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. :)