If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, then you might be familiar with the pain and agony of filling out this little guy.
Tags. That painful afterthought that stands between me and getting my next blog post done and done with.
Tags. That annoying thing I don’t want to fill out but have to because I want be competitive in the SEO game.
Tags. That box I never know what to type in, so I end up typing in all kinds of nonsense hoping some of those tags end up making sense.
Tags. That frustrating step where I end up doing a lot of copy/paste from the text that’s in my post.
And how many tags do I put in there? Few? Many? More the merrier?
Isn’t there a way for that stupid field to be pre-populated without me having to type it in?
And while we’re at it, I’d like it to be populated by better tags than I can come up with. The highfalutin types call this Natural Language Processing.
Just look at my post, damn it, and figure out the best tags for it. Why can’t there be an app for THAT?
Well. There is.
AlchemyAPI
The name might sound familiar. You may have seen it before. But where? Click on the image to embiggen.
Few months ago, Triberr -somewhat quietly- partnered with AlchemyAPI to enable Triberr members to read all posts right inside their Tribal Stream.
This was such an amazing and natural fit for us. AlchemyAPI enables Triberr users to scan and read any post quickly without visiting the blog. Triberr is all about enabling bloggers to do more in less time, and this feature delivers exactly that.
Also, notice the large font and drawn shades. For those who like to consume content, we want to create the best environment for doing so.
Sorry. I don’t mean to get off on a tangent. I just had to point out how intuitively fitting AlchemyAPI is with Triberr, and I couldn’t be happier with those guys. I’m a HUGE fan and advocate.
Back to Tags
Couple of months ago, I was on the phone with the Alchemists (as I call them), and we were strategizing about how to get the word out. How do we make AlchemyAPI a household name? How do we get more people to be more aware of this amazing technology?
Of course, my default answer to all questions is always “bloggers”.
Bloggers are the celebrities of the future. Bloggers are the intentional, purposeful authority builders. Bloggers are cultivators of trust and builders of audiences. Bloggers are the only online residents (outside of celebrities) who have a voice.
You wan’t attention? You want recognition for your project? Get some bloggers in your corner. BOOM! That’s how it gets done.
The problem was, bloggers have no need for AlchemyAPI’s enterprise solution. But wait, Dino. One of the Alchemists interrupted. We DO have a solution for bloggers!
Do tell, I replied.
As I learned about their “blogger solution” I would have jumped for joy if I wasn’t driving at the time. AlchemyAPI had already created a solution to one of my biggest pain points as a blogger. Tags.
AlchemyTagger is a free WordPress plugin that automatically analyzes a blog post and suggests tags to be added to the post. There is even an option to add all suggested tags.
Installing and Configuring AlchemyTagger
It’s actually quite easy, but I’ll give you detailed steps here so you have a feel for it before you go and set it up on your blog.
Step 1: Search for the plugin
Step 2: Install the plugin
After you click on Install Now, the plugin will download and you will be prompted to activate it.
Step 3: Configure the plugin
In the configuration area, click on (What is This?) to obtain the API key.
The sign up form is easy and brief. It will take less than 2 minutes to fill out the field, confirm email, and obtain the API key necessary for the configuration.
Once you’ve obtained the API key and pasted it into the API key area, click on Update Settings to save the config.
HAZZAH!!! From this point forward, your blogging life will be WAAAAY more pleasant.
Tagged By…
This post was tagged by AlchemyTagger.
As you can see in the image below, not only does it automatically generate relevant tags, but you can add them all in with a single click of a botton.
Of course, all the standard functionality is there. You can type in your own tags, and you can remove suggested tags.
Alchemy is Chemistry
AlchemyAPI has done so much for bloggers already via its integration with Triberr.
AlchemyTagger is a solution for bloggers that addresses one of the biggest pain points I’ve ever experienced in my blogging career. I’ll grant you, it’s a first world problem, but I don’t care. No one should be forced to manually enter tags when there’s such an amazing plugin available for free.
If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, go and install AlchemyTagger. You’ll thank me later.