Discussions

Wordpress.com Tags & Traffic

Posted by clioandme • 1 year ago • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS]
Topics: blogging, tags, traffic, wordpress.com

Most of my blogs are on Blogger, but two are on Wordpress.com, which has an interesting feature associated with a post's tags (aka categories). On a Blogger blog, you can click on a post's categories to find other posts on the same blog with that category. On Wordpress you have to click on the categories list or tag cloud to get the same result. If you click on a tag under (or over) a specific post, you will go to a list of other Wordpress blogs with the same tags. This feature can lead to interesting new blogs, since the host has a low tolerance for splogs.

Anyway, my recent post to Stoneman's Corner on the problem of religion in public forums has attracted what is for me a lot of traffic on my relatively new, personal blog. I figured most of it would come from here, since I threw up a link on Nine's thread, but so far about half of the 100 or so readers in the past day have come as a result of the Wordpress tag feature.

This brings up two issues for me. One, the Wordpress tag feature as a source of traffic might be worth talking about. Two, it's the first time I've blogged about such a hot button issue, and it seems to drive traffic. That wasn't my purpose mind you, just a result.

User Comments

2/28/08

pointlessbanter

I think that is one of the more interesting things about wordpress, I think as a blogging platform and hosting site it is a little more social than blogger. More of the content is linked together.

Also I think it will continue to expand that way:

www.rashmisinha.com/2008/02/wordpress-social-network/

[reply]
2/28/08

kevingoodman

That’s very interesting for me being a relatively new blogger (4 months). I am going to move my blog to it’s own domain in the next month and I have been considering going wordpress – right now it is blogger. In fact I was just reading my wordpress for dummies book. But I have wondered why I can’t categorize on blogger and I always admire those cloud tags that once again I can’t seem to offer with blogger 

[reply]
2/28/08

clioandme

Blogger now offers social connections, but in a different way. Instead of through blogs and their tags it goes through the information you provide on your profile. That can be useful, but I often blog about things that have no place on that profile.

[reply]
2/28/08

crkian

I was going to add something like that to mattnutts, but the comment luv plugin always displays last posts of users so they get a bit from that.

[reply]
2/28/08

clioandme

This experience is making me wonder if I shouldn't migrate some of my other blogs from Blogger to Wordpress.com. Big drawback, though, is the inability to add javascript. For many, the restrictive policy on ads would be a drawback too. Moreover, "religion" is the first tag to really draw. Who knows if some of my history or Mac topics would have the same effect.

[reply]
2/28/08

crkian

Have you never thought about going self hosted Mark

[reply]
1. 2/28/08
  
  clioandme
  
  Yes, but I can't afford to at present. One blog isn't that much, but you've seen what I do, and I don't monetize. Also, that would take me right out of this linked tags feature I'm thinking about right now.
2. 2/28/08
  
  crkian
  
  True, I wonder if a plugin could be made using the blogcatalog directory and tags within wordpress. A bit like technorati tags
3/23/08

douglaslampi

Hi all

These TAGS are really powerful!

Many Web 2.0 Sites let you tag your content - and these days, you can create tags that match your keyword phrases on an overwhelming number of video sharing sites, podcast sharing sites, photo sharing sites, blog hosting sites, social bookmarking sites, news release sites and on and on.

THEN - all these TAG pages have RSS Feeds that you can add to the widgets of your blogs... providing the search spiders various ways to find more of your content.

Pulling this all together is like stitching a baseball - from the inside.

It's called Parabolic Marketing - and you heard about it here first.

Cheers!

Doug

[reply]
1. 3/23/08
  
  clioandme
  
  Then again, I'm not marketing anything. Just trying to connect with some other bloggers.
  
  Edit: And as Kdawg points out below, you can forget widgets.
3/23/08

kdawg68

Wordpress tags are indeed very powerful in my opinion. The javascript issue is the biggest downside to wp in my opinion, but I couldn't imagine having my blog anywhere else.

[reply]
3/23/08

timethief

Only free-hosted bloggers are part of the wpdotcom global tagging system. Self-hosted bloggers with wpdotorg installs are not included in it, although they wish they were.

Do not kid yourself about the power of the wpdotcom global tag pages to draw traffic to the wpdotcom community. They are indeed extremely effective. In fact, the most compelling reason to have a free-hosted wpdotcom blog is so that your post tags and categories are a part of that system that draws and directs traffic to free-hosted wpdotcom sites.

I have lots more to say about this but no time to address it right now. Later, today or tomorrow I'll explain how wpdotcom categories and tags work and why they are so effective. I'll also explain how becoming a tag spammer means shooting yourself in both feet.

[reply]