It seems like most people don’t understand tags very well. I’m not the best at tagging content effectively, but below are some great principles.
- The goals of effective content tagging:
- Allow users to see the subject matter of the post before reading the body (Right Intel doesn’t facilitate this)
- Allow users and editors to browse and search for content (In Right Intel you can search on the intel tab, email edit screen and story edit screen)
- Allow search engines to properly index content (Not applicable in Right Intel)
- Function like an index in the back of a book
- Some principles of effective tagging
- A tag should be specific yet likely to be used again
- A good tag should be short, usually a word or two
- Use between 2 and 4 tags per article
- Consider that a tag may be a word that does not appear in the content
- Use plurals only when appropriate
- Use only letters, numbers, and spaces
- Think about what text people might search for
- Revise and merge your tags periodically
- Codify tagging guidelines for all editors
Sources: The Next Web, Zemanta, NPR
And ironically, this post is not a great example of tagging because the subject matter is unusual for my blog. :)