Lawyernomics

Is It a Keyword or a Tag?

February 16, 2012 SEO, Uncategorized
By Linda Chalat

If you have discovered the benefits, and yes, even the enjoyment, of writing a blog, then you have probably noticed the option for adding “tags” at the bottom of the entry template. Keywords are well-known to be the hooks which reel in searches to a relevant webpage. But how do tags help?

Initially, tags were a method of designating subject matter. If you wrote a post on sexting, your keywords would likely be “cellphone,” “texting images,” “teens,” and so on. But your tags could be “parenting advice,” or “risky teenage behavior.” Tags were originally utilized by the tag services such as Technorati and del.icio.us. The tag services crawl through posts looking for the rel=”tag” attribute in the links and associate those tags with the post content.

Add tags automatically

WordPress and Moveable Type, the two most popular software platforms for blogging, provide the opportunity for you to designate tags conveniently as part of the template form completed for each entry–eliminating the need to add coding to your content. Once the entry is published, your tags can be sent automatically to the tag services for inclusion in their database.

Until very recently, a search through the tag service database looked for tags, not content, and listed the search results for that tag, not for keywords associated with content. But Technorati and others have added the capability to search content as well as tags, expanding their search results.

And the flip side is also becoming more common; search engines are beginning to store tags in their database and associate those tags with the content. Until recently, search engines didn’t recognize the rel=”tag” attribute in tag links. Search engines will continue to search content for keywords, and also search their tag list for those keywords.

So as a blogger, what does this mean for you?

Of course focus on your keywords within your post, and take the time to list the keywords in the template box. But also give thought to your tags. Use the rel=”tag” attribute for the frame of reference terms, and also list those in the template form where indicated. By using both keywords and tags, you will ensure that both search engines and tag services can crawl your blog site and store the information in their database for others to find.