In today’s crowded online environment it is rather difficult to get your five minutes of fame, even when you have the most amazing content there is. This is one area where we can easily apply George Barkley’s saying “To be is to be perceived”, because when no one is seeing you on the web, you might as well not exist.
One thing that can make a huge difference and we are prone to overlook, is a quality tag. No amount of SEO can salvage an untagged and uncategorized image or content. The sole purpose of tags and categories is to sort your content in a way that will improve the visibility of your website. In its essence, it is making it easier for the users to browse through your content.
Quality Tag; important factors to lookout for before hitting the ‘publish button’
The Difference between Categories and Tags
This is the first thing that tends to confuse bloggers around the globe. Surprisingly enough, it is very easy to differ the two. Though they are both tools for sorting the content, categories (and sub-categories) are wider concept. They are general topics/table of contents of your website. If your general topics are: food, fashion, entertainment and travel, the category will be one of these topics. Tags are describing the specifics of one post. For instance, if a category of some post/image is ‘travel’, the tags would be ‘France’, ‘Provence’, ‘Coted’Azur’ and ‘SaintTropez’.
Less Is More
The key both to tagging and categorizing your content is in the old axiom Less is more. Aim to provide the reader with everything that he/she needs to know, while at the same time, offering as few options as possible. Never tag a page for the sake of tagging, but always keep in mind the functionality of the category and tag. Think with a SEO brain: all categories and tags should represent the keywords a reader would search on the web. A good post should typically be in no more than two categories, while the tagging should be limited to relevant post’s topics.
Being Specific
This is especially important for tagging images. There you have the liberty to describe the concept behind your photo. If you are selling an image, consider that buyers will search what they need instead of browsing through thousands of photos (woman, young, laughing, blond, etc.). For businessman conducting their own blogs will often search for money pictures, so it is important for the tags to actually reflect the content of an image and make the picture purchase much easier.
Geotagging is also essential. If you are, for instance tagging a certain city, such as NYC, make sure you tag the specific location you are in, e.g. Central City Park.
Interlinking
Interlinking is a very efficient way to point out to the reader, or the potential image buyer, that you have some more similar works if he/she is in need for it. For example, if you have a reader/potential buyer reading your post you can recommend running another section on your blog which could (based on the text he is currently reading or the image he is currently observing) be of interest to him/her.
Keep up with the Trends
This does not mean that you should use some of the most popular tags, even though they have nothing to do with your image or text. The quality and preciseness of the tags is what will bring your image attention, not the popularity of keywords. Still, you should keep in mind that not all tags are evergreen and that some of them are more used than others. Try to constantly keep up with the changes and use them to your benefit.
A quality tagged photo/content is not the one which is stuffed with unnecessary popular tags, but the one which categories and tags reflect its essence to generate more traffic or more successful sale.
In conclusion, no matter the amount of quality content and level of quality SEO practices without quality tagging, the effort is much of a wasted one.
Sophia Smith is a freelance writer and graphic designer from Brisbane, Australia with huge interest in photography and the phenomenon of social media. She writes mostly in lifestyle related topics, mainly through blogs and articles. Sophia is regular contributor at High Style Life and TechAtLast. Find her on: Twitter, Google +.
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The quality full tag is very important to build up you SEO of your Websit. So this is helpful topics for SEO