Story tags - An art in itself?

[PrincessArianrhod]

In the spirit of community good-will set forth by our wholesome friend, @EmilyMiller , a bid you all a very good day.

I'd like to talk about tags.

They're not something I've paid much attention to beyond picking the obvious tick boxes but a comment posted a few days ago on one of my stories has drawn my attention:

"Lovely stuff. You can use more tags and let more people find this, it's really good. I wouldn't have found it if I needed to use the tags." (On Standing Room Only , which will soon be removed and replaced by a 2023 Redux with rewritten dialogue in the second half.)

Hmm. The story in question has two tags - 'Romance' and 'Encounter'

It's a lesbian story posted in the Lesbian Sex category, so I omitted a 'Lesbian' tag thinking it redundant. I can't honestly think of what tags I would add, nor what potential audience they would draw. I'm neither a sales person nor someone swayed by advertising so maybe I'm under-thinking it. Thus far in my Lit career I kind of expect little more than handful of scattered views after the story falls of the 'New' page anyway.

I know some people don't tag their stories at all. So how would I tag that story better? How do you tag your stories? What details are you cherry-picking to use as tags?

 

[MillieDynamite]

I wonder if there is a word limit on the tags? Could one tag (for example) be: totally gay encounter, or Husband Voyeur sissified, perhaps?

I might want to think about, A reluctant lesbian experience, maybe.

 

[alohadave]

tags are for searching. Even though you placed it in the Lesbian category, someone searching will not be searching in the category, they'll be going through the main search page. And while you can narrow it down by category, most people won't do that.

Think about if you were searching for a story, what search terms would you use? That's what your tags should be.

It's a combination of theme and content.

 

[alohadave]

I wonder if there is a word limit on the tags? Could one tag (for example) be: totally gay encounter, or Husband Voyeur sissified, perhaps?

I've seen tags like that. You can have at least a couple words.

 

[MillieDynamite]

But we have only ten possible tags, so we may really want to use the Amazon model and have more words per tag.

 

[MillieDynamite]

You also may want a warning in the tags, bisexual male, is one that would warn off people that don't like men on men stories.

 

[djrip]

In the spirit of community good-will set forth by our wholesome friend, @EmilyMiller , a bid you all a very good day.

I'd like to talk about tags.

They're not something I've paid much attention to beyond picking the obvious tick boxes but a comment posted a few days ago on one of my stories has drawn my attention:

"Lovely stuff. You can use more tags and let more people find this, it's really good. I wouldn't have found it if I needed to use the tags." (On Standing Room Only , which will soon be removed and replaced by a 2023 Redux with rewritten dialogue in the second half.)

Hmm. The story in question has two tags - 'Romance' and 'Encounter'

It's a lesbian story posted in the Lesbian Sex category, so I omitted a 'Lesbian' tag thinking it redundant. I can't honestly think of what tags I would add, nor what potential audience they would draw. I'm neither a sales person nor someone swayed by advertising so maybe I'm under-thinking it. Thus far in my Lit career I kind of expect little more than handful of scattered views after the story falls of the 'New' page anyway.

I know some people don't tag their stories at all. So how would I tag that story better? How do you tag your stories? What details are you cherry-picking to use as tags?

"69," if I recall correctly, and I think"scissoring." "Train encounter" or "commute." "First lesbian experience", iirc. "Public fondling." Stuff like that.

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

Think about if you were searching for a story, what search terms would you use? That's what your tags should be.

I've never done that. I'm more of a Zen navigator when it comes to content and I'll read whatever I find until I've either finished it or I'm bored, asleep, switched off, etc... Clearly it is a used method to find things, so I need to pay more attention to it.

 

[Bamagan]

I generally use them to call out either alternative categories the story might fit under, or fetishes people are either seeking out or want to avoid. For example, if there's incest in the story but it was placed in MC, NC/R, SF/F or whatever, an incest tag can be helpful, and possibly the type as well (siblings, parent(s)-child(ren), etc.). Likewise if it's placed in incest because of the sex pairing(s) but has elements of BDSM or something fetish-y.
In the case of your story, 'encounter' is probably too vague to be useful to many people. And I see djrip has already given you a list of options for alternatives, which I was skimming for when that post appeared. First lesbian experience or the equivalent is a good one. Mature might also be appropriate since she has a grown daughter. Frottage might also be a good choice to describe their train encounter. It's not a term that many people are familiar with, but anyone who likes it might search for it. I usually don't bother about listing positions like 69 or scissoring, since they're kind of vanilla in the context of lesbian sex, but if you've got room for them it won't hurt to include them.

 

[SimonDoom]

I believe people should take full advantage of the tag feature. You get 10 of them, and you should use all ten. Tags serve 2 primary purposes: one is for searching, and the other is to give the potential reader who already has clicked on your story and opened to the first page a heads-up about the story so they can make a more informed decision about whether to read it or not.

Think about what makes your story sexy and interesting and unique. What words capture that?

Check out the chart of frequently used tags in each tag category. You may get ideas from the list.

Think: would somebody actually use this word for a search. In your example above, the word "encounter" is a terrible tag. Nobody is going to search for a story with the word "encounter" because it is too generic and has no erotic appeal at all. Everything is an encounter. Conversely, don't pick words that are so obscure that they are unlikely every to be used. But DO use words that are somewhat unusual if you think somebody might realistically use it to do a search.

It's perfectly OK to use the category title as a tag. I do that all the time. Sure, it's duplicative, but the key is to get maximum attention for your story, and that's a way to do it.

 

[Altissimus]

I always use all 10 tags, unless I'm really scratching my head to fill the list. Usually it isn't a problem (barring, ironically, my most recent submission).

