Editor’s Note: It’s one thing to publish your content, product or services. But getting discovered is another story. Catherine Seda is a 12-year Internet marketing strategist and consultant who recently put much of her knowledge into a book, How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders, which we reviewed here a while back with some enthusiasm. Today, Cat offers an excerpt from her book on the topic of tagging, that vital tool for being discovered.

Tags are keywords that are assigned to a piece of content. Tagging is a part of the social bookmarking practice in which content producers and social site users can classify, organize and search content by keywords. Sites such as del.icio.us, Flickr, Technorati, and YouTube support tagging.

Tagging is important because it gives your content greater exposure within social sites, as well as in search engines. In this section, I’ll cover how to improve your visibility in both.

Social Site Visibility
Tags help your content get found within a social site. To see how this works, it’s best to see tags in action. Go to Flickr, Yahoo!’s photo-sharing site, and type in a keyword. Up comes a list of relevant photos. Next to each photo, you’ll see a tag icon with keywords next to it. Thanks to these tags (and the photo title), Flickr knows which photos are relevant to a user’s keyword search. 

Notice how the tags are hyperlinked? Click one. It takes you to another set of photos that are tagged with that same keyword. Flickr does this automatically; all you need are tags. Although members may create them for you, start your content on the right track by creating an initial set. This encourages members to tag your content, too. 

You want social site users to tag your content, as well. This helps you see which keywords people use to identify you and your business. Talk about an insightful market research feature! Plus, it’s free.

Tagging also lets you leverage other members’ content. That’s because if their content is popular, and you use the same tags they do, people can get to your content by clicking a tag that links to it. While you’re getting familiar with a social community, check out the tags being used for content similar to what you’ll publish and consider using these keywords in your tags.

Are you curious about the top keyword searches in a social site? Just click the “Popular Tags” link on the home page. You may see a tag cloud, a list of popular keywords arranged in alphabetical order; the most popular ones are displayed in a bigger font or set apart by a different visual treatment. Periodically monitoring this list can give you new keyword ideas to use in your tags. It’s similar to using keyword tools that show you the popular searches on search engines.

Search Engine Visibility
Tagging should be part of your search engine optimization strategy. Because tagging is all about linking and developing relationships, you should use some of the same tactics you use for improving your Web site’s link popularity. 

Use your Web site keyword list to guide you in selecting tags. Remember to choose keywords that relate to your content, as well as your business. Tags aren’t just useful to search engine spiders, but can drive significant traffic to your site.

Think of your tags as links. By using tags, you are providing the keywords you want associated with your business. Plus, because you can link your pieces of content to your profile page (which has a link to your Web site) or directly to your Web site, you’re ultimately boosting the link popularity of your Web site by tagging your content. Each link is yet another link vote for your site.

When you think about driving traffic with social media, there are two keys. First, because social media is all about linking, it has a natural fit into your link-building efforts. Therefore, be sure to include social media in the mix.

The second key is that spiders use tags like users do—to determine what the article, picture, or page is about. Having a lot of social site users applying the same tag to your content enhances its link reputation for the keyword in the tag. To get high rankings in the organic search listings you must be relevant for a keyword, and having many relevant tags accomplishes this…

Find out more about How to Win Sales and Influence Spiders.

Have any suggestions for marketing success for your fellow blog readers? Leave them in the comments!

—Catherine Seda, Internet & Search Marketing Strategist

(Excerpted from How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders: Boosting Your Business & Buzz on the Web by Catherine Seda. Copyright © 2007. Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and New Riders.)