Tags

Tags are used to precisely and descriptively summarize the content of an article using short words. They relate to the context of the content or event that took place. They are displayed beneath the article, and users can click on them, serving a navigational role by directing them to a tag-specific subpage where they can see other articles with the same tag.

Tags are an integral part of any news website. They help users better understand and access related articles. When well-planned, they can positively impact the website's SEO by expanding the number of connections between articles through internal linking.

Managing Tags on the Tag List

When you select the Tags module from the main menu in CMS 4media, you'll see a list view with added tags.

At the top of the list, there are tabs for "Articles" and "Events," allowing you to switch between lists of tags in articles and events.

On the list, besides the tag name, the "Views" column provides essential information about which tags are most popular among users on your news website.

In the "Actions" column, you'll find buttons to edit the tag page and delete it.

Adding Tags

Naturally, your journalists and editors will add tags while creating or editing articles and events. Each tag created in this way will appear in the tags module, where you can edit or delete it.

You can also create new tags directly in the Tags module, making them available for selection in the Tags field during article or event editing.

To add a new tag in the Tags module, click on the plus button in a circle above the tag list. This opens the new tag creation wizard, as shown in the screenshot below.

Name - enter the tag name that will appear on the website.

Description - you can write a few sentences explaining what the tag is about. If the tag page is indexed (or if a user clicks on the tag and goes to its page), the description will be displayed above the list of articles. If you've enabled tag indexing, filling out this field will strengthen the SEO of the tag page.

On the right side (on desktop devices), you'll find SEO Fields, allowing you to influence the appearance of the tag page in search results and the appearance of the thumbnail in social media (the image that loads in the link preview). More on this topic is covered in guides:

• SEO Fields
• Social Media Photo

Global Tag Settings

Global tag settings allow website administrators to maintain order in tag management. These settings prevent frequent occurrences of adding dozens of tags to a single article or event.

You can specify two fundamental matters here:

• Indexing the tag page in search engines - you can decide separately for tags added in articles and event tags whether tag pages should be indexed, e.g., in Google search. If you permit indexing, CMS 4media tag pages will be automatically indexed if the tag is assigned to at least 5 articles (this setting benefits SEO, as indexing robots see more valuable content on the tag page).
• Tag limit - separately for a single article and event. Here, you can specify the maximum number of tags that can be added to an article/event during its publication or editing.

How to Use Tags? Best Practices

How should tags be used? Careful consideration is crucial, as the biggest danger is generating many low-quality tag pages on the website. Therefore, read our tips below to devise the best strategy for assigning tags to articles and events.

Example of Proper Tag Assignment in an Article

Suppose you run a local news website. There's an active soccer club in your city making significant progress and has a chance to enter the first league. The club's star player is John Doe, an excellent striker drawing interest from MLS coaches. You write a summary of the latest match in which the striker scored 3 goals. You publish the article in the "Sports" category.

Tags you can assign to the article: John Doe, the soccer club's name, USL, soccer, hattrick.

Tags that don't fit because they don't directly appear in the text or are unrelated: turf, field, goal, cleats.

Best Practices

• Never duplicate tag names with category names - avoid using the tag "Sports" if you have a category named "Sports." The category is superior and more important, while tags specify what has been written in the article.
• Don't name a tag the same (or similar) if the site already has an article, subpage, or other page with the same keyword - typically, the article page has much more business/educational value than the tag page.
• Plan a strategy for assigning tags to articles - avoid journalists' cheerful and frivolous creativity. Consider creating an Excel sheet listing tags, give access to all journalists, and have them check which tags within which categories they can use when adding an article.
• Create short, concise tags, consisting of a maximum of 2 words, preferably in the singular nominative case.
• 5-6 tags per article - it depends individually on each article, but don't exaggerate with the quantity. 5-6 tags are more than enough.
• Stick to one form - avoid situations where tags contain variations of the same word (e.g., sport, sporty, sports etc.). Similarly, for names and surnames: tag John Doe, not Doe John, or just the surname. Otherwise, you'll immediately lead to content duplication and unnecessary generation of low-quality SEO tag pages.
• Tags should use phrases and words directly related to the content and meaning of the article, i.e., phrases that actually appear in the text.
• Ensure a minimum number of articles assigned to one tag - CMS 4media has ready-made settings that allow you to enable tag page indexing automatically if the tag page has more than 5 assigned articles.

What if I have over 22,000 saved tags? Should I delete them and create a new list?

No. First, check which tag pages generate traffic from Google. Keep valuable, then redirect or exclude others from indexing.

How to do it?

• Group tags - check which tags are grammatical variations, tags with errors (typos, spelling mistakes, added commas, or spaces). Then, for such a group (grammatical variations), select a tag in the singular nominative case, and set 301 redirects for the remaining tags, choosing the singular nominative case as the target redirect page. Then move articles assigned to incorrect tags to the parent tag.
• There's an exception to the above rule - if SEO tools show that the grammatical variation tag generates more traffic than the singular nominative case, this tag form should be set as the parent, and 301 redirects should be set to it.
• Keep tag pages that generate promising traffic - observe this traffic, whether it's growing or decreasing, and then make a decision (you can monitor traffic through the tag page address in Google Analytics reports).
• Keep tags that have, for example, 2-3 assigned articles and are promising (because you know that more articles will be assigned to this tag in the future) - when the tag reaches at least 5 articles, enable indexing and monitor traffic.