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Tag clouds for easy navigation to popular blog posts

By Karin, on March 7th, 2011

I like placing tag clouds on my blogs’ sidebars or footer. Displaying your blog’s tags in cloud format is an easy way to point your visitors to your most popular topics and it helps build internal links to your blog posts at the same time. The WordPress default tag cloud appearance leaves a little to be desired however, so this article explains how to format prettier tag clouds.

There are many plugins that can help you control your tag cloud. I have chosen “The Configurable Tag Cloud” because of the many options you have to model the tag cloud to your liking. In the below video I show you the power of this plugin and the improvement over the WordPress tag cloud.

[flowplayer src="http://automarker.net/videos/TagCloud.mp4" width="475" height="334"]

As always I would love to hear about your experiences with tag clouds. Are you using a different plugin, and if so, which one. If you are not using a tag cloud, is there a particular reason why you are not using one?


 

 

To your success,



Back links, blogs   , , ,  
  • Curt Bizelli

    Hi Karin,

    Thanks for the spectacular blog post. I’ve used similar tag clouds but don’t have one currently simply because I didn’t really think about it when creating my new blog site. I’ll have to check this one out. Thanks for sharing.

    • http://controlemotionsafterabreakup.com social bookmarking

      You are welcome Curt. It is so easily overlooked. I totally understand. But the little details can make a big difference. Glad you made it over to my blog.

  • Christine Casey

    Hi Karin ~ I do not currently use Tag Clouds for the simple reason that I did not understand what the point of them was ~ until your post. Besides not understanding why to use a tag cloud, as you had mentioned, the one that comes standard with WordPress has a rather “dull” appearance. Will check into the information you’ve shared…much appreciated! :-) Christine

    • social bookmarking

      Hi Christine, I am looking forward to visiting your tag cloud soon.

  • Lorri

    Hey Karin, I can honestly say that I have not noticed a difference from having my tag cloud published or not. I have mine in my footer so it is fairly easily ignore. I’m going to try your advice and see if and how it makes a difference to my traffic!!

    Thanks for the great advice! Much appreciated!

    • social bookmarking

      Thanks Lorri. Let me know how it goes.

  • Alexander Paul

    Hi Karin, thank you for running through this little topic to generate an additional network of links on any blog/site. So far I don’t have a cloud setup but look into the option to add one. Thx a lot for the simple video as well.

    • social bookmarking

      Thanks for the kind words.

  • daveanddawncook

    Hi Karin,
    Great post! The tag cloud plug-in you are recommending has a far greater appearance over the WP tag cloud. So thanks for discovering it and giving us a nice overview of the features of this plug-in. Yjr ysh vliud widget on your blog looks very good.

    It’s nice to keep people on your blog by making obvious to them that they can search all your posts based on the keywords you have used. And since you are an expert on backlinks, your advice is very highly rated.

    Thanks, as usual, for your great insigts on how to improve the traffic to our blogs.

    Dawn and (Dave)

    • social bookmarking

      Thanks Dawn. I am glad you enjoyed the post. Not sure what ‘Yjr ysh vliud’ means though…lol.

  • http://controlemotionsafterabreakup.com Steve Shoemaker

    Karin hello great information here. I don’t use the tag cloud maybe I should but do use a related post plug in and a sitemap that do about the same thing. Still its always cool to learn something new. Thank for the info.

    Steve

    • social bookmarking

      Steve, if you have space for it, I would highly recommend using the tag cloud. With the plugin that I mentioned in the post you can limit the number of keywords displayed to any number you choose, so you could just display your top 10 or so.

  • Allegra Sinclair

    Hi Karin,
    I’ll echo the thoughts of other visitors–I had no idea the influence a tag cloud could have on my site. I used to use the Nimbus plugin because it looked so cool, but I removed it because I was concerned about it impacting my site’s speed. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. Have a great week! Allegra

    • social bookmarking

      Yes, the Nimbus one looks good, but I am not sure how that impacts SEO. It believe it is a frame that displays your keywords. If so, there is a good chance that Google will ignore it when visiting your site.

  • Sue Collier

    Hi Karin,

    Interesting! Had never actually thought much about Tag Clouds before. I quite like mine, so I displayed it, but without any thought for users of my site! I use the Thesis wp theme so don’t know if this is the standard Tag Cloud or not.

    Great info and video.

    Sue

    • http://socialnetworkvoter.com social bookmarking

      Sue, it really does not matter whether it is the standard or not. As long as you are happy with the design you are in good shape. Thanks for stopping by. Always great to hear from you.

  • http://bookmarksandvotes.com Sadie-Michaela Harris

    Nice post, I used the tag cloud on my concierge site but I felt it was rather messy looking and removed it. How fabulous you found a plugin to make flexible changes to your tag cloud. Look forward to learning more tips from you and I love the fact you use video too. So many people learn visually rather than from reading instructions, Sadie

    • http://socialnetworkvoter.com social bookmarking

      Thanks Sadie. Tag clouds definitely serve a purpose. Both for your visitors and SEO.

