Why You Should Definitely Put Additional Keywords as Tags
As I have mentioned previously, whenever you write new content on your website you should make use of the "tags" section in WordPress. Don't just put your main keyword here, also put 4 or 5 related keywords.
Let's say you are writing a product review, your main keyword might be Is Product Name a Scam, but you could also put Product Name Review in as a tag. Then you could add some related keywords that don't specifically mention the product name. For example, if the product is about surveys, put other survey keywords in, or even a generic "how to make money online" type keyword.
But don't put too many keywords in, as Google will probably see this as keyword stuffing. 5 or 6 keywords is probably about right.
The great thing is, if you choose really low competition keywords, sometimes you can rank in Google just with your tag pages. Tag pages look like yourwebsite.com/tag/your-keyword and contain short snippets from your posts that have that tag.
One possible benefit about these additional keywords is that maybe they don't need to be grammatically correct. However, I have not fully tested this yet. But you know that if you use a keyword as your title, it needs to be grammatically correct otherwise it reads badly. But if an additional keyword is just put in as a tag, maybe it could be less grammatically correct, for example, make money affiliate amazon. According to the keyword tool, 32 people per month on average do search for that, but there are only 9 websites with that exact phrase in them (10 now that I've used it here?). If you put that in, maybe it will be easy to get on page 1 of Google?
At the moment I am currently putting into practice my idea I mentioned in Find New ClickBank Products to Review. I'm starting to show up in the top spots for some new products. At the moment those keywords don't really get any searches. BUT, the additional keywords I have also put in do get serches. So, you can see that as well as these mini product reviews being place holders for if the products do take off, they are also a good excuse to try to rank for some additional keywords.
As I type this, SERP Lab says I have:
- 17 keywords in the top 3
- 34 keywords in the top 10
- 65 keywords in the top 30
- 92 keywords in the top 100
A significant portion of these will not be getting searches at the moment, but are ready in good spots for when they do. And if that time comes, I can go back and make them superb reviews rather than the rushed mini reviews they currently are.
But also, a significant portion of these spots are for additional keywords. For example, I have two tag pages that are ranking at number 10 for two keywords that aren't blog post titles but are just additional keywords.
Just keep in mind, my website is 8 months old, so you can't expect to get these kinds of results if your website is very new. But hopefully this gives you some hope, and the inspiration and motivation to get out there and find great low competition keywords and write great content. If you do that consistently, over time Google will come to like you.
Recent Comments
18
Hi Marcus, thank you for the great post!
I was very confused today and this helped me out very quickly!
I noticed that some of my tags were ranking significantly higher in Google search results vs. the keywords in the post title. I first noticed this in Google Webmaster Tools (under the Search Analytics section) and then I double checked in SERPlab to be sure.
Similar to you, I also used related keywords for the tags in WordPress. And I typically use 3 tags per post.
I must admit this was a pleasant surprise! I initially thought that tags were more like categories, or another way to keep track of posts in WP. I had no idea that they could lead to rankings in Google for related keywords!
Thanks again for the explanation, it all makes perfect sense now!
All the best,
Nicole
Marcus, meta keyword tags are obsolete, some themes come without them, and in some themes you can remove this option. So what do you think why this is? It is not used.
There is a Matt Cutts video where he explicitly says that, I cannot attach it, the system does not allow. But there is link in my site justymythinking, under page 'search engine optimization, sub-page 'how to improve page rank'.
I think Marcus is talking about Wordpress tags as opposed to SEO meta keyword tags. I've used categories and am in the process of implementing tags for each of my posts up to this point.
Jovo, Ally is right, they are two different things. Meta tags are tags that are just in the HTML code but do not appear on the page itself. What I'm talking about is the "tags" section when you create a new blog post, as shown in the attached image.
If you look at this blog post on my site and scroll to the bottom of it, you will see them listed at the bottom:
http://earnmoneywithmarcus.com/what-is-an-ebay-affiliate
So this means that those keywords are part of that page and will maybe help it rank for those terms (as long as you don't go crazy and put 100 in, in which case Google might think you are keyword stuffing)
Also, if you click on any of those tags, you will get taken to a tag page, like this one for example:
http://earnmoneywithmarcus.com/tag/ebay-partner-network-tips
A tag page contains snippets of any blog posts that have those tags. This is why tag pages can themselves rank in Google's search results. Of the 10 keywords I am currently on the number 1 spot for, 5 of them are tag pages.
I hope that clarifies things, but let me know if you have any other questions :-)
Hi Marcus, first thank you for your time and patience with me. Indeed it seems we were talking about different things.
I have a few questions, I could PM you but perhaps others might also need answers:
-So you choose tags carefully, using the usual ways for long tail keywords, to get ranked even by tags?
- You may have many posts and pages with similar content. So adding tags at each of them you must be careful not to have overlapping. I mean, you take care that two tags are not the same at different posts/pages? What happens if you put the same tag at different posts/pages?
-Would you suggest me to go through my texts and add tags everywhere or at least somewhere?
Thank you. Jovo
That's okay Jovo, we're all in this together :-)
To answer each of your questions:
- Yes, for example, I have a blog post called "Is Solo Ads Wizard a Scam?" So that's my main keyword, which I'm #2 on Google for, and my additional keywords are: Solo Ad Wizard Review (#2), Solo Ad Wizard (#4), best solo ads sites (#20), email marketing tips tricks, making money email lists.
- It is actually good to have multiple blog posts with the same tags because then excerpts of those articles will appear on the tag pages. For example, if I had 10 different blog posts relating to email marketing, they could all have the tag "email marketing tips tricks". Then the tag page for "email marketing tips tricks" would contains excerpts from each of those 10 blog posts. This will mean that tag page contains lots of related words, and it will probably rank well in Google.
- Yes, it would be good to go back through your existing blog posts and add additional tags. If you like, I could take a look and suggest some for you. I would pretend it was my blog post, then say what I would do if it was me.
All the best,
Marcus.
OK thanks, I am traveling now but as soon as I am back to base I shall focus on this. In case I need help I shall ask.
I follow a similar methodology with the use of tags. My nice site is about 6 month sold and, while not yet ranking quite as well as yours, it is climbing up nicely, with several pages/keywords showing up on Google pages 1, 2 and 3. So I do believe the smart use of keywords in tags is beneficial.
See more comments
Flatulent Fairies, Marcusoidus...