What Are Tags and How Are They Used?

By Matthew Glenn

Some people may not know what tags are and whether they're important or not. Well here is the long and short of it. Let's start off with the definition. Tags are a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information, such as a blog entry. This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags can be chosen by the creator or by its viewers, depending on the system of course.

Within a blog tags allow authors to add free-form tags to a post, along with (or instead of) placing the post into categories. For instance, a post may display that has been tagged with "concert and tickets". Each of those tags is usually a web link leading to an index page listing all of the posts associated with that tag. The blog may have a sidebar listing all the tags in use on that blog, with each tag leading to an index page. To reclassify a post, an author edits its list of tags. All connections between posts are automatically tracked and updated by the blog software; there is no need to relocate the within a complex hierarchy of categories.

So in layman's terms these tags can be used to find your article when the words you used to describe your article are typed in a search engine or within the blog search tool. Very simple concept but really needed when your looking to be notice. What's important here is to use descriptive words that shed light on the subject of your blog entry.

For example for this article I chose, blog, tags, how to, meta, spiders, SEO, and keywords. Tip: no matter where you use your tags blog, website, YouTube, if your not sure what one to use remember the internet is an open book, just look for an entry close to yours in subject to get some ideas.

Matthew is an Internet Success Coach (http://www.freelifenow.com) interested in sharing the truth about online marketing and helping guide people over the hump and through the learning curve. His motto is "Once your over the hump the rest is down hill." To see how the truth and online marketing go hand and hand visit his webpage and check out his blog for marketing tips and tricks @ http://mattglenn.wordpress.com

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