  • Joyce Penner

    Karin. I had never thought much about the tags appearance on my wordpress blog. No clue that they could be changed or prettied up. Thanks for this tip and look forward to learning a lot more !

    • social bookmarking

      You are welcome.

  • http://socialnetworkvoter.com Perry A Davis Jr

    Karin, I was not using a tag cloud until watched your video. The reason was that did not know how they worked.

    Thanks

    Perry A Davis Jr
    Music City USA

    • social bookmarking

      Perry, you are not alone in this. That is why I wrote the post. Glad you came by to read it.

  • Anonymous

    Hi Karin,

    I’ve been using the tag cloud format that is available through my wordpress theme, and find that it works well. I didn’t realize until reading this post that this feature actually provides internal links to our posts. Cool beans! As always, your knowledge amazes me…..thanks for sharing!

    Kathy Jodrey

    • social bookmarking

      Thanks Kathy. Great to hear from you.

  • Dr. Adam Sheck

    Karin,
    I’ve tried the cloud and while it’s pretty, I don’t know that I’ve noticed any big results with it. Your video is compelling, so perhaps I’ll try it again.
    Thanks,
    Adam

  • Lori Mooney

    Karin,

    Thanks for this great info on tag clouds. I didn’t know there were other styles rather than the default wordpress one. I love the idea of sorting them how I want rather than the default way.

    Great info!
    Lori

    • social bookmarking

      I know. Makes it much nicer to display.

  • http://socialtrafficmastermind.com Emma Deborah Thomas

    Hi Karin,

    I don’t have a tag cloud but I will go and make one now! I didn’t have one before because I just thought of it as a pretty rather than useful thing… it seems however, it’s very useful for internal links – fabulous!

    Thank you for the video tutorial, I take a lot longer to do things without them!!!

    Kind regards,

    Emma :-)

    • social bookmarking

      You are welcome Emma. I admire people who immediately take action! Way to go.

  • http://timedtweeter.com JoeRemington

    Hey there Karin; thanks for the great information on tag clouds and the plugin you use for configuration. Had never actually thought much about Tag Clouds before and I think based on what I’ve read both here and on the net; it really differs based on who you talk to on whether or not there is any real benefit to using tag clouds.

    Based on what you’ve offered here; I’ll be sure to check deeper into this subject. Thanks for your great post friend.

    • social bookmarking

      Hi Joe, thanks for adding your perspective. It is much appreciated. I am sure that there are those who don’t see the value. To me it makes perfect sense to have tag clouds because of the internal linking. These tag pages, are highly keyword targeted and it is great to have those indexed and ranking well.

  • http://socialnetworkvoter.com Mandyswiftonline

    Hi Karin,
    thanks for that – I am on a bit of a plugin fettish at the moment so now I have another ‘toy’ to checkout. Agree, it looks much sexier that WP!
    Also, I didn’t think that cloud tags counted much for anything, so I learnt something new. Do you notice much of a benefit showing tags to not showing tags??
    thanks for the post :)

    • social bookmarking

      It is not always easy to pinpoint the exact impact. But I do know that I have some of my tag pages indexed and on the front page in Google for that particular keyword. Would I have been there without the tag cloud. Probably. But it cannot hurt. Futhermore, it helps your readers navigate to their area of interest.

  • Debbie@Invisible Heartstrings

    I’ve not used a tag cloud before so I’m looking forward to trying it out. Thanks for the wonderful, simple directions. I love coming here and learning simple ways to improve my blog. Thank you so much.

    • http://socialtrafficmastermind.com social bookmarking

      Thanks Debbie, I appreciate your kind words.

  • http://controlemotionsafterabreakup.com Deb Augur

    Hi Karin,

    I use tag clouds on a couple of my blogs, but not on my main one. You covered one of the reasons that I don’t have one there in your video. It’s the inability to control it and how big it gets, boring looking, etc. So that’s great that you’ve shown us a really great choice.

    Have you seen those tag clouds that circle and move around? As interesting looking at it was the first few times I saw it, I knew that the distraction it causes a reader (in this case me) was far too annoying. People need to be careful about things like that, too. Just a thought.

    Great find on that plugin! Thanks.

    • social bookmarking

      I agree with you a 100%. The moving tag cloud may look nice, but it does not help you with your internet marketing. Great point. Thanks for sharing.

  • http://controlemotionsafterabreakup.com Linnea

    Hi Karin,
    Very interesting…. I have not been using a tag cloud but because my theme includes a popular comments section and between that and categories, I have felt that was enough to show folks what’s most popular. After reading your post, I just might have to give it a try and see if I can see any difference. Thanks!

    • social bookmarking

      Linnea, when you use the plugin that I am using you can set the number of tags that will be displayed. That way you can keep the size of the tag cloud relatively small and unobtrusive, if that is what you desire.

  • Leslie Denning

    Hi Karin. I’m glad you posted this. I had Cumulus for awhile, and I just didn’t like the way it kind of sat there and floated. It seemed kind of pointless to me, so when I rebuilt my blog after deleting it accidentally, I just didn’t bother with it. I like yours, and I definitely will look into that plugin. Thank you so much.

