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Hi,
I'm not sure if this have been addressed before, but can someone please help? I want to add tags on Pages, yes pages not post. I can't seem to find tags when editing Pages. Is this even possible? Thanks a bunch!
http://laineyscraft.wordpress.com/
Elaine
The blog I need help with is laineyscraft.wordpress.com.
Pages are intended to be used for stsic contant. We cannot assign either categories or tags to static pages.
Sorry :( I meant to type "static content". Pages are meant to be sused for static content that rarely, if ever, changes. Posts are for dynamic content and that's why we can assign tags and categories to posts but not to pages.
Thanks timethief!
But is it possible to put like a common tag for the whole blog? I don't know how to explain it but putting one time tags that will show on the sidebar. Or will it just populate everything from Posts?
No it's not. There's a default Category and if you wish you can change it to an approriate one for for your blog. http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/#setting-the-default-category
This does not apply to tags. See here please > http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories-vs-tags/
You can use a Tag Cloud widget and it will automatically populate with the Tags you assign to posts . http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/tag-cloud-widget/
You can use a Categories Cloud widget and it will automatically populate with the Categories you assign to posts .
Ok, thanks again timethief! I'll just figure out something that will work. :)
I'm not certain I understand what it is that you're trying to do in the "big picture". Can you explain why you want to do this?
Hi justjennifer! I wanted to put tags in the 'home' page sidebar through Pages not post. And as per timetheif that's not possible. Only way to populate tag widget is by entering tags through Post.
I know what you mean laineyscraft.
Hi themazfactor! By any chance do you if it's possible? :)
I'm quite confused - why can't we tag pages again? Yes, my pages are for static content. Tags would help my readers navigate through that static content. Why does the fact that the content is static reduce my need for tags at all?
And related to that - tags would help with the SEO for my pages, right? Why should pages be abandoned to search engine limbo? Or are there other ways to practice good SEO for pages without any access to tags or categories?
No one is abandoned to search engine limbo. When the search engines index your pages, they look for and pull keywords out of the body of the page. And quite truthfully, as much abuse as there has been with tags, it won't be long till the search engines do exactly what they did with meta tags and simply quit paying any attention to them at all. None of the major search engines even look at meta tags.
Take a look at this post by Timethief. It covers the bases very well. Do as she suggests and you not have any problems. WordPress.COM has the best SEO around right out of the box.
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2009/08/04/basic-seo-elements-for-bloggers/
Thank you for that reply - I do hope that is the case. However, I've seen other wordpress members on this forum strongly demean the use of pages, saying that it was "like bringing a donkey to a horserace" in terms of SEO.
And there still is the user-friendly issue that I would like to be able to organize my content via tags and a nice table of contents, but it seems like I have to choose one or the other. Right now I like how the table of contents looks using "pages", but it looks like I'd lose that functionality if I went to "posts". However, I'd like readers looking at one page to be able to check out 3-4 similar pages via a "tags" function, but it seems like I can only do that with "posts", not "pages". I still don't think I've understood exactly why I have to chose one or the other.
Are the any ways out of this? The best I can imagine is just having to imbed a lot of direct links into my pages, which isn't really going to jive with the appearance I was looking for.
Blogs are designed so that dynamic content is found on the front page. If you choose to redesign the conventional structure of your blog so it becomes page based then you have to accept what comes with that territory. Pages and posts are different -- very different. You cannot assign Categories or Tags to pages -- period.
Static Pages sit outside the blog structure. Static pages cannot have Categories and Tags assigned to them. Pages do not appear in our RSS feeds. Most Pages do not have date stamps in their URLs. They have very little “google juice” Other bloggers rarely if ever backlink to static Pages in their published posts. Consequently, Page structured blogs have a very difficult time:
1. securing traffic;
2. securing comments;
3. securing backlinks;
4. achieving authority in their niche;
5. achieving Google PageRank.
Read more here > http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/05/12/better-blogging-at-wordpress-com-pages-and-posts/
Pages and sub-pages can be used very effectively for several purposes on a blog but choosing to create a static front page, rather than having posts displaying on your front page is a traffic quenching choice, that has a negative impact on discover-ability, as well as holding reader attention. Read more here > http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2009/12/29/static-front-blog-page-yay-or-nay/
Search engines do not ignore pages, it is just that the landscape has changed and far more sites are going dynamic using posts instead. The key really is keep fresh stuff appearing on the site on a regular basis. This is one of the reasons that nearly every generally static business site now has a blog associated with it, to keep fresh content for the search engines to find.
Some types of sites are best served by a page based layout.
Search engines do not ignore pages, it is just that the landscape has changed and far more sites are going dynamic using posts instead. The key really is keep fresh stuff appearing on the site on a regular basis. This is one of the reasons that nearly every static business site now has a blog associated with it so as to keep fresh content for the search engines to find.
Some types of sites are best served by a page based layout.
