Global Tags: An Overview

As you create and use tags throughout our system, we will store the tag as a 'global' tag. This means that this tag can be used in various places. Such as, creating a blog post, you might create a tag called 'Youth'. When working with an event entry, you might also want to use a tag called 'Youth'. Our system allows you to use the same tag because it can be used to search your site's content with. This is the centralized location for you to work with your site's tags.

What are Global Tags?

Global tags are words or phrases you assign to events, media files, and blog entries. They help you organize separate material on the site by relating them to their associated tag. On SiteWrench these globals tags are configured by various page parts as either “Tags” or “Categories.” For instance, “tags” are found in these page parts: Blog, Media Archive v. 2, Products, Portfolio Projects, Store Products; “Categories” is found in the Calendar page parts and the Store.

Think of a hashtag on Twitter. You could post #BestDayEver on Twitter and someone else across the world could use that same hashtag. When you click on the hashtag, you see every single post that has ever used #BestDayEver in one neat place. Global tags on SiteWrench are just like hashtags. Whenever you or another SiteWrench admin on your site associates a post, product, or event with the same tag, SiteWrench will aggregate the information within that page part and display it to you in one neat place.

CREATING TAGS

When you edit the details of an event, blog, or product, there will be an area to add new or existing tags. On the Calendar page part, the tags are called “Categories” and they are under the “Optional Info” tab.

1. If the tag exists in SiteWrench, it will appear below once you start typing or once you click the little downward facing arrow next to the “Add” button
   
   • Select the existing tag, it will finish populating the field where you were typing
   • Choose “Add”
2. If the tag does not yet exist in SiteWrench, start typing it in the field
   
   • Choose “Add”
3. The tag now looks like a button with a little “x” in the corner
4. Select the “x” to delete out the tag
5. Save your page part
6. Please note: If you see the tag in the field but it does not appear above the field as a little button with an “x”, the tag has not yet been properly added.

Example of adding tags on a blog post

Example of adding Categories on a calendar event

You are unable to edit existing tags the way you would text on a page

You cannot edit an existing tag. If a tag is misspelled, your best bet is to create a new tag, then go into the Global Tag management section of your site to merge your old tag into your new one and delete out the old one. Keep reading, we’ll get to this soon.

Commas between words do not create separate tags

Adding a comma between words when creating a new category or tag does not create separate tags. For instance, I may want to create two tags on my blog post with “holiday” and “Christmas.” In order to do this I need to type in “Holiday” and select “Add,” then type in “Christmas” and select “Add.” Take a look at these examples.

INCORRECT

Notice how “holiday, Christmas” are in one box with the little “x” in it? That means it’s one tag.

CORRECT

Notice how each word has its own box with an “x” in it? These are considered two different tags.

It’s not necessarily wrong to have a tag with multiple words and commas in it, as long as you keep that consistent throughout the site. But it’s best practice to have one word or phrase as its own tag.

USING GLOBAL TAGS

Every time you add the tag, “grade school” to an event, you are telling SiteWrench that those events are related. You can use tools built within SiteWrench to tag advantage of your tagging system.

Use the Widgets to pull in items from a page part based on tags

The Upcoming Events widget and Recent Blog Posts widget allows you to pull in events from one of your Calendar page parts. You can tell the widget to only pull in events or blogs that are tagged a certain way. So if you have a Church Calendar and you’ve been tagging certain events as “grade school,” you can tell the Upcoming Events widget to only pull in events tagged as “grade school.”

Have us style your tags as clickable options for users to find things faster

If you use your SiteWrench calendar prominently on your website, you may want to consider having it styled by our designers. We can turn your tags into clickable buttons, so when a user clicks on an event category, only the events tagged as that category appears in the list below. This is a fantastic feature for churches with multiple campuses. One of our clients, Central Baptist, uses this feature to manage their events for multiple campuses.

If you use our SiteWrench store on your website, we can style your store products tags so they create a better visual example of the types of products you have. Look at the way our client, AllureBridals, uses the store categories and tags to help users narrow down the kind of bridal gown they are looking for.

Get in touch with your account manager today to discuss options for styling your calendar, blog, or store tags. We can design based on your organizational needs and provide you with a quote.

Issues with Duplicate Global Tags

If you type in a new tag that already exists in SiteWrench, you might accidentally create a duplicate global tag. You’ll see multiple versions of the same tag in your dropdown bar.

Depending on how your site is styled, this may or may not be obvious to your users on the front facing side of your site. Most often you will see duplicate global tags pulling in on your Event Calendar page where it shows “Categories.” Sometimes the site is styled to show a drop down bar; other times the tags appear as clickable buttons that will allow users to select the tag they want to see so only those events pull through on the website. If your site has a “Featured Event” tag and you see “Featured Event” pulling in more than once on your page, that’s an indication that you have accidentally created duplicate tags. There is an easy way to fix it, so keep reading!

MANAGING GLOBAL TAGS

You can go to Settings > Tools > Global tags to manage your categories and tags that pull through on your site.

In this example, notice that the tag “Central Campus” is showing five times. Two of those tags are not being used at all, and two of them are only associated with one event or blog post on the site. The major tag is being used 165 times.

Instead of tediously finding the single event tagged as “Central Campus,” and reapplying the correct one, SiteWrench allows you to merge the old tag into the new one. You don't have to delete all those old existing tags and apply the new tag all over again.Your event or blog post or product will automatically update itself to be associated with the tag you merged it into. This is particularly useful if you have two completely different tags that need to be one new tag, or a misspelled tag that needs to be updated.

How to Merge Tags

Select “Merge Into” next to the tag that you want to be absorbed into your other tag. In this case, the “Central Campus” that has Usage: 1 will be absorbed into “Central Campus” with Usage: 156. Select “Ok” once you have chosen the tag you’d like to merge into.

Now go through and clean up your tags that have Usage: 0. Delete out the tags with no association to anything to keep your tags nice and clean. It’s important to do this so that when you are selecting existing tags on the blog or calendar, you do not have to guess which duplicate tag is the correct one. You only have one to choose from.

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