    Wishing you a song in your heart,
    Miss Leslie @ Music with Miss Leslie

    • social bookmarking

      Leslie, I agree with you. Cumulus may look nice, but it is not a good one for SEO purposes. First of all, I believe that they use a frame, which defeats the purpose of having internal links. Secondly, the flash slows down the load time of your site, which is not very desirable either.

  • Cheryl James

    Strange, but I never realized that using a tag cloud would create internal site linking. I had just done a makeover of my blog yesterday and immediately went back to add a tag cloud after watching your video.

    I decided not to use a plugin. Don’t too many plugins slow your site down? I have had many problems with plugin conflicts. It got to the point where my blog became inefficient. I finally threw a bunch away and started over.

    Anyhow, thanks for the tips and pointers, as always.

  • http://bookmarksandvotes.com Cheryl James

    Strange, but I never realized that using a tag cloud would create internal site linking. I had just done a makeover of my blog yesterday and immediately went back to add a tag cloud after watching your video.

    I decided not to use a plugin. Don’t too many plugins slow your site down? I have had many problems with plugin conflicts. It got to the point where my blog became inefficient. I finally threw a bunch away and started over.

    Anyhow, thanks for the tips and pointers, as always.

  • Cheryl James

    Strange, but I never realized that using a tag cloud would create internal site linking. I had just done a makeover of my blog yesterday and immediately went back to add a tag cloud after watching your video.

    I decided not to use a plugin. Don’t too many plugins slow your site down? I have had many problems with plugin conflicts. It got to the point where my blog became inefficient. I finally threw a bunch away and started over.

    Anyhow, thanks for the tips and pointers, as always.

  • Cheryl James

    Strange, but I never realized that using a tag cloud would create internal site linking. I had just done a makeover of my blog yesterday and immediately went back to add a tag cloud after watching your video.

    I decided not to use a plugin. Don’t too many plugins slow your site down? I have had many problems with plugin conflicts. It got to the point where my blog became inefficient. I finally threw a bunch away and started over.

    Anyhow, thanks for the tips and pointers, as always.

  • http://controlemotionsafterabreakup.com Cheryl James

    Strange, but I never realized that using a tag cloud would create internal site linking. I had just done a makeover of my blog yesterday and immediately went back to add a tag cloud after watching your video.

    I decided not to use a plugin. Don’t too many plugins slow your site down? I have had many problems with plugin conflicts. It got to the point where my blog became inefficient. I finally threw a bunch away and started over.

    Anyhow, thanks for the tips and pointers, as always.

    • social bookmarking

      Cheryl, too many plugins can slow your site down. So, if you are content with the tag cloud as WordPress delivers it, than that is the way to go.

  • Hazel-Ann La Fortune

    Hey Karin, thanks for this post. I never realized that tagging your blog posts were so important. I use the default WP tag cloud in one of my blogs and it looks fine to me. In my main business blog tho, I don’t have tags. Will change that forthwith! lol Great info!

    • social bookmarking

      For sure, you should you use tags. Glad you picked up on it.

  • DeAnna Troupe

    I might have to check this plugin out. The only reason I don’t use it is because I didn’t know about it until now. This is good information to know.

    • social bookmarking

      Hi DeAnna, great to hear that this was helpful for you.

  • Coaching with John Komatsoulis

    GREAT TIP Karin :)

    I’m not a fan of the visual look of Tag Clouds, but your helpful tip makes it that much more attractive.
    Do you recommend any other tag cloud plug-ins?

  • http://bookmarksandvotes.com Ross Joyner

    Karin, great post on tag clouds personally I have not used them. I have opted to put links in my articles, however after listening to you I think I am going to investigate that plugin you use. Thanks for the article and lets keep on finding new things to help our TSA members. Tag clouds are a great way to interlink your older posts. :-)

  • Clare Kelway

    Hi Karin, Wow! that was news to me that my tags can help internal links! Thank you Karin, you are always teaching and sharing such value. I don’t want any new plug-ins because I have too many already and really need someone to do an audit on what I have! Guess that would be an awesome service for thousands of bloggers – one for you Karin.

  • http://socialnetworkvoter.com Willena Flewelling

    Karin, I love your posts. They are short, and give so much value. I am using the Tag Cloud that comes with my blog, but I am going to change that come Monday. Your video will make it easy to do!

    Willena Flewelling

  • Anonymous

    I like this Tag Cloud Plugin – I just use a standard tag cloud. Thanks for showing us how to use it – it’s often difficult to see whether a plugin will work well without having to install it and test it out my – this video saved me some valuable time. Thanks for sharing!

  • George Tiganus

    Hi Karin,
    I’ve never used tag clouds on any of my websites… I’m always trying to keep items in the widget to a minimum. I think tag clouds could be efficient on certain websites but I never felt the need to use them. Maybe I’ll consider it in the future, they do have some importance if placed wisely.
    Thanks,
    George

  • Rick Salas

    Hi Karin, I wanted to stop by last week to say thanks for the video on tag clouds. Better late than never I guess. :) I really liked how easy you made it seem. I added one to my blog in 10 minutes. Always wondered how to do that. Thanks!
    Rick

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