Why do we tag content? At their core, tags exist to group and categorize content. Tags make it easy to house content under an umbrella label so we can say things like “All of these articles are about Nintendo or deep sea fishing or yerba mate” and then say “Okay, so is this type of content working? How can that inform our content strategy?”
When our team revisited how we display tags in Parse.ly, it became clear that looking at a list of tags isn’t conducive to understanding what content tags correspond to. “Nintendo” content got the most page views last month, but what articles roll-up into that group? More specifically, what are the “sub-narratives” (i.e. other tags) within “Nintendo,” like Animal Crossing or Switch hacking?
Today, we’re introducing Tag Groups. For customers with robust tagging strategies, this is a feature that will help you better understand the system behind the madness of tagging taxonomies.
With Tag Groups, you can see what content contributes to a tag’s traffic, what tags get used widely, and which tags frequently appear together. This should help you understand how tags are applied to content and give you insight into narratives and themes that you might have missed otherwise.
How to use Tag Groups
On the Tags page, click the Tag Groups tab to switch over from the tag listing view. Posts are grouped automatically by a common tag (or tags), making it easy to see what topics are commanding your audience’s attention. This will give you an at-a-glance look at what content contributes to a tag’s traffic.
Things get even more interesting once you filter down. To the right, you can see Top Tags, which are grouped roughly by a combination of specificity and frequency of use. Clicking one of these Top Tags will filter down results to show more granular tag groups.
Click one of these tags to see the tag groups it shares content with. For instance, filtering down by “science-2” reveals “sub-topics” like physics, archaeology, and chemistry—and the posts that fall into those categories. If you want to dig (pun intended) into the archaeology stories that were popular, they’re right there at your fingertips.
Apply other filters like author, section, and campaign to get even more specific. What narratives in this section are breaking through? What type of content is better for paid promotion?
A quick note: the better set up your tag taxonomy is, the more useful tag groups will be. Check out these best practices for applying subject matter tags.
Our mission is to help you make smart decisions about your content. We hope that with a better sense of your tagging taxonomy and the themes and sub-narratives within it, you can better plan your content strategy for the long term or to inform day-to-day tactics.
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