Branded content tagging refers to the practice of adding metadata tags to branded content in order to optimize it for search engines. Brands create content like blog posts, videos, and social media posts to engage audiences and promote their products or services. By tagging this content properly, brands can improve its findability in search engines and reach their target audience more effectively.
Why is branded content tagging important?
There are several key reasons why brands should focus on optimizing their content with branded tags:
- Improve SEO and reach – Tags help search engines understand your content and determine if it’s relevant for certain keyword searches. Proper tagging improves SEO and increases reach.
- Aid content discovery – Tags make it easier for your audience to find relevant content when they search for your brand name, products, or related keywords.
- Organize and filter content – Tags are a great way to categorize and group your content. This makes it easier to maintain and manage a content library.
- Track content performance – Analytics tools leverage tags to track metrics like engagement and conversions for branded content. This helps optimize content.
- Increase engagement – Tagging allows audiences to easily find more content related to topics they’re interested in, keeping them engaged.
In summary, taking the time to optimize tags for branded content helps increase visibility, drives traffic, improves conversion rates, and provides useful analytics. Brands that neglect this see subpar results from their content marketing efforts.
What are the key elements of a branded content tagging strategy?
To maximize the impact of branded content tagging, brands should focus on getting a few key elements right:
- Keyword targeting – Identify relevant target keywords and phrases that align with your content themes and topics. Incorporate these into title tags and meta descriptions.
- Unique branding – Include variations of your brand name, product names, slogans, and other unique identifiers that set your content apart.
- Taxonomy planning – Develop a taxonomy and labelling protocol to logically categorize and tag content types and topics.
- Optimization testing – Try different tag variations and combinations to determine what works best to boost engagement and conversions.
- Tag management – Use a CMS, DAM or marketing platform that allows you to efficiently manage tags at scale across content libraries.
- Measurement – Analyze tag performance regularly and refine them to improve metrics like traffic and SEO over time.
Taking this strategic approach ensures your tags are driving real business value by making content more findable, shareable and actionable. The key is iteration and continuous optimization based on data.
What are some best practices for implementing branded content tags?
Some proven best practices for executing a branded content tagging strategy include:
- Place primary keywords in title tags – Title tags are one of the most important elements for SEO, and should include target keywords.
- Front-load meta descriptions with keywords – Early keyword placement in meta descriptions improves click-through rates from search.
- Use keywords naturally – Content and tags should flow well for readers. Don’t over-optimize at the expense of quality.
- Include variations for branding – Use branded names, product names, abbreviations, etc. to cover all bases.
- Add location tags where relevant – If you serve specific regions, cities or countries, include that data.
- Leverage quality alt text for images – Optimize image alt text for accessibility and SEO.
- Update old underperforming content – Refresh old content with improved tags to give them new life.
- Analyze competitors’ strategies – See what works well for competitors and adapt those approaches when it makes sense.
Tagging should be part of your content creation process, not an afterthought. Educate teams creating content on best practices to maintain consistency. Provide guidance, resources and examples to make proper tagging second nature.
What tools can help manage branded content tags?
The right tools and platforms can streamline the process of organizing, applying and managing tags for branded content at scale. Here are some top options:
Content Management Systems
CMS platforms like WordPress and Drupal provide built-in tag management tools and make it easy to apply tags during the content creation process. Users can select from existing tags or create new ones on the fly.
Digital Asset Management
Digital asset management (DAM) software centralizes creative assets and includes features for tagging images, videos and other files so they are searchable. Brands can track rights and licenses too.
Marketing Platforms
Tools like HubSpot and Marketo have functions for optimizing and organizing content tags. Tags can be automatically applied based on rules, and leveraged across functions like SEO and email.
Spreadsheets
For smaller teams, a simple spreadsheet with columns for tags can be effective. This provides an easy way to track and manage tags across a content library in one centralized document.
Keyword Research Tools
Dedicated SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush and Moz offer keyword research and tracking to help inform tag strategy. Features identify search volume, competition, and optimization opportunities.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console shows how Google bots view and index your pages. This helps you validate and improve tagging practices for better SEO and alignment with search results.
What are some common mistakes brands make with content tagging?
Some frequent mistakes that brands make when approaching content tagging include:
- Inconsistent tagging – Not using a uniform taxonomy or protocol across all content.
- Over-optimization – Cramming too many tags and keywords into content at the expense of readability.
- Outdated practices – Using outdated tags instead of modernizing for current audiences and SEO.
- Manual processes – Relying on inefficient manual tagging methods that don’t scale.
- Lack of iteration – Not regularly analyzing data and refining tags for continuous optimization.
- Misaligned tags – Using tags that are disconnected from the actual content focus and theme.
- Guessing at tags – Not doing proper keyword research to validate tags used.
- Ignoring accessibility – Using bad image alt text tags that hurt accessibility for visually impaired users.
A strategic, well-planned approach can help avoid these common pitfalls. Brands should take the time to create a thoughtful tagging framework, leverage tools to automate and optimize where possible, and constantly refine things based on data and testing.
| Tag Type | Example Tags | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Title Tag | Brand Keyword – Article Topic | Optimizes SEO |
| Meta Description | Article summary with target keywords | Improves click-through rate |
| Content Tags | Relevant topic tags, branded terms, locations | Aids content discovery |
| Image Alt Text | Descriptive text and keywords | Enhances accessibility and SEO |
Should branded content tags differ across platforms?
While the overall tagging framework and taxonomy should be fairly consistent, the specifics of branded content tagging often needs to be adapted for different content types and platforms. Here are some platform-specific considerations:
Blogs
Tags for blog articles and posts should focus heavily on topics, keywords, and natural language phrases people may search for. Include title, meta, alt text, and in-content tags.
Videos
Descriptive titles, transcriptions, closed captions, and video descriptions provide opportunities to embed video tags. Include branded terms where relevant.
Social Media
Hashtags help content be discovered on social, but branded keywords can be incorporated in captions and posts too. Use location tags if applicable.
Product Pages
Product and brand names along with descriptive attributes like color, size, type, etc. help tags connect your products to search terms.
Images
Optimize image filenames, alt text, captions, and surrounding blog/page content to tag photos. Add keywords where possible.
While tailoring tags to platforms, maintain a consistent tagging structure. Identify which tags work best on each platform and focus on optimizing those for engagement and conversions.
How can you measure the effectiveness of branded content tags?
There are a few key metrics brands should track to monitor the impact of their content tagging strategies:
- SEO visibility – Monitor keyword ranks in search engines to see if tags are improving visibility for target terms.
- Traffic sources – Analyze traffic sources to see if more visitors are arriving directly or via search compared to other channels.
- Engagement analytics – Look for rises in metrics like click-through rate, time on site, pages per visit as tags improve.
- Conversions – Track online conversions and attributed ROI from branded content with improved tagging.
- Social media engagement – See if branded tags in social posts generate more likes, shares, clicks, etc.
Tools like Google Analytics provide data on how tags affect performance over time. Continually optimize based on insights to improve effectiveness of your branded content tags across channels.
Conclusion
Optimizing branded content with strategic tags should be a priority for modern brands looking to maximize their content marketing investments. By following tagging best practices – leveraging keyword research, building a sensible taxonomy, utilizing helpful tools, and analyzing data to refine over time – brands can increase content visibility, engagement, conversions, and ROI across all platforms. With the right systems and commitment to continuous optimization, branded content tagging can become a valuable asset for driving business growth.