It all depends on the content.
Adding tags to a static website really isn't going to do much as far as search engine placement. Dynamic content is what keeps the search engines coming back for more.
I've seen a few blogs with very good search engine ranking and substantial traffic that do not use tags at all and in fact have only a handful of categories.
Okay, I'm understanding the issues better with each reply. It's an, um, interesting system.
So, if I understand correctly, would a problematic wikipedia page that required frequent edits to fix the content have at least one strategic advantage in search engines over a really solid wikipedia page with the best content possible that didn't require changes?
Hopefully the search engines will continue to learn over time....it seems like there should be a place for "this is absolutely the best reference for the information you're looking for" without needing a "and now we've added a blog to tell irrelevant stories that gets our SEO up!"
Irrelevant stories don't gain much.
Posts using Categories you can sort your site very well - you can make sub categories and sub sub categories and put all that in a nice drop down list in the sidebar that is easy for your visitors to use.
I did a site a while back for class listings - had the Posts sorted by State - County - City and neighborhood - was easy to use and work with.
When a Post is published WordPress calls the search engines and says stop on by - my site now gets grabbed by Google within a minute or two of publishing a new Post - how do I know - I published a Post a couple of days ago and had a bad link in it and it only took me a couple of minutes to fix it and Google grabbed the bad link and gave me a Crawl error the next day.
Posts are not that bad -
Yeah, I read more and I'm not sure whether or not I had the right understanding of why businesses were adding blogs to their websites....it was phrased as if it were for SEO, but I'm sure there's more to it than that.
I think I'm indeed going to switch over to posts instead of pages...I might need to keep some pages though. One issue I have is that my categories currently ARE informative pages in and of themselves, which will help uses understand and navigate through the pages in their respective category and are full of links to the individual pages. I absolutely need to keep those, so I have to figure out a new organizational method (perhaps the right custom menu?) that will be able to show my navigational pages, perhaps with sub-categories in a drop-down from them, if that is possible.
A second issue is the front page. I would prefer keeping certain information on the front page, but perhaps I will add a "recently updated posts" or "most popular posts" to it. I'll play around.
Here's a better comparison, because it's true. There are several websites targeted towards the same audience as mine, though none of them are as comprehensive as mine is designed to be. About 2/3 of the websites in question are designed as traditional blogs. They publish a little more information at a time, which means that the information on their site is currently incomplete and will stay incomplete for a long time. On the other hand, my site is designed to get the complete set of relevant information up there as soon as possible. Also, because they're a blog they are much more difficult to navigate through than my site is - you're limited to the search function and tags, rather than having a clear table or contents or identification pages that lead you to the right subentry. So on the face my page has several clear advantages, but it sounds like their sites have a couple major SEO advantages because they have "dynamic content" and tags, even though the dynamic content is just a gradually less incomplete version of the same content I have. That's what's a little annoying to me. Hopefully if things work out right, the other factors (good internal cross-referencing, many outside links pointing my direction) will outweigh those.
Using a Text Widget you can have a list of "Recently updated" you do need to work that by hand but not too bad unless you change tons of Posts a day.
There is a most recently popular Posts - it works on the most viewed Posts in the last 24 to 48 hours and is automatic - I use this Widget on my site and it seems to help.
SEO means many things and generic means anything you do to get search engines to pay more attention to your site - it can be as simple as using the Proper Tags and Categories on your Posts.
Pages have a place on a blog. A couple of my pages are legacy from when I started my site and was using it for limited purposes. Pages are a tool for your blog, like any tool they should be used properly.
Good luck
Thanks, but is there a way to make a widget appear within the text of the front page, as opposed to within the sidebar?
No. On free hosted wordpress.com blogs all widgets can only ne used in sidebars (or bottom bars, depending on the theme). None can be used to fill the text area in posts or pages. No auto-filling ability exists here.
@bangkokherps,
I want to add tags on Pages, yes pages not post. [...] Is this even possible?
There is an alternative way of "tagging" wordpress.com "contents" - both posts and pages.
You see, I use posts as my preferred technique, but i do NOT use the tags and categories because tags and categories take your readers out of your blog and into the wordpress.com global tag pages where the readers find content from other blogs besides your blog.
I have begun to use site search tags using Google Custom Search. That means, if a reader clicks a "tag" (s)he can find posts from only my blog.
I have noticed that you already have a Google Custom Search engine for your blog. I have also noticed that it also searches pages besides posts, categories etc. You can easily learn how to use it as an alternative tagging system here:
http://shongjog.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/how-to-add-site-search-tags-in-a-wordpress-com-blog-using-google-custom-search/
The link is going to a wrong url.
this is the url again:
http://shongjog.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/how-to-add-site-search-tags-in-a-wordpress-com-blog-using-google-custom-search/
How does that relate to tagging static pages?
It works for static pages, too - not just posts.
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laineyscraft
bangkokherps
