What's The Deal With Story Tags?

Hey Hackers!

Have you ever finished writing a new HackerNoon story and wondered what that “Story Tag” section is all about? Well, it’s more important than you think.

In fact, Story Tags have the potential to boost your discoverability and launch your writing to the front ofHackerNoon, Google Search, and the WORLD! Today, we’re gonna give you the quick scoop on HackerNoon’s Story Tags and how you can use them to your advantage.

What Are Story Tags All About?

Simply put, Story Tags help sort our vast catalog of stories across 22 Tech Categories on HackerNoon, keeping things neat and tidy so our janitors have less to clean up at night. This is also to your benefit because when you write a new piece about something like AI, we want to ensure that it goes right to our Machine Learning catalog and is delivered directly to whoever subscribes to our AI Tech Briefs. However, the benefits of tagging also extend past our HackerNoon readers.

You see, Google loves to sort and rank content based on keywords inside storyTitles, Headings, Subheadings, and (for today’s purposes) Story Tags. So, when you combine your keyword skills with your tagging expertise, you set yourself up for success across Google’s search results.

Take a look atNintendo Breaks Its Silence On Palworld and note how a few well-placed keywords in the Story Tags yielded massive results on Google Search.

So, how do I tag effectively on HackerNoon?

We’re glad you asked. Here are four tips to make the most out of your Story Tags:

1. Keep the keywords in your tags in line with your Title and Headings. The more that all corners of your content line up and gel together, the better it is for Google’s indexing and search results.
2. Make sure all your Story Tags are relevant to the topic at hand. Throwing out random tags that don’t fit the content is gonna throw your readers for a loop when they get something they don’t want and could hurt your chances of climbing up the Google ranks.
3. Make your first tags broad and get more specific as you add more. Think of tagging like an umbrella: you can first tag a general category like “AI” and then go down the rabbit hole of specificity with tags like “OpenAI” and “Future of AI,” and then add more keywords for later tags like “Sam Altman Leaving OpenAI.” Don’t be afraid to experiment!
4. Ask the HackerNoon editors for help! As your HackerNoon editors, we’re trained to spot good tags and brainstorm new ones for HackerNoon and Google. Use the Notes in the Story Settings to reach out and ask us for our input if you’re unsure how to tag.

That’s it from us, but before you head out…

The summer is starting to heat up, and so are our two current writing contests. Both of which will run until the end of the season.
Check out the#bitcoin Writing Contest by Rootstack and HackerNoon to win your share of $17,500 and also the #blockchain-api Writing Contest by dRPC and HackerNoon featuring a $1,000 prize pool.

See you in cyberspace!