to display a tag list in various other ways.
      
      This is a good article on the subject:
      
      https://managewp.com/wordpress-categories-tags-seo

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2. 72

   livewithrichardposted 10 years ago

   With many Wordpress themes, the tags also appear right after the Title of the post.  Having too many tags can be a distraction.  I try to limit the tags that I use to the 5 main keywords and  use those same tags as hashtags on Twitter.  Also, if you are going to use a tag, make sure that you also use that keyword within your post otherwise it may be seen as keyword stuffing.

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3. 90

   Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years ago

   I am not familiar with how Wordpress uses tags, but I like to use the tags on Blogger to find my posts.  All of my quilting posts have the quilting tag on them, so I can search for all of my quilting articles and see what project I was working on last, etc.  Also, a particular project will have its own tag - for example, Chinese coins quilt.  That way, I can see how long I have been working on that particular quilt, what issues I had, and what my plans were for it. 
   
   I use the tags to make it easier for me to find the articles, and think it will help my readers as well in a smaller way.

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4. 72

   livewithrichardposted 10 years ago

   Marisa summed it up perfectly.  Just keep in mind that when you create a tag on your blog you internally create a page and every post that you use the same tag on will be associated to that tag page.
   
   The same thing was done here on HP at one time, you may remember, until it became abused.  Tag pages garner page rank so if you tag a post with a keyword phrase that has nothing to do with your post, it can have a negative effect.

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5. 86

   Dorsiposted 10 years ago

   Thanks Marisa, Richard and Millionaire Tips. I think I need to figure out the 5 main tags I am going to be using and keep it simple. Like "art lessons", "photography", and I need to figure out the other important 3 that I am focusing on - how to word them. Like they say with everything I guess, the KISS acronym would fit well with this thought...."keep it simple sweetheart" Thanks all for your advice.

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