Categories Vs. Tags: Differences

One thing which makes blogs messy and hard to understand is the way bloggers post their articles. As mentioned on our previous post, for a blog not to get messy, bloggers have to organize their posts. How can that happen? That is easy; you just have to use categories and tags on you every post. If you still think these two things are just the same, then you are wrong. They might share the same purpose, to organize articles and link related posts together, but they function differently.

Categories.

They are just like your cabinets on your office or your study area which stores relevant information on every chest. Yes, they function that way. Just as it is called, you can categorize your articles to one class if you find them somewhat related to it. But then, a problem occurs to bloggers either they narrow down their categories into a small number of it or they have a vast array. Bloggers have to be careful with it. If you have a very narrow number of it, and you write articles based on your existing categories, and then you will probably get bored with just the same topic resulting to writing articles less. But then, if you have a very wide array of it, then you will have lots of things to write about. But sooner or later, you surely will be out of focus and forget to update posts on every category leading to a loss of continuity in you postings. Readers might not want that. So, I suggest you to have a focus on just a small number of categories, aside from it being easy to manage, you don’t easily get out of your domain’s topic and still be able to give humor and interests on your readers. It just depends on how you tickle them with your posts. One thing with it, don’t be specific when naming your categories, instead, use the general ones. Some of the common categories used are, personal, networking, academic, career, financial, practical, social and a lot more. Make sure you choose the right category for your every article.

Tags.

These on the other hand, are just folders inside every chest. They further narrow down your topic to specific labels. That’s right, these are specific labels for what your article is all about. These tags are like definitive terms telling the readers that the article is related to other articles with this label. Bloggers, you always have to remember that when tagging, you have to be very specific of the words you use for tagging. They guide your readers as to what they are reading. Also, bloggers always have to remember to reuse the existing tags whenever an article created is somewhat related to that article. I also suggest you make a tag cloud. Tag clouds are visual illustrations of user-generated tags. These tag clouds would help your readers be able to scan over specific labels which might be of their interest.

These two things should come in handy in every blog. They go together. And they work best when used together. These things are essential parts of every article. Categories are chests and tags are folders inside the chests. They are different but still share the same purpose, organizing and linking related posts.

So, get on with your posts. Review them and try organizing them so that your avid readers will have an easy way of finding posts they might want to read.