Content tagging is one of the features that all Joomla users missed for a long time. While it's part of the core in WordPress, in Joomla we had to install additional component to have such feature, such as K2. The wait is over as Joomla 3.1 have content tagging as a part of the core.
Tagging of content is similar to the content categorization, but not quite the same. Websites rich in content can count hundreds of tags. In example, if website is about movies, it's smart to tag articles with names of the actors or directors. Similarly, if you write about sport, you can tag articles with names of players. There are two most important benefits of using Joomla tags.
The first is practical. If visitor of your site is interested about some terms or subjects, he/she can simply click the tag to get a list of all pages related to this term on your site. So, if visitor is interested about specific movie actor, sport player or anything else, he/she can get all available information about this on a single click.
The second benefit of the content tagging is optimization of your site for search engines. Search engines, such as Google, will index all your tags. When somebody searches for a term which is available between your tags, there are more chances that your site will appear higher in the results if you are using content tagging.
Such functionality is simply too complex to be achieved just with categorization only because too many categories will be needed. Also, attempting to do that could lead to the unneeded complexity of website for both maintenance and browsing. However, we should be relaxed now as content tagging in Joomla since version 3.1 is part of the Joomla core and its usage is simple and effective.
How to add tags to the Joomla articles
Make sure your site is running Joomla 3.1 or later. If not, you should upgrade your site using core Joomla Update component. If you are using any of our templates, make sure you downloaded the latest version from our downloads repository. We had to do some necessary changes on our templates to include Joomla tagging feature.
From Article Manager, click any of your articles. On the right side of the Edit Article page, you will see a new field: Tags. You can enter one or more tags in this field. Just enter any word or phrase and hit Enter. You can remove tags by clicking X on the created tags.
Your tags will appear in the content page under the heading. You can use template overrides to place them elsewhere. Tags are in the DIV element with class 'tag' which allows us to style the tag links easily. Click on any tag link will open a new page. This page lists all content pages that has this specific tag allowing visitors to find related content on our site easily.
If you are experienced with WordPress or you ever installed K2 Joomla component, you are probably already well informed about content tagging. Luckily, since Joomla 3.1, we have this feature in core Joomla and it's not needed to install any additional software just to get the content tagging feature. It's a small feature but extremely useful and very easy to use.