Improve your Google rankings with categories and tags

We carry out SEO audits on a regular basis and find all too often that categories and tags are underused. These features are, in fact, key to improving internal link building. 

What is the difference between categories and tags?

A category and a tag are actually quite similar. Semantically speaking, categories are fairly fixed, whilst tags can be determined on a per-article or per-product basis. Categories are often defined on the basis of main groups. Tags are more flexible, although it is advisable to use consistent naming conventions to prevent them from proliferating uncontrollably.

Valuable for Google (and visitors)

Automatically generate overview pages for categories and tags. Google indexes these pages, thereby allowing you to add more valuable content. The most important principle is to make the content interesting for visitors. Articles that you link to categories and tags are displayed on the relevant overview pages. If you link an article to one category and four tags, you’ll have at least five internal links. Internal link building is hugely important for good SEO results.

Choosing the right terms

Think carefully about the names of categories and tags. A good CMS generates the URL structure based on these names. If you include the keywords that are important to you in categories and tags, you ensure that these keywords appear at the highest level.

Add to detail pages

Display the associated categories and tags on the article page. Provide hyperlinks to these, so that you create cross-references: overview pages link to relevant articles, and articles link to interesting overviews. High-quality overview pages are of interest to anyone looking for answers. 

An extra tip is to display a short list of related articles below the main article, which are linked to the same categories or tags. 

Pay attention to overview pages

Many overview pages simply contain a list of articles. Make them more interesting for visitors by adding more text. If you have included important keywords in the names of categories and tags, you can incorporate keyword variations into the text. You can also supplement this with relevant FAQs. 

Better results on Google

If you implement the tips above on category and overview pages, you’ll make the content more interesting for both visitors and Google. This will improve the website’s searchability. These overview pages are also useful for building external links, as they bring together all the relevant articles on a specific topic in one place.

Would you like to be found more easily on Google? Have a Carry out an SEO audit with SEO Ninja and then we’ll carry on the conversation over a cup of coffee.