I've written a lot about the importance of blogging and given many tips on finding blogging topics. My seminar at the July 2013 JA NY was a full hour on blogging how-to's for jewelers.
But in all that work, there is a blogging topic I rarely mention: Tagging
Tagging
All blogging software includes the ability to "tag" the blog. A tag is a 1 or more word phrase indicating the most important topics mentioned in the blog. You can have multiple tags.
A typical jewelry store blog about engagement rings could be tagged with the phrases "Diamond Engagement Ring" and "Vintage Diamond Engagement Ring."
Some blogging systems will use the word "labels" instead of "tags," and they are the same thing.
In addition to tagging/labeling, some blogging platforms also allow you to group several blog posts into categories. This would allow you to include all your engagement ring blog posts into a single group called "Engagement Rings." Although you can have multiple tags for every blog post, you can only place your blog into a single category.
Both tagging and categorizing is a way to organize your blog. Someone reading your blog might be interested to read other blogs about the tame topic, and they will click the category name. Someone else might be interested to see all the blog where "Diamond Engagement Rings" are mentioned, and they would click the tag name.
When someone clicks one of those tag or category names the blogging software will display a list of your other blog posts with the same tag or in the same category. I caution you against using keyword clouds on your blog pages.
Why is Tagging important?
Some blogs give you the ability to navigate through all the posts by date, while others only provide navigation by categories or tags. In my tracking of jewelry website blogs, I've noticed that very few readers will use the navigation to browse through blogs.
Tagging, category, and date navigation doesn't seem to matter much to a blog reader. In fact, most of my tracking shows that blogs have the highest bounce rate than any other area of a website.
Bounce rates are a measure of single page visits where the reader looked at your page then left. Normally a high bounce rate means that something is wrong with your website, but you will probably find a high bounce rate when you look at the statistics of your blog by itself. That's because the person found your page, read what they wanted to read, then left. This is normal for a blog.
But how did the person find your blog? Through Google or Bing of course.
The search engines will eagerly spider your blog posts and organize them into their own keyword groups, but they will also use the tagging and categorization designated for each blog.
Do you want your website for engagement rings? Then write a bunch of blog posts on that topics and put them all into the Engagement Rings category.
Writing your Tags
Now that I've said that you could write a bunch of blog posts on a single topic, you might be inclined to actually do that. After all, how hard could it be to write 5 blogs about engagement rings?
Very hard in fact!
Heed my advice and don't force yourself to write a blog on a specific topic. The best way to create writers block is to pigeon-hole your thinking into that single topic without the creative freedom to mentally wonder.
Instead, use the multitude of methods I've previously given you to find blogging topics and then think of your tags and categories after you're done writing.
The Bottom Line
The everyday average reader won't click through all your tags and categories but the search engines will.
Your blog posts will have a high chance of appearing in SERPs when you tag them properly, and those tags exactly match the phrases people search for.
It takes a little extra time to tag and categorize every one of your blog posts but it's well worth it. Your Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools reports will show the tags and categories in the keyword referral report. That's your proof that this process is working.
If you haven't tagged your blogs yet then you need to set aside some time to go back and do that.
