Categories, Labels and Tags - OH MY!

This is probably the most confusing item for the new blogger. 

1. What are they?
2. Do they matter?

Let's answer the WHAT first.  They are all basically the same thing.  Depending on the particular blog platform they might be called one thing and on another something different. 

• Blogger calls them Labels
• WordPress calls them Categories (and just to confuse you they have a plugin for a separate class for tags)
• TypePad calls the Categories as well.
• Other platforms vary but seem to like the word Tags

Whatever they are called, they are simply a series of words that sum up what your post is about. 

How about the WHY?

They do matter.  They matter for a couple of reasons. 

To your readers, this allows them to quickly sort your entire site and see only those posts that are "labeled" with the word(s) they want.  For instance, this post is Categorized as "Better Blogging".  To see all the post that have something to do with "Better Blogging"  just click on the Tag.  The page will reload, in chronological order with every post that deals with better blogging.  Pretty neat,eh?

For the Search Engines.  To Google, Yahoo, and MSN each label is a link.  Each link adds search engine juice to your blog.  Links are crucial to SEO (which is why this post is also tagged with SEO).

We use the power of this linking when we design your personal Keyword Optimization Plan.