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What is a word cloud

By Catalogs Editorial Staff

Use a word cloud to spark creativity and new ideas.

Use a word cloud to spark creativity and new ideas.

If you are a writer, a blogger or frequently work with computer websites, you may be familiar with or heard about word clouds. Contrary to what the name suggests, word clouds aren’t actually real-life clouds shaped as words. You may wish to familiarize yourself with word clouds if you are looking to expand your website, computer and/or writing skills.

What Is A Word Cloud?

Word clouds, also referred to as tag clouds, are a visual representation of frequently used words and text data. Websites frequently generate tag clouds from the commonly used tags, or words, used on the site. Words appear in a cloud-like format, clustered together, in varying sizes and possibly colors. Typically, the larger words are used most frequently on that particular website.

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A word cloud is a quick and useful way to determine what topics and terms are the most prominently used. Hence, if food is a larger word in a cloud versus the words games or movies, your website may be more specifically geared towards recipes and cooking.

Identify strengths and weaknesses

Word clouds can have several purposes. In particular, they can help you identify and predict what a topic, blog, article or website is about. They can help you identify what your strengths and weaknesses are by recognizing what words and topics you most frequently write about. They can also help you identify if there are areas you wish to develop more.

If a word cloud contains very few words related to a particular topic you wish to write or discuss, you can start generating more articles or ideas related to that area.

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Generate vocabulary

A word cloud is also a useful way to increase your vocabulary. If you find that you struggle with finding new and creative words, try hand-writing your own word cloud to generate some ideas. For instance, if food and recipes are commonly generated in a word cloud, try being more specific by adding more words and tags such as pizza, sandwiches, beverages, dinner, breakfast, dessert, healthy and so forth.

This can also increase traffic to your website if people are frequently seeking specific topics related to your tags.

Computer Generated

Tag clouds are automatically generated by computers for most websites that are hosted through WordPress and others. Even if you are using a different server or building your own website platform, it isn’t difficult to acquire creation tools that can generate word clouds.

Simply write and enter a specific website link into a creation tool and wait for it to analyze the site’s content. A tag cloud is then generated detailing the most frequent and popular words used on your site. Creation tools that can help you achieve this include Tag Cloud and Wordle.

Teaching Tool

Word clouds are a great tool to use as a teaching aide. A cloud can be used in the classroom to help children predict what type of topic a word cloud is about. This can sharpen analytical skills and help kids increase their ability to think quickly, make predictions and problem-solve. If a word cloud presents words such as computers, telephones and televisions, the topic of interest may be technology or perhaps social media.

Kids can also develop their vocabulary skills by learning new words with the use of word clouds. Furthermore, they can learn new words that are similar or possibly analogous in meaning similar to what a dictionary and thesaurus assists with.

Have fun with it

Word clouds can spark your creativity, generate new ideas and increase your business potential. Try writing your own on a simple sheet of paper or checking your websites’ own computer-generated clouds and have fun exploring your options.

 

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