Every time you write a post on your blog you have the option to add some Labels to that post.While most Bloggers don't give much thought to the labels they use and some don't add any labels at all they can be very beneficial to your blog in a number of ways, but only if used correctly.Using labels in the correct manner can help your blogs performance in Search, leading to more traffic and labels can be a great way for visitors to navigate your blog keeping them browsing through your archive.So by simply following a few rules and putting some thought into the labels you select you can get more traffic to your blog and increased page views from that traffic.Lets look at some of the mistakes i see made all the time.
Using Long Labels - Your labels should be short using the minimum number of words possible.Examples i have seen such as "Going To The Shop" Should Be simply "Shopping" then that label can be added to a more wide range of future posts.
Non Specific Labels - Above we changed "Going To The Shop" to "Shopping" and not only did this make it shorter it also made it more specific.A label i seen on a Great art blog recently was "Stuff I Drew This Week" ...Hmmm... Would "Latest" Or "Latest Work" Or "Latest Drawings" not work better ?.
Too Many Labels - A huge percentage of Bloggers are guilty of this, basically thinking More is Better.Are you one of those that think if i add Tons of labels to every post it will help ? I know i was when i started Blogging in the dark old days.In fact lots of labels are just messy and of no benefit whatsoever.
No Labels - Yes from one extreme to another while some people think they should keep adding labels until they are told to stop others just don't bother or don't understand.Labels are important and as i said when used properly can be a great benefit to your blog.
So how should you use your labels ? - A great example of how helpful Labels can be and how it works is my Blogger Templates Site called BestBloggerTemplates.Net.On BestBloggerTemplates.Net i have hundreds of Templates in lots of different styles.While some visitors like to browse through all the templates most have a specific type of template in mind.To accommodate this i have broke all the templates into Categories simply using Labels.
Here are some examples - I add the label Two-Column to any template with Two Columns, Left-Sidebar to any template with a left sidebar, Black to any Black colored templates, Simple to all the plain and simple templates, Magazine to templates with a Magazine layout, Featured-Slider to templates that have a Featured Posts Slider added.In all i use 63 different labels on the template site and every time i publish a new template i pick 5-6 labels from that 63.
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| BestBloggerTemplates.Net Labels |
Now if you visit BestBloggerTemplates.Net looking for a template that would be good to display your Photographs you can click on the label 'Photography' and be presented with a list of templates.
So lets quickly step away from Templates and look at some other examples, On a cookery blog you can use labels like Breakfast, Dinner, Supper and Snacks for people looking to cook a specific meal.Use Italian, Chinese, American to find recipes by country.If your latest recipe was a Hot Curry Dish you would add Chinese and Dinner and all future Chinese Recipes and Dinner recipes will be categorized with it.
By now you should be seeing how specific labels can help visitors navigate your blog.You can also see how a label such as "Going To The Shop" would be of no help.
So how can the use of proper labels help your blog in search ? - There are a number of ways not least the labels pages.When you click on a label and are presented with a list of posts using that label the list of posts are on a 'Label Page'.This page of course has it's own URL and so is another page of your blog.Another page for readers to view and increase page views but also another page for Search Engines to crawl.Each label page will be crawled and indexed by Google and the other main search engines and in some cases a popular label page can rank quiet high in search results.
Linking To Labels - Do you Bookmark or build links to your blog posts ? As i often mention here on Spice Up Your Blog you should be Building Links to your content.Building links to your Labels Pages is also a great idea.This can be a unique way for people to Land On and Discover your blog and of course the search engines will follow the links you create to those pages.
Formatting - You may have noticed when i gave examples of the Labels from BestBloggerTemplates.net the labels with two words were separated by a Hyphen or Dash.Why ? Well it's really a personal thing and i use it on all my blogs.By using the Hyphen you are making the URL much tidier as a space between the words will be automatically filled up.
With Hyphen : http://www.99blogger.com/search/label/Social-Media
Without Hyphen : http://www.99blogger.com/search/label/Social%20Media
I do hope this post helps you understand just how beneficial the labels you use on your blog can be when used correctly.If your labels are a mess or you just didn't use them get to work on it straight away and you will soon see the benefits.
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