Wordpress SEO cracks, chime in and give your input please. (Tags, Categories...)

[GeorgR.]

I am reading up a bit on categories, tags as well as noindex-tags and how to use those best in terms of SEO on a wordpress blog.

Let's take an example:

A site's main keyword and subject would be "Forex Software".

This is a very tight keyword/niche...and in terms of categories (for the articles) there is really not more than for example "Forex Software Talk". ( or "Forex Software Essentials" maybe)

So i use this as a category, and its probably the ONLY category since all and future articles will all be about "Forex Software" and would go into the "Forex Software Talk" Category. (Because thats what the site is about)

To avoid duplicate internal content ALL the archives except the tag archives have a noindex set.

The articles itself then are tagged, this could be the name of the reviewed product, or "review" or "tips", "forex stratgies" etc...

( The archives pages show only the titles or titles + excerpts. )

Would this be a good Strategy?

(and yes, i am probably overthinking again )

G.

[mloveridge17]

Hey Georg, didn' you read my book? Categories are for broader keywords while tags are for more post-specific keywords. Google gives the following category suggestions for the keyword "forex software:"

• forex trading
• currency trading
• best forex
• foreign exchange
• forex market
• free forex
• forex
• trading
• currency
• metatrader

Now, you may not want to use all of these for your particular site, but they will definitely help you become more "relevant."

[GeorgR.]

Hello mloveridge,

forex was just an example...but how do you brainstorm the categories?
With the Google KW tool? (Additional KWs etc...?)

[mloveridge17]

The google keyword tool... go open the PDF of my book and check the section called "Categories vs Tags - the great debate" for a step-by-step guide. Google will tell you exactly which keywords to use as categories if you just know where to look.

[Mandy Swift]

Thanks for the breakdown tips on how to use categories vs tags, great

[mloveridge17]

Originally Posted by Mandy Swift

Thanks for the breakdown tips on how to use categories vs tags, great

You're welcome! A lot of people tend to get these confused because in a WordPress blog they act so similar. But the reality is that Categories are used in more of a structural manner, so they become great tools for creating relevancy.

[GeorgR.]

mloveridge, you have a point.

Ok, so i re-arranged my blog now and put more categories in it. Yes it looks like that Google KW tool "additional keywords" gives indeed suggestions. I double checked with your forex example and i saw the same KWs (sorted by search volume ).

After those changes now, my site has the NOINDEX everywhere except on the category archives (where i show the excerpts for the articles).

What about multiple and redundant categories?

The problem might not be evident if i WOULD have a site about pets.

I could make categories dogs, cats, guinea pics etc... no sweat.

But let's take our example, it could be that two category keywords mean the same thing...let's make some up: "Forex Software" + "Forex Trading Software".

Can i put the article in MULTIPLE categories?

It is clear to me that for the site visitor and according to human logic we dont want redundant categories...we want a clear structure.

But what if a category keyword has a nice search volume (say "forex trading software") and i want to use this for SEO purposes because i want to write an article for "forex trading software" and NOT simply only one about "forex software"?

G.

[mloveridge17]

Of course, use your best judgement when it comes to the categories. I wouldn't use redundant categories because what would you put in each one? Also, it makes good sense to have additional categories that might be related but not in the keyword tool.

[GeorgR.]

some good tips here!

( D*RN i am still not indexed!! I don't understand...i did everything like bookmarking, blogger..pings...some articles...RSS feeds submit... its three days now...)

[bgmacaw]

Use the PlatinumSEO plugin. The default settings will take care of all this for you auto-magically. The post pages will be correctly flagged as the primary content page using the canonical tag while the category and tag pages will allow you to pick up additional keywords and relevance.

EDIT

George, I started a new blog on Monday on a newly purchased .us domain. It didn't get indexed until last night, almost 5 days later. Last week I started a couple of new .infos and they were indexed within 24 hours. The same indexing methods were used for both, go figure. Google can be weird sometimes.

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Use the PlatinumSEO plugin. The default settings will take care of all this for you auto-magically. The post pages will be correctly flagged as the primary content page using the canonical tag while the category and tag pages will allow you to pick up additional keywords and relevance.

EDIT

George, I started a new blog on Monday on a newly purchased .us domain. It didn't get indexed until last night, almost 5 days later. Last week I started a couple of new .infos and they were indexed within 24 hours. The same indexing methods were used for both, go figure. Google can be weird sometimes.

bgmacaw,

i am using thesis on that blog, don't need plat seo plugin for this theme. But yes, google takes so much longer now to index.

[WareTime]

Yahoo loves tags. I think to them it's the new meta keywords.