Categories, keywords, tags and traffic
I am continuing the series of answers to questions that were asked in my pre-Christmas post. You can ask your questions to be added to the series by commenting on this or any other post.
Today’s question:
Would like even more clarity on Tags Vs. Keywords, a Categories vs. Keywords/tags. Which is going to get me traffic from the search engines?
A few questions here and it may be a bit confusing so I have to do one of the bad things – assume. Regular readers know how I hate having to use that word 
.
Your question is primarily about getting more traffic. Tags, keywords and the categories that you pick can all help you that way in getting traffic from the search engines. Often they may end up being very similar.
Keywords are normally added to your meta tags to help the search engines decide what your page is about but everything I have read of late shows that keywords in the meta tags have very little weight in how the search engines rank your page.
Tags on the other hand as used by WordPress create extra content pages and those tag pages make it very easy to get the spiders deeper into your site and make sure that all of your content is spidered.
Categories also create separate pages within your blog structure like the tags do. Both of these increase your interior linking within your site.
Both categories and tags can increase the chance of you getting a double listing in the search engines for your keyword. According to the tests that the guys at Stomper have done that will increase the click through rate.
Although using tags and categories that are keyword relevant will increase your chances of getting ranked better the real key is the quality of the content you have and the keywords that you have targeted.
To find out how to target traffic generating keywords that will draw you traffic check out EZ Keyword Research.
Using tags properly, adding keywords into your meta tags, and picking good categories of and by them selves will not make a huge difference on a specific post. However, the total weight of doing it regularly on all of your posts over time will make a huge difference.
As always your questions and comments are welcomed. Comment below.
About the author
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Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. Get the details at Profitable Blog Steps |
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6 comments
Fred Lotgering
Twitter: lotcon
on January 8, 2010 at 7:08 am
Great post for me because I realized a few days ago that I had not a very good system to work with keywords and specially not for optimizing tags including the full benefits of the simple tag plugin.
Fred Lotgering´s last blog ..Site Flipping – are you a site flipper?
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Joel Osborne
Twitter: JoelOsborne
on January 8, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Good explaination Mike. I was confused by some of this too in the past, but after working with WP more and more it helped to clear it up.
Joel Osborne´s last blog ..Avoid Bad Quality PLR Material by Nicole Dean of Easy PLR
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Doug Champigny
Twitter: Mentoring4U
on January 9, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Great answer, Mike! With so many blogs online today it’s tough to get decent traffic from the search engines, so it’s important to see that you’ve done all you can to maximize the flow. More and more, though, bloggers are turning to (or returning to) article marketing, podcasting and video marketing to bring traffic to their blogs much more quickly and in greater numbers.
Doug Champigny´s last blog ..Internet Marketing 4-Week Crash Course From PowerStart Marketing
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Mike Reply:
January 9th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
I agree withyou totally and if you notice I have started adding the posts back as podcasts and have always used article marketing to draw traffic. http://SundayNightCashPlan.com was put together to show people how to take their blog posts and convert it into a podcast, video and article as resuing content is the key.
[Reply]
Valentina on January 9, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Exactly the conundrum I had with regards to these different but seemingly same distinctions. Much clearer now. Thank you.
best…………valentina
Valentina´s last blog ..Affiliate Marketing – Get The Fundamentals Right
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Lonnie Minton on January 11, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Thanks for this good explanation on the difference between categories, keywords, and tags and the necessity for being consistent in using them.
What could use more explanation is “Using tags properly” and “picking good categories”
How do you do these two things?
Lonnie Minton´s last blog ..Affiliate Marketing PLR Bundle with Private Label Rights
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