WordPress Tags: How to Optimize Them (2 Examples)

In many SEO projects we’ve had, when we are in the phase of optimizing the web architecture and information organization, the question always arises of what to do with tags in WordPress. If it’s worth creating them, we almost always see that they have been used improperly.

Many SEO experts suggest eliminating them, but I believe that depending on the project, and by thinking through their use carefully, we can take advantage of this additional way of grouping and classifying content.

The benefits of categorization in WordPress are evident. On one hand, the user experience improves enormously by facilitating navigation with additional filtering systems.

Secondly, since both taxonomies are content grouping tools, categories and tags offer an opportunity to increase traffic to your site through search engines using terms that might not be possible with categories alone.

I will try to explain an optimal use of tagging in WordPress, with a practical approach, through two examples, so that it is useful for both search engines and users.

But first, a couple of tips when you are going to create tags in WordPress:

1. There cannot be tags assigned to a single article. This is discouraged because it generates duplicate content—WordPress is very prone to it :’). A tag page would be almost the same as the page of the single article it belongs to. And this happens very often. Both categories and WordPress tags should be used for grouping. And to group, there must be at least two elements. The advice is to check carefully if the article you are creating could not belong to an already created tag. And if not, do not create the tag for the moment until there is a second article to be grouped with the first.
2. The name of the tag in WordPress must be relevant, and there cannot be tags that could be redundant or synonyms. For example, on a surfers’ website, I would change:
   1. Physio —> Physio for Surfers
   2. Awards —> World Surf Awards
   3. Java (can be confused with the programming language) —> Surfing in Java, Indonesia

But let’s get to the examples.

In Information Architecture, categories are used for a vertical organization of information. This is the typical case of categories in a blog or an online store: e.g., Children’s, Women’s, and Men’s Clothing. Or Footwear, etc.

Example 1, El Corte Inglés (A Department Store)

On each floor, there is a department (I’m making these up, I’m not a regular at El Corte Inglés, hehe):

• 6 – Food and DIY
• 5 – Home and Decoration
• 4 – Babies and Appliances
• 3 – Youth Fashion and Footwear
• 2 – Men’s Fashion
• 1 – Women’s Fashion
• B – Perfumery

Those would be the categories. Products in one category should not be in another, creating a Silo structure.

But what if there are products with a certain characteristic that should be organized in another way that allows for a more permeable categorization, a cross-cutting way of grouping elements?

That’s when tags in WordPress come in.

In the previous case, for example, some interesting tags could be:

• Sportswear (would group products for men, women, youth, footwear…)
• Christmas gifts (would group products from home and decoration, food, perfumery, etc.)
• Kitchenware (would group products from food and appliances)
• “Back to School” (would group children’s clothing, backpacks, school supplies, footwear…)
• Black Friday Deals: same as above.

Example 2, the Animal Kingdom

In general, they are classified into:

• Vertebrates
  • Fish
  • Amphibians
  • Reptiles
  • Birds
  • Mammals
• Invertebrates
  • Porifera: sponges
  • Coelenterates: jellyfish, etc.
  • Worms: annelids…
  • Echinoderms: starfish and sea urchins
  • Mollusks: cephalopods…
  • Arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans…

Here a very well-defined category structure emerges.

But we would need tags in WordPress to make other groupings of animals that cross the ‘official classification’.

For example:

• Live in water: Fish, Echinoderms, Crustaceans
• Cold-blooded: Fish, Reptiles
• Warm-blooded: Birds, Mammals
• 4 legs: Mammals, Some reptiles
• Oviparous: Reptiles, Birds
• Fly: Birds, Insects
• Freshwater or saltwater: ….

Do you understand where I’m going with this?

I hope it’s understandable enough to help you improve the organization of articles, products, or content in general on your websites.

In short, what you need to reflect on is whether there should be an additional (and useful for the user) way of grouping information using WordPress tags, beyond the typical tree structure where the branches do not touch each other.

And the most important thing when putting tags in WordPress is that it allows the user, in the fewest clicks possible, to find the content they are looking for.

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