Have you recently visited a website or blog and been perplexed by a visual cluster of words? If you have, then you know what I’m referring to, if not keep reading!

First off, each individual word is referred to as a tag (not to be confused with an HTML tag) and is used to label or categorize information. A cluster of these tags is called a tag cloud. Simply put, tag clouds are used to symbolize tags in relevance to other tags regarding the amount they are used and their importance. This organization is done with a variety of font sizes and sometimes colors or font weights. The more significant a tag is, the appearance will be reflected in the cloud. These such clouds are sort of like an alternative navigation, as they are often used to search for corresponding information.

Now you may be wondering, well… do I need to incorporate tags and tag clouds into my website?

Depends. What is the nature of your website or blog? If your website is a general website then it’s not necessary to use them. However if you have a cooking specific blog, they can be a great benefit! For example, if you have multiple recipes that deal with chicken, beef, pork, or ham then you could create a tag cloud with all of these key ingredients and it can be used as a search tool. When clicking on chicken, all of the chicken recipes would appear and so forth. When properly used, tag clouds can offer an instant snapshot of the main topics on a website.

If you decide to use tag clouds, make sure that that your tags are specific. For example if a tag is labeled as “ball” what kind of a ball is that? Is it a football or a basketball? Make sure that your tags are also consistent and clean. Early on, decide on whether or not you will use plurals and if you will use all uppercase and so forth. One last thing, if you will be using font colors to show hierarchy in your tag cloud, keep the colors to a minimum to avoid any confusion on which color has a higher standing.

That’s it! Hopefully this gives you a little more insight on what can be a very powerful tool for certain websites or blogs.

R2F Creative LLC provides graphic design + branding and web design solutions for clients nationwide and locally in Ankeny and Des Moines, Iowa.