I also include the category I'm posting in as a tag (assuming there isn't a 'more important' tag to go there instead) because I can well envisage people searching for (as an example) 'non con bdsm' and not hitting a category, because it's those themes they want and they don't mind whether the story is in romance, non con, bdsm, erotic couplings, incest, fetish... etc. Folk search in different ways, but this is a category conversation.

Let's assume you posted your story on Lit because you want people to read it, and to read it they have to find it. Those 10 category words are one of the main ways it'll be found, so you should absolutely fill the list - even if some of the tags aren't the ones that end up being important to you.

For 'Standing Room Only' - to supplement djrip's suggestions above - you could also include, for example, 'stranger', 'crowded train', 'panty removal', 'assertive encounter', 'thong', etc.

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

In your example above, the word "encounter" is a terrible tag.

See, I thought that was a useful tag.

"You're doing it wrong," chorused everyone.

 

[AchtungNight]

AO3 has a tagging system with prominent fandoms, characters, and content tropes suggested by what the user types. I typically base my tags for Lit on their suggestions since Lit has no suggestion system of its own. Beyond that, like people have said, think about what your story features and create tags to reflect that.

For a recent story I submitted, the tags included “Angel”, “demon”, “polyamory”, “lesbian sex”, “femslash”, and “fantasy”. This was the Pathfinder story I released last week. This week I’ve submitted a Star Wars story with the tags “casual sex”, “mind control”, and “Jedi”. Hopefully it will be out on Lit soon.

 

[MajorRewrite]

It would be interesting to have a list of most searched tags instead of the existing word cloud of most used tags.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Tags are very important, in my opinion. Readers use them to search for appropriate content but they are also a good way of informing your potential readers what kind of content they can expect in your story. Any kink that some readers might strongly dislike you should put in tags and maybe even in the foreword. Readers tend to get frustrated when they read half of your story and then encounter something that is a major turn-off for them. Tags and forewords are a good way to prevent that.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

See, I thought that was a useful tag.

"You're doing it wrong," chorused everyone.

I second his opinion. That is a completely useless tag Your tags should be informative in the sense of the presence of certain sexual kinks and maybe even about the type of your story.

 

[djrip]

I do think the word encounter implies a particular kind of unexpected encounter leading to unplanned sex. I wouldn't expect it to be used for coworkers or roommates or family members or classmates or anyone else who had a reason to run into each other, at least not as a tag.

 

[Bamagan]

In the case of your story, 'encounter' is probably too vague to be useful to many people. And I see djrip has already given you a list of options for alternatives, which I was skimming for when that post appeared. First lesbian experience or the equivalent is a good one.

As an addendum to what @SimonDoom and @Altissimus (and possibly others by the time I finish typing) said about using all ten tags, sometimes you can fill out the list with variations on the theme. For example, you could have 'first lesbian experience' as @djrip suggested, but also include 'first time lesbian' even though it seems redundant. But it increases the odds of anyone who is vaguely trying to find stories about women going gay for the first time finding your tale, which they are predisposed to liking.

 

[SimonDoom]

I read your story Standing Room Only. I would consider the following tags:

lesbian sex
stranger sex
bathroom sex
train
high heel
romance
seduction
g-string
cunnilingus
orgasm
miniskirt
MILF

This is just off the top of my head. There may be others that are better. But definitely use all ten.

 

[Bamagan]

I do think the word encounter implies a particular kind of unexpected encounter leading to unplanned sex. I wouldn't expect it to be used for coworkers or roommates or family members or classmates or anyone else who had a reason to run into each other, at least not as a tag.

Still, in that context, unexpected or unplanned would probably be more likely search terms, although I'd hazard a guess that the people looking for those tags are probably preggo fetishists.

 

[MajorRewrite]

The #1 most viewed story on Lit has just 2 tags: “mother” and “son”.

The #2 most viewed story has weird tags: “named Alex”, “supply room”, “wanted woman”, “mother son”, “son” and “felt good”.

 

[EmilyMiller]

tags are for searching. Even though you placed it in the Lesbian category, someone searching will not be searching in the category, they'll be going through the main search page. And while you can narrow it down by category, most people won't do that.

Think about if you were searching for a story, what search terms would you use? That's what your tags should be.

It's a combination of theme and content.

I’d assumed that if you put a story in the Lesbian category, you didn’t need to also add a Lesbian tag. Am I wrong?

Em

 

[Altissimus]

Depending on how kinky you want to get, you could also consider:

'Regenerative braking'
'Electrical Multiple Units'
'Sliding Doors'
'Bombardier Alstom Movia'
'Derby Litchurch Lane Works'
'FLEXX Metro Lightweight bogies'
'Optimum capacity with reduce energy consumption'
'Pantograph Collectors'
'3-phase AC induction permanent-magnet synchronous motor'

...I'm going to go and have a little lie down.

 

[Altissimus]

I’d assumed that if you put a story in the Lesbian category, you didn’t need to also add a Lesbian tag. Am I wrong?

Em

Not 'wrong', per se, but I'd always add the category as a tag if I have space within my 10, because many folk will assume that searching for 'Lesbian' (tag) includes the category too (and, AFAIK, it doesn't). Gave an example above where a tag search wouldn't bring up some stories unless their tags also include listed category.

In short, if you are struggling for a ninth or tenth tag, deffo include.

 

[SimonDoom]

I’d assumed that if you put a story in the Lesbian category, you didn’t need to also add a Lesbian tag. Am I wrong?

Em

That won't help somebody who, in looking for a story, uses the search system rather than the category system. If I publish a story in Incest, I will always also have a tag that includes the word "incest."