**I have been on Steemit for more than 3 months and non of my posts have made over 5$ payout!**
**I write my posts and when i check them out,i only realise 3 or 5 people saw my post!**


Have any of the above thoughts come to your mind?
Ok let me continue further, 
>I make posts and it seems no one is interested in my content as i always get less than 10 votes!!

If any of these suicidal questions have been  crossing your mind,chill coz you are not alone!

If you are a newbie,then at some point in journey you must have felt bad of how your posts are doing.It's unfortunate that most of us just stop at that ie feeling bad of how our posts are doing!

I get these complaints almost daily from my community and I wanted to address one of the core reasons for this.

It has come to my attention that people do not read the Steemit welcome page that has a  lot of resources to help us get started...most of us just hurry to hit the post button!!!

 You post and post and you are shocked when you make consecutive 10 posts that make a combined total of 0.57$ ...really heartbreaking.

Let me post for you the Steemit welcome page for those who missed to go through it before i forget.
Here it is
 #### [Steemit Welcome Page](https://steemit.com/welcome)
#### [Steemit FAQs Page](https://steemit.com/faq.html)
In case you would want to improve on your Steemit success,i highly recommend reading those pages above.

Ok let's get to our main topic today and that is tagging or tags.
It is fascinating to realize that some new people think Steemit tags are similar to Facebook tags!!!! I have been asked about this a lot.

![download (1).png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1520392830/dvthxfbqugmcgwkgbkq7.png)
[Source](https://steemit.com/steemit/@walkingkeys/5-tips-on-using-tags-to-get-more-exposure-on-steemit)
Let me put it here straight that Steemit tagging is not even close to Facebook tagging!
Almost all new people who do not read the welcome page include the name of the person who told them about Steemit as the first tag!!!! I have seen this a lot.

#### So What Are Steemit Tags You May Ask.
Now this is a great question as I see you want to learn.
As i earlier most the info you need in on the welcome page and am quoting the exact definition as written by Steemit Inc 
>**What are tags?**

>**Tags are a way to categorize your content, so that others can find it. The more relevant the tags are to the post, the more like-minded people will come across it.**

The only alteration I did to that definition above was to bold it so that you do not miss reading it this time as you missed in the welcome page!

As clearly stated,it is a way to categorize or arrange content that is similar.It is then easy for me to come to a particular tag and find all the related content e.g. bitcoin or life.

I have realized many people do not put importance to tags and its high time you do now.

![logo.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1520394113/jf8i4tyobqz11xsmgj0e.png)
[Credit](

It should be noted the right tags give exposure to our posts.You might be wondering what's the use of exposure!.
Let me quote one of the legends of Steemit  @rok-sivante as he said it in this [post here which you have to check out!](https://steemit.com/steemit/@rok-sivante/the-top-3-reasons-to-tag-your-steemit-posts-a-simple-quick-strategy-for-long-term-profits-and-success)

>If you want votes & rewards, you want exposure. Having your post listed in multiple categories increases your exposure to people looking for materials on the tagged subjects - hence, increasing your earning potential.

So this answers one of the questions above of why no one sees your posts and also why the posts have a low payout!.

#### The Golden Question:What Tags should I use?
I have called it the golden question as it is what some of you are thinking about now and I have also been asked this same question multiple times in person.
>Try to use tags that are relevant to your post and also tags that other people can browse or look for on Steemit.

Let me give an example below.
If you write a post about rice dishes,it would make more sense if you use food as a tag compared to "rice dishes",as food is already an established tag unlike rice dishes!

I also see some people tag their names,this will be a wasted tag as no one even knows your name!It would make sense if you tag an established author who has his/her tag as a name.

You should also be mindful of the tags you use especially country related tags like kr-Korea,fr-France,cn-China....
**Let me put It in bold,do not use these tags if your post is not written in this language and guess what..you will be flagged or downvoted!**

Now for those who do not know the meaning of flagged or downvoted....downvoted is the opposite of upvoted!

This is how annoying it is to come to a tag expecting a certain topic e.g. food and you find a post on sports(such cases earn you a  downvote).You would have wasted someone's time Here and it's why you are flagged!.

Let me hope it is now clear why we need to tag our posts appropriately.There are also tags that are interrelated like travel and photography or tourism.

Always remember the first tag must be directly relate to your topic.You might also realise that i always use tag uganda in my posts.I initiated this tag so that i can easily categorize posts that are from my country Uganda and it has really grown.

I also use Africa because obviously Uganda is in Africa so that I can identify with other Africans.It would not be nice for you who is not Ugandan to use the Uganda tag!! 

In would advice everyone to start using their country related tag so that you can build a community or even get help from your community.
I realised sometimes people be isolated here just because they did not use their country related tag! Go use it.

As i conclude you should go and read the welcone page again!

Let me hope this post will help you make some increased $$ because you have learned how to tag your posts.

### If you liked this post,plesase upvote and resteem to your friends.

Love 
Jarau Moses