Categories tell readers the big topic of a post. But what about the small details inside it? That is where a tag comes in.
A tag is an optional keyword that describes specific details of a post. For example, a post in the Recipes category could have tags like chocolate, eggless and quick. Tags connect similar posts across different categories.
How are tags different from categories?
If categories are the chapters of a book, tags are the index at the back. The index points to exact topics, no matter which chapter they appear in.
- Tags are optional, while every post needs a category.
- Tags are flat. Unlike categories, they can't have parent and child tags.
- Each tag gets its own archive page, like
/tag/eggless/.
How to add tags in WordPress
- First, open your post in the block editor.
- Now, find the Tags panel in the settings sidebar.
- Next, type a tag and press Enter or add a comma. WordPress suggests existing tags as you type.
- Finally, save or publish the post.
To edit, rename or delete tags in bulk, go to Posts → Tags. Here you can also set a slug and a description for each tag.
Don't add twenty tags to every post. Too many tags create lots of thin archive pages with only one or two posts, which helps neither readers nor search engines.
Best practices for using tags
Stick to a small, reusable set of tags and use them consistently. A tag that only one post will ever use is not very helpful. Before creating a new tag, check whether a similar one already exists, so you don't end up with both WooCommerce and Woo Commerce.
You can show your most-used tags to visitors with the Tag Cloud block. Our lesson on WordPress tags covers the full tag screen, and here is how to display a tag cloud manually.
Used wisely, tags make your older posts much easier to discover. That's it. If you have any doubts about tags, ask us in the comment box below.