Tips for Choosing Effective Tags

Tags are instrumental in helping buyers find your file while searching the site. While the Marketplace search engine will take a look at all the title, text, and attributes of the file, quality tags are the most important tool for search. However, it can be difficult to include a short list of effective tags that will help buyers find your file.

This article is reposted from the Envato Knowledgebase, which contains information on all the Envato sites, and is a helpful resource for authors, buyers and users.

Steps to Generating Useful Tags

1. Identify subjects or elements. – Any keyword list should start with the concrete subjects or elements in your submission. Subjects are frequently nouns or activities. E.g., flower, piano, banner, rotator, house, echo, teaching.


2. Identify context, industry, or uses. If your item applies to a larger industry, profession, or field, make sure a key applies to it. E.g., business, chemistry, music, career.


3. Identify functionality or features. Identify the functional elements, if any, in your file. Functionality can include a “contact form” in a theme, “tileable” in a texture, or “gallery” in a layout. Features can also include important attributes that buyers may search for.


4. Identify Mood or Style. Choose a couple of keywords that communicate the thematic mood of a file’s design, or the design style. Don’t forget abstract terms like seasons, emotions, or concepts. Note: Avoid using over-used tag terms like “Web 2.0″ or “sleek.” These terms are popular and frequently applied incorrectly, which means poor search results for buyers.


5. Clarify. Make sure your terms are clear and not ambiguous. For example, if you included the tag “bar” did you mean…
   
   
   
   • a pub where alcohol is served
   
   
   • a physical object like a crossing-bar
   
   
   • Bar, as in the verb “to stop or prevent”
   
   
   • a navigation bar for the web
   
   
   • a legal term or organization?
   
   
   
   

Add additional tags if it can clarify the elements and features of your file. Frequently, words for the context of another tag can help. “Bar” and “alcohol” might be used to search for a pub, while “Bar” and “traffic” might be used to search for a crossing bar or physical object.

1. Check your spelling. Misspelled tags will not come up in searches for correctly spelled words. You can check your spelling with on-line dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster or the American English version of the Cambridge Dictionary.


2. Submit! Submit your file, knowing buyers will be able to find it while browsing or searching based on your awesome tags.

Other Tips to Follow

Using phrases – Tags don’t have to be a single word. If your file is an illustration of a brown bear, you may use the two word tag “brown bear.”

Use lowercase – Do not capitalize words in tags unless they’re an acronym (e.g., NASA, RAID, etc).