Endless Bliss | Happy Lifestyle Blog: A Guide to Using Labels.

A Guide to Using Labels.

When I first started blogging, I used to label each my posts with about 5-10 labels. I thought that my labels would be used for Google searches and not just for my own blog. Once I realized that I was totally wrong about blog labels, I went through each of my posts and reduced my labels, keeping them more general and more easy to navigate. These are few things that have worked for my blog when it comes to labeling my posts, and I hope you find these tips helpful!

USE NO MORE THAN 3 LABELS IN 1 POST
Unless you plan on blogging about that particular subject again, then I would recommend keeping your labels to a minimum. For example, for book reviews, I simply use the word "books" instead of labeling each of my reviews with a genre, author's name, title, etc. It's not guaranteed that I'll write about those subjects again, so I don't want to label something with just one blog post attached to it. If you're doing DIY projects, you could just label all of these posts "DIY" or "crafts" rather than labeling it with the specific project name. 

If you're doing a highlight post, like highlights of a place you traveled to or highlights of a holiday or birthday weekend, then using multiple labels is expected if you did multiple things that are worth labeling. I.e. if you spent the weekend going to a concert, going to a movie, finishing a book, spending time with friends and family and eating a fancy restaurant, then you have a number of labels that you can use with topics that you will most likely talk about again. You can see an example of that here. For the most part, I would recommend using less than three labels and keeping them simple, which brings me to my next point.

KEEP YOUR LABELS SIMPLE
The point of labels is to separate your blog posts into different categories. If you are a lifestyle blogger, it's likely that you write about a few different topics, but the topics will usually be pretty broad, like friendship, relationships, college, fashion, advice, etc. If you keep your labels broad and simple, when your readers click on them, they'll be brought to several posts about the same category rather than just one or two posts. Not to mention, if someone is drawn to your blog via a specific post, such as a recipe, if they're interested in searching for more recipes, they can click on your label, "recipe," and it'll display all of your recipes. It would be ineffective if you only use the label for the name of your recipe because that label wouldn't lead them anywhere else. 

DON'T USE A LABEL THAT YOU'LL NEVER USE AGAIN
Having too many labels will crowd your label list. Also, readers will get easily overwhelmed by the amount of labels they have to sift through to find a certain subject. For example, if you're doing a book review, I wouldn't recommend using the title of the book as one of the labels. Instead, just use "books" or "book reviews." This way, people who are interested in the topic of books can simply click on that label and see all of the posts you've written in that category. 

DISPLAY YOUR LABELS
If you plan on using labels at all, I would highly recommend having the "labels" gadget on your sidebar or at the bottom of your blog layout. If users want to look for posts of a certain category, having all of your labels readily available will give your readers easy access to the topics you write most about. A screenshot of my labels are below, but you can also scroll to the bottom of layout and view them there as well. 
Do you use labels on your blog posts? What other tips do you have for using labels? 

14 comments :

  1. I use labels. I used to have number next to my labels but I had to turn it off. Due to it was to much.

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  2. I used to have the number on it too, but I didn't like the way it looked, so I just took it off.

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  3. I'm glad I could offer some insight!

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  4. Thanks for sharing! I probably have more labels than I should, but I'm pretty selective with which ones show up in my little "labels" cloud hahah.

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  5. Thank you so much for the tips, to be honest I don't like to display my labels.

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  6. I need to go back and fix mine! But I have started to use just one or two labels per post.

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  7. This was really great! I didn't realize that either! Guess I'll be going back through my posts and fixing this!! Thanks for sharing!!

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  8. I used to think that the labels were for Google searches, too--and then I had to go through ALL of my posts to correct that misconception. :( I'm almost done with the relabeling, and I'll definitely be using these tips to better label future posts!

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  9. I think I'm FINALLY done relabeling after all the hassle. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was for Google!

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  10. I'm glad you found it helpful! I think I'm almost done relabeling my post finally.

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  11. I had to go back through and change so many of mine too!

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  12. I hope you found them helpful! I know lots of bloggers who don't like to display their labels. I just like it because it's easier to navigate as a user, but I can understand why people wouldn't find it physically appealing for their own blogs.

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  13. I used to have so many labels that it clogged up my sidebar, but I've changed it up so much that I only have a few now. I think it's good to have a lot of labels as long as you're going to blog about the subject again!

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  14. I mean, they don't explain that google doesn't search with those! But now I know where to put the search terms in

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