Want to Know What is Tag Cloud? A Comprehensive Guide for 2023

Do you want a stunning visualization to showcase your valuable information to customers? If yes, data visualization, including charts, graphs, and infographics, is ideal. It helps you to identify patterns in data and make data-driven decisions. However, what if your raw data is text-oriented? The tag cloud is the ultimate solution. Using it, you can transform the way data looks – from dull to sizzling – and conveniently convey important information to customers. So, what is tag cloud, and how does it work? This article will help you learn about this concept, its various types, benefits, pros, and cons to make data more visually appealing.

Statista forecasts that the global revenue generated by the public cloud market will achieve a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.81% between 2023 and 2027. This will result in a market volume of $881.8 billion by 2027. It is essential for public cloud resources such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. It plays a role in controlling cloud computing expenses and understanding how public cloud resources are utilized. With the right tagging, an organization can link business operations to the cost of cloud computing to ensure they align with business values. They help to monitor the changes in the organization’s public cloud resource infrastructure.

So, what is a tag cloud, its various types, how does it work and what benefits can it bring to your company? This is where you find out! 

What is Tag Cloud?

Also known as a word cloud or a weighted list, is a visual technique that is based on the representation of the appearance of words or tags within text such as website content, articles, speeches, or databases. It is a graphical representation of the words that are utilized most frequently in a body of text.

What are the Benefits?

• They assist in revealing the opinions of the target audience
• It is quick and informative and helps get feedback in real time
• Such clouds are a visual format enabling easier, more effective engagement with the target audience
• It offers an open forum where audiences can see each other’s responses on any topic and start a conversation among them

Types of Tag Clouds 

They are of three types—data clouds, word clouds, and collocate clouds. Let us have a look at the three types to have a better understanding of their functionalities. 

1. Data Cloud

It is a data display that utilizes font size and color to indicate numerical quantities. It is similar to a word cloud, but rather than displaying the words, it displays data. Examples include population data or stock market prices.

2. Word Cloud or Weighted List

A weighted list is a visual representation to show how frequently a word has been used in a given text. This method has witnessed a recent rise in popularity as a way of visualizing content that is relevant to political speeches.

3. Collocate Cloud

It provides a more targeted view of the document or text in question by analyzing the usage of a particular word rather than providing a summary of the full content. The words that are frequently used in connection with the keyword search are included in the resulting word cloud. 

These collocations are designed to display collocational strength (as brightness) as well as frequency (as size). It lets you browse content in any language in an interactive way.

How Does It Work?

It is a weighted list of keywords rather than just a simple listing. Consequently, the optical conversion of the word cloud also depends on the relative importance of individual keywords. There is more than one formula to create a tag cloud, so you should establish your own formula to determine the weighting of each word before creating a tag cloud. 

When a keyword is used more frequently, it should be presented in a larger font size or a different color to draw attention. Additionally, terms that are used more frequently can also be written in a different font. 

Why Use Them?

The purpose is to assist you in locating the information that you are seeking from a system. The process makes it easier to navigate websites. The following reasons will help you comprehend the significance of using a tag cloud.

1. Analyze the Sentiment of the Target Audience

When users of a tag cloud need to extract key patterns from a large amount of qualitative data, they can use a tool like a tag cloud. It is possible to get actionable insights from the feedback provided by customers in the form of unstructured data. 

It is tough to understand insights when they are in a tabular format. However, when presented in a tag cloud, these insights are easier to spot. 

2. Aid in Search Engine Optimization

Tag clouds can be utilized as navigational aids by hyperlinking the terms that are related to a tag. They help improve the search engine optimization of websites and assist users in effectively exploring and navigating the content in information systems, such as laptops and smartphones. 

3. Search for Data Patterns

Tag clouds are an excellent tool if you need to search for patterns in qualitative data and enhance the insights gleaned. They allow users to cluster a massive data set easily according to its popularity or frequency.

ALSO READ: Artificial Intelligence vs. Machine Learning: What are the Key Differences?

Pros and Cons of Tag Clouds

Pros

• Tag cloud reveals essential brand names and keywords
• The audience is more likely to be engaged when data is presented visually as it is through a tag cloud

Cons

• Fonts of texts overcomplicate the data
• The texts that the tag cloud system shows are difficult to understand and hence, need improvement

How to Make a Tag Cloud

You can quickly construct tag clouds using a number of online tools, such as MonkeyLearn’s Word Cloud Generator. It is a free AI-powered application that makes creating tag clouds incredibly simple.

Upload Data to a Tag Cloud Tool

You can design your tag cloud by typing, pasting, or uploading the text data that you want to utilize.

Source: MonkeyLearn

Create the Tag Cloud

You can visualize your results by clicking the option labeled Generate Cloud.

Source: MonkeyLearn

Customize the Tag Cloud Data

You can personalize your tag cloud by altering the theme, color, and font. You can even restrict the number of words and alter the source text, if necessary.

Source: MonkeyLearn

Download the Tag Cloud

You can download your tag cloud in high-definition.SVG and .PNG images. You can also save your raw data as an a.CSV file. It will help you determine how relevant a tag is by applying a relevance score to it and looking at how frequently it appears in your raw data.

Source: MonkeyLearn

The last step is to view your tag cloud to check if it meets your requirements. 

Develop Your Skills with Emeritus 

Tag clouds have the ability to visually represent data related to a business and quickly reveal hidden insights. However, you must have an in-depth understanding of what is tag cloud and how it works to enhance the functionalities of your organizational infrastructure. 

This is where signing up for Emeritus’ online artificial intelligence courses and machine learning courses will help! These well-designed programs will ensure you not only understand such innovative tools but also know how to implement them in your respective systems. 

Write to us at content@emeritus.org