Some time ago I started dropping in on First Friday to meet and greet a few new bloggers. A lot of them are just learning the ropes and open to a little guidance, so I often leave some advice about categories and tags. I’m posting this here today in case these thoughts may help some other newbies and maybe some longtime bloggers who haven’t attached much importance to this angle.
Categories & Tags
…are very useful creatures. You can create them as you publish each post, using the sidebar on the right. Tagging our posts is how we invite other bloggers to check out what we’ve written. For example, if I create a Personal, or an Education, category or tag for my post, it will send my post title and a couple of lines to the Reader. Other bloggers searching for posts on Personal or Education will see mine listed and hopefully come and read what I’ve written.
Note:
WordPress says they allow only fifteen C’s & T’s per post. If there are more, their SPAM detectors will boot the post off the Reader. Like coming to a beach party in tux and tails, golden cuff-links and a flashy silk tie.“Too much is overkill; go home and change.”
Some bloggers use C’s and T’s; some may use only one or the other. It’s up to you. Both go to the Reader. However, categories and tags also become, over time, your blog’s filing system. I wish I’d understood better how they work when I started blogging. In fact, I started a brand new site last year and am slowly reposting all my writing so I can use Cs & Ts properly for each item.
For my own blog, I use Categories as the drawers of my filing cabinet. The big sections: Poetry or Fiction. Then the tags are like files within the drawer. Under Poetry you’ll find tags like: Nature, Seasons, Children, Inspiration, etc. Under the Fiction category you’ll find tags like Travel, Truth, Children, Relationships, etc
Among the Widgets there’s one bloggers can install that puts a list of Categories on your blog’s front page. You can put them in your top menu as I’ve done on this blog, or you can display them in your sidebar. Another option is to install the widget that gives you a Tag Cloud. You can choose how many tags will display.
To each his own, but in my opinion it’s better to limit the number displayed, or choose “Display as a drop-down list,” rather than having a list of seventy-five categories running down your Home Page sidebar. Generally speaking, try to make things as simple as possible for your visitors.
Be selective when choosing C’s & T’s. Pick something pertinent to your post, topics people are actually going to be looking for. “Aunt Sue” may be an intriguing person, but not a very compelling tag for someone who doesn’t even know who YOU are. Ditto with Flowers or My trip. Titling your post Cheap Vacation Spots and tagging it Travel, Adventure, River rafting, Timbuktu would be far more apt to draw visitors than Vacation. The specific English language tag will draw readers more than the general Grammar. For more ideas on what Categories and Tags to choose, check out the Reader:
One Sour Note:
When I first started blogging the tags were much simpler: Articles, Opinions, Home, Family, Religion, Books, etc. Thankfully these tags still show up, but one sad thing I’ve seen in recent years is some sites creating tags with their own (usually advertising) posts. So you get a tag relevant only to purchasers of, say, women’s t-shirts. As one example, right now I see a tag: Baby Bodysuit Designs. It appears that one site selling some of these outfits has published almost 3000 posts — most of them TODAY! Sigh.
Uncategorized Posts
I often see posts listed as Uncategorized. I consider this the waste of a perfectly good tag. Like dropping a luscious ice cream cone in a puddle.
Uncategorized is the default setting that comes with every new blog. It tells no one anything about your post. My advice: get rid of it.
A blogger can change their default by going to the left hand sidebar and selecting Settings. Next you see a screen where, across the center at top are four words:
General, Writing, Discussion, Traffic. Click on Writing
The first line under writing is for Categories. You’ll see how many you have and what the Default is.
Click on the arrow at right. Now you get to add more categories and also change the default to something that better suits your blog’s general theme. I’ve chosen Reflections.
If there’s a Save Changes button somewhere on the screen, hit it. You should be good to go.
And now I shall use as many pertinent categories and tags as possible, and hit publish. 🙂
Christine's Collection 
I didn’t know about the limit of 15! Thanks for that info, Christine. I have one question perhaps you know the answer to. When I first started blogging, I would write in a new tag every time, not realizing I could click on the old tag. The result is that I sometimes have 2 or 3 tags by the same name. Is there any way to erase two of them? And, if I do, will the tag from the ones erased just switch to the one remaining tag? Some of my tags I make for the benefit of those searching for a certain topic, but others I use so I can use them in my own searches. I may want to find all my essays and poems about “Aunt Sue” even if my readers don’t. Or perhaps my search would find all the posts that include the words “Aunt Sue” even without the tag?
Very generous of you to give advice to new bloggers–and old ones!! Thanks… Judy
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad you found this interesting. 🙂 As to your questions:
If you write in the tag, say Flowers, the next time you type it in exactly the same, you don’t create a new tag. But if the next time you type “Flower” or “flowers”, or “flower” or “red flowers,” you create another tag.
Yes, you can edit your tags. Instead of hitting Categories, as I’ve said above for changing the Default, go to the second option given: Tags. then hit the arrow at right and it will take you to all your tags. Edit or Delete as you wish.
If you change “Flower” to “Flowers”, you’ll have to cope with the “what do we do with the 75 posts you now have under “Flower”? sort of question. (Haven’ done this for awhile so don’t have the latest info.) You can safely delete “Flower” and it won’t delete your posts because you have other categories and tags on these same posts; the posts will still be listed under those Cs & Ts. If, though, your post had only one tag, “Flower” it would disappear.
You can go back to posts individually and edit, delete or add tags.
As to dear Aunt Sue: if you do a search for that name, every post that mentions Aunt Sue will pop up. If you have it as a tag and click on that tag, every post you have about Aunt Sue will pop up. Same thing, if I err not. You can always verify that before deleting dear Aunt Sue. 😉
LikeLike
Ha. Sounds so sinister, “deleting dear Aunt Sue.” Thanks for taking the time to clarify this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for this informative post.I was a bit sceptical when I started with it, but gladly the language and the manner of portrayal was quite simple and layman friendly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I try to keep it simple for newcomers, remembering back when… 🙂
Thanks for your comment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Christine thank you for the Cs and Ts I had not realised that these are helpful for readers.
I am learning quite a lot from your posts.
I normally use the daily prompts to write posts which land themselves into categories. Now I can write posts from an idea which I may have and open a new category thank you.
LikeLike
You’re welcome. Sorry for the late reply. I missed your comment when it first came in.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on luna's on line and commented:
Some useful info on those funny little ‘tags’ and their ‘category’ cousins – use them to full advantage!
LikeLike