It Needs Better Thoughts.
A question has been rattling around my head lately.
Do WordPress tags and social media hashtags still matter?
Not in theory.
In practice.
There is a difference.
The internet is full of advice that remains technically correct while being increasingly irrelevant.
You can still find articles explaining the importance of carefully selecting fifteen hashtags for every social media post. You can still find endless discussions about optimising WordPress tags, categories, metadata, and countless other pieces of digital housekeeping.
The advice is not necessarily wrong.
The problem is that much of it belongs to a different internet.
Many creators are still following maps drawn for roads that no longer exist.
Back when blogging first exploded, discovery was often mechanical.
You added keywords.
You added tags.
You added hashtags.
You built backlinks.
You ticked boxes.
The internet behaved a little like a filing cabinet. The better you labelled something, the easier it was to find.
Today feels different.
The internet has become less interested in labels and more interested in meaning.
Platforms are increasingly capable of understanding context. Search engines can interpret entire conversations. Social media algorithms can identify topics, sentiment, interests, and intent without requiring users to attach a string of hashtags to every post.
The machine no longer needs us to hold up little signs explaining what we are talking about.
It can usually work it out for itself.
That realisation creates an uncomfortable question.
How much time are we spending optimising things that no longer matter very much?
I see it everywhere.
Creators agonising over hashtags.
Bloggers creating endless tag pages.
Website owners obsessing over technical details while neglecting the actual content.
Meanwhile, somebody publishes a compelling article with a memorable title and gains more attention than a dozen perfectly optimised competitors.
That is not because optimisation is worthless.
It is because optimisation has changed.
The internet used to reward categorisation.
Increasingly, it rewards articulation.
People often ask why certain articles spread while others disappear.
The answer is rarely hidden in a hashtag.
It is usually hidden in a sentence.
A sentence that captures something people already feel but have not yet found words for.
Consider a hashtag.
#WaterBills
It tells us the subject.
Nothing more.
Now consider a sentence.
“The future sent us an invoice.”
The subject is still there.
The difference is that it contains an idea.
It creates curiosity.
It suggests a larger story.
It invites somebody to click.
The internet remains full of information but surprisingly short of articulation.
Most people already know their water bill has increased.
Most people already know housing is expensive.
Most people already know social media can be exhausting.
What people are searching for is not always more information.
Sometimes they are searching for language.
Language that helps them understand what they are already experiencing.
That is why certain phrases travel.
Not because they are optimised.
Because they resonate.
The same principle applies to websites.
I have become increasingly sceptical of websites containing thousands of tags, hundreds of categories, and endless archives that nobody actually visits.
A website should not resemble a warehouse.
It should resemble a library.
The purpose is not to store everything.
The purpose is to help people find what matters.
A handful of meaningful categories often achieves more than hundreds of disconnected tags.
Strong internal links achieve more than endless metadata.
Useful articles achieve more than technical perfection.
Most importantly, clear thinking achieves more than all of them.
The uncomfortable truth is that technology keeps getting smarter.
Many of the shortcuts we relied upon are becoming less important.
The algorithm understands natural language.
The search engine understands context.
The platform understands topics.
What remains valuable is the thing that cannot be reduced to a checkbox.
Original observation.
Clear thinking.
Distinctive language.
Human judgement.
These are becoming more important, not less.
Perhaps that is why so much modern content feels strangely interchangeable.
Everyone has access to the same optimisation advice.
Everyone follows the same checklists.
Everyone uses the same formulas.
As a result, much of the internet sounds like it was written by the same person.
The opportunity lies elsewhere.
The opportunity is not in finding a better hashtag.
It is in finding a better observation.
Not a better tag.
A better idea.
Not a better keyword.
A better question.
The creators who thrive in the coming years may not be the ones who understand algorithms best.
They may be the ones who understand people best.
Because even in an age of artificial intelligence, people still share things for deeply human reasons.
A sentence makes them laugh.
A paragraph makes them think.
An observation makes them feel understood.
No hashtag has ever achieved that on its own.
And perhaps that is the real lesson.
The internet has spent decades becoming better at finding content.
The challenge now is creating content worth finding.
Until Next Time
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