What is Tagging?
Tagging is, simply put, keywords that help the search function of the site find your blog posts or photos. When you add tags to something you try to find words or phrases that describe that thing or that people would use while searching for that thing.
For instance, I upload a photo of my new puppy. Tags for this photo could be: puppy, dog, pet. Keep it simple, yet descriptive. Try not to use too many tags or it takes away from the idea of tagging instead of the old way of using lots of keywords. Too few tags though will make it harder people to find your photo or blog post.
Why use Tagging?
So people can find your work. If you posted a blog post among all the millions of blog posts out there, how would someone find yours? Tags!
Lets say I wrote a post about the day I got my new puppy. Tags for this post could be something like: new puppy, first day with new puppy, going on a trip. These may not be perfect, but tagging takes some practice.
How Do I Choose Tags?
The tags that you use for your photos and blog posts should be directly or indirectly related to what your post or photo is about. It should answer the questions: where, what, why, when, how. For example, let's go back to the day I got my puppy analogy. Some better tags that fit this criteria may be:
Where: road trip
What: dog, puppy, puppies, pets
Why: puppy care, puppy love
When: winter trip
How: litter of puppies
I'm not really sure that they all should be tags, just choose the best ones. Not all of the questions really work for all blog posts and photos.
Where Can I Post Photos?
Most photo hosting sites use tagging for their photos. For instance, I use Snapfish, whenever I upload photos to Snapfish from my camera the first question I'm asked it what tags I want to use for my photos. Then they organize my photos based on the tags I use for them.
Since I'm only tagging for my own organizing, and not all of Snapfish, I'll call my puppy photos simply, "puppy". Then I'll always be able to find all my puppy photos. They'll always be put in the puppy folder so I can find them later.
What Blogs Use Tagging?
Just as with the photo hosting sites, most blog hosts also use tagging. It's a little different tagging for blogs then it is tagging for photos though. You probably want to tag for the whole site, not just your own readers. In this case you would use more tags and a broader range of tags.
When you use tags on a blogging site you're essentially saying, "please, come read my blog posts". It's a way of getting people to find what you're writing, not just organizing for yourself. You'd want to use any tags that you think people might use to find your blog post.
