Keeping tags clean and accurate can help not only search-engine optimization, but also your site’s performance. We’ve compiled a set of best practices for making the most of tags, both on individual posts and across your site.
Correct errors and standardize format
Identify misspelled or incomplete tags, retag posts with corrected tags, and remove the incorrect ones. Check and standardize capitalization as well.
Remove duplicates and be specific
Remove tags that overlap with your category names (e.g., sports). Keep tags that are more specific (e.g., Major League Baseball). Ensure staffers know when to use each.
Do keyword research to meet SEO goals
Complete keyword research and consolidate posts into tags that help you meet your SEO goals. Do you want to rank highly for a term such as “St. Louis dining”? Consider replacing more generic tags (e.g., food) with specific counterparts.
Combine similar ideas
Maybe a few tags could be combined into larger concepts with standard naming conventions. Will your tags be plural (e.g., “music festivals”) or singular (e.g., “music festival”)? Consider how the tag will read on an archive page or in search results (plurals often work better). Does a one-off event need its own tag, or could it fall under a larger tag?
Choose one name to use for a celebrity
Does a frequently mentioned celebrity or public figure go by more than one name? Make a decision about which you’ll use and remove other tags, creating a more robust single tag archive and reducing tagging complexity on articles. The article itself can still mention someone’s other names, but standardize the tag.
Only tag the most important players
Don’t tag all the minor players at an event. If dozens of celebrities attend a party, tag only the main players mentioned. Was this a major appearance for a celebrity, and does this story add important context to the narrative of their life and work? Tag them if so. Otherwise, don’t.
Prune tags with misleading or offensive language
Does a tag include misleading or offensive language, or inadvertently promote keywords used to spread disinformation? (See this keynote discussing “data voids” for more info.) Remove it to reduce the overall number of tags and improve user experience, as well as be a good contributor to the larger news ecosystem.
Avoid misunderstandings with precise tags
Be precise in your language. Don’t use a more neutral tag such as parenting to tag a negative topic such as “child trafficking” or “child abuse.” Consider the language you prefer to use in covering the topic, and remove tags that aren’t as relevant from the post. This has implications for recirculation as well, if recirculation modules are powered by tags. Folks might not expect to find horrific crime stories on a more happy-go-lucky tag page or recirculation module.
Consider removing little-used tags
Definitely remove any unused tags. But also consider removing tags used on only a small number of posts. This one can be controversial and requires discussion. Arguably, there can be value in a tag that helps someone find even a small number of posts about a person or topic, and our inner archivist might protest. But carefully weigh the value of such tags.