Friday, May 23rd, 2014
Every time you post something on WordPress you have the option to categorize and add tags to your post before you click on Publish – the magic button. The question is – do you really need to use WordPress tags?
If you have a large website one of the major benefits of tags is that they can make navigation easier by giving your visitors the option to look for posts related to the same topic/keyword.
Wordpress Tags and SEO are good together only if your tags are relevant by helping search engines to better determine the topics of your post.
In terms of errors, the main error with WordPress tags is tagging stuffing(the same as keyword stuffing). What you should actually ask yourself is: can my post be found by using the other search methods that are already implemented on site using the keyword that I want to use as a tag? If you can’t find it using the navigation bar, the categories or the search bar then YES, you need those WordPress tags. If your post is findable using any of the methods I previously mentioned then don’t use WordPress tags because too many navigation solutions will overwhelm your visitors and it will be nothing but a waste of time for you.
If you decide that using WordPress tags is good for your website, then you should maximize your benefits from using them. Here are some recommendations on how to use tags effectively:
Include only highly relevant words – for example if you discovered a great music player for windows and you want to promote it, it’s alright to use “music player” as a tag, but you won’t get the same positive result if you use “awesome music player”.
Keep your WordPress Tags short – the best are maximum 2 words long. Long tail keywords are visually disturbing and ineffective.
Check if they are necessary – if you tagged that music player, but you only have 1 or 2 posts about music players then the purpose of the WordPress tag is lost. People should find related posts by using tags and if they have nothing or little to find why even bother to add and keep them in the first place? Likewise, if you have too many posts about the same topic/tag then why don’t you just make another category to make search easier for your readers?
If you decide to use tags, then you also have to manage them periodically to see which ones you use very often and which ones should be removed, otherwise you will end up with a whole pile of tags, many of them completely useless and they will only add clutter to your website.
Tags might be bad for seo because of duplicate content, make sure the pages are “noindex follow”, but it might be safer to just not use tags. If you insist on using them here is what tag pages should contain:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”/>
