In this busy world, what can help you be more efficient in your online searches...get your blog noticed...your tweet read? The answer is simple.  Tags.

You might have used a tag in a search, put in a word that best described what it was you were looking for, your result was probably a generous smattering of other things you didn't think was even related before you started your search. (Google search: BEANS)

When you are writing your blog, you generally add tags to describe your posting...these come up to your readers in your tag cloud to help them search out your writings that best fit their knowledge quest best.  Take your time and thoroughly tag your articles. Tags are picked up by search engines and are the stepping stones to coming up at the top spots in searches.

Flickr allows you to freely tag your images. This can be helpful to you immediately for searches but also if you want to pull images into a webpage or application later.  A good example of this is my daughter's photography web page. (View here)

Another type of tag is used by Twitter.  The "Hashtag" (#) is used for words or phrases to categorize them.  #FF is short for "Follow Friday," a great way to share your friends and others that you follow on Fridays.  It's an easy way to suggest that your followers follow others that you do. Hopefully, the #FF is reciprocal and you are included on some of those Fridays also to increase your followers. (#FF)

For more information check out the Wikipedia article on "Tags."