Setting Up Your Website Categories and Tags Correctly
Your categories and tags are the most important part of your website’s navigation. If you set up your categories correctly right from the start you have a website that flows easily and your website visitors can find what they are looking for.
Think of your categories as a place to file your posts. You write an article and then you have to “categorize” it. Once categorized, you can think of pertinent keywords, or “tags” to be added to your post.
Watch My Video As I Explain How
Pages do not get filed into a category. They are stand alone ‘pages’ and have more power than a post. Only posts are filed into your categories, so your visitors can easily find your content filed in specific topics or groups.
If your website visitor clicks one of your categories, they will be able to view all the posts you have written on that ‘topic’. This is also known as an archive.
- When creating a new category, try to limit it to 1 to 2 words. This is just my opinion but it is more visually appealing for one and secondly there really is no need to make a category into a phrase.
- You may also like to create sub-categories…a branch within a main topic. If you publish a post to a sub category, it also is automatically filed within the main category of that sub-category.
Now For Creating Tags
Tags are the next in line in the WordPress hierarchy. They are the pawns in the game of play. Tags are also considered as keywords to your article or post. Your visitors have the option to click on one of the tags at the bottom of your article to view other articles that maybe of interest to them.
For example, I will file this post into my category of WordPress Tutorials. My tags will be ‘WordPress Tips‘ and ‘Video Tutorials‘. I am not going to use more, because this post doesn’t warrant it.
If I was discussing plugins or themes, I would add those tags too…but I am not…so I won’t. 🙂
Some websites end up with hundreds of tags, as you may have half a dozen tags that relate to an article you have written…and they build over time on your site.
- However I do recommend you add your post to only 1 category. Some people may add it to more and that is fine. There is no hard and fast rule. I believe it to be a better practice to add it to only one though.
- There are bloggers that are concerned that they are creating duplicate content across their site by adding to more than one category. You are not penalized if you do, but why make it difficult filing the same article all over the place anyway?
Personally I only ever add my post to one category and limit my articles to no more than 6 tags….sometimes I use only 2 or 3…like this one will be.
I don’t make tags just for the sake of it and I keep my categories to a minimum. Again that is only my personal preference, you may like to add more and it is your website and your choice.
Think of categories like an index to your website. If you read books you will open it up and see an index. At the back of the book there is a glossary. The index are your categories, the glossary are your tags!
So categories are the topics or groups covering the main theme of your website. Tags are all the keywords that relate to those topics.
As an example, let us look at a website that is all about internet marketing.
In the following example, the categories are in red and the tags are following. So you may like to have your categories and tags something like this:
- Affiliate Marketing – Clickbank, affiliate programs, product reviews
- Article Marketing – ezines, guest blogging, article directories
- Email Marketing – email marketing tips, aweber, optin lists, getresponse
- Social Media – twitter, youtube, google plus, linkedin, facebook, instagram, pinterest
- Marketing Strategies – advertising, adwords, facebook advertising, text ads, podcasts, webinars, product launches, jv partners
- WordPress Tutorials – Youtube video tutorials, WordPress tips, theme installs, plugin demos
As you can see, once you sit down and plan the structure of your website, it falls into place beautifully! If you would like some help setting up your categories, let me know in the comment section below and I will be happy to help you.
Cole Wiebe says
Hi Susan,
You make using WordPress very easy to understand. Very useful. Many beginning bloggers unfortunately leave all the posts in Uncategorized.
Wishing you a very prosperous and memorable 2014,
Cole
Susan O'Dea says
Hi Cole,
They certainly do. I like to delete the category ‘Uncategorized’ and make another category the default. However I didn’t want to say that in my video and end up confusing people.
Thank you for your kind words. I hope I make it easy to understand, but if I don’t I hope people let me know that too.
I wish you a great 2014 too! Thanks again,
Susan
James says
Hi Susan,
I gained a very important lesson; and that is knowing that a page is more valuable than a post.
Can you advise on this: I usually noindex my category and tags, is this a good practice?
Thank you
Susan O'Dea says
Hi James,
What a great question! Only 2 days ago, I changed my website from noindexing my categories and tags, to now indexing them. The reason I did was because a post I read in Google+ from a reputable source (which I have now forgotten…) mentioned that once it was better to not include them as it was more important to rank your pages and posts over your categories…which was also my reason for always making them “noindex”.
They also mentioned that some of their clients received thousands of web visitors a day from the search engines, sending them visitors from their indexed tags.
The post also mentioned that the search engines knows that WordPress uses categories and tags and that they do not penalize website owners because of these features. This makes perfect sense to me.
For years there has been the rule that categories and tags create duplicate content, so webmasters would scramble to hide these features.
I am right now testing this theory of indexing my categories and tags!
Susan O'Dea says
Also I forgot to add, I am glad you learned the importance of a page over a post. Another easy way for others to understand too is to show it like this:
1. A page is a standalone, ‘one-off’ piece of content. It appears once in your website, therefore giving it power and authority over others.
2. A post is in actual fact shown 3 or more times (depending on how many tags you give it) across your blog archives. For example, the post itself, the category you assign it to and then in every tag archive. Talk about a lot of places for that post to appear! It loses its authority.