WordPress allows you to sort posts into categories and tags. It makes it easier to manage content and more accessible for your readers to find the content they’re looking for.
This blog post will recommend how to structure your WordPress blog with categories and tags.
Categories and keywords will help search engines understand how the website structure of your blog is built.
Therefore, it can be said that the correct use of categories and tags is essential for search engine optimization for your WordPress blog.
Understanding how to sort your content best as a beginner can be challenging, and it is not unusual to see errors in this area.
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What Separates Categories and Tags
Categories are meant to sort your posts. Think of these as general topics or content descriptions for what you publish on your website. Categories are hierarchical, which means you can create subcategories.
Tags are meant to describe more minor details about your posts. These are small keywords describing parts of your site’s content. Tags allow you to “micro-categorize” your content.
To show you a practical example, we can say that this post on Roysinonline is in the “WordPress” category. The tags added to the post are “tags”, “categories”, and “search engine optimization”.
You will not be able to see these tags anywhere in the post. However, they will help users find this post using the search box at the top of our web pages.
One of the most significant differences between tags and categories is that all posts in WordPress need to be filed under a category, but they don’t need tags.
If you don’t give your post a category, WordPress will automatically put it under the “Uncategorized” category, which is the default.
But many people often give the “Uncategorized” category a new name, such as “Other” or “Miscellaneous”.
Examples of categories, depending on niche:
- Cars
- Food
- Sport
Examples of tags
- Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Ferrari
- Fish, meat, potato, rice, pasta
- Football, basketball, handball
There is no advantage to using too many tags. Instead, think through which tags are relevant to your blog post.
A common misconception is that tags are the same as keywords in search engines like Google. They are not, tags are just a more detailed sorting of content.
How To Add Categories and Tags
You can manage categories and tags from the control panel from Posts > Categories and Posts > tags.
Here you can add, change or delete tags and see how many posts belong to each of them.
Not only that, you can add categories and tags in WordPress when you create or edit a post. You will find them on the right-hand side under “Document”.
How Many Categories Should You Create?
There is no set limit to how many categories you should have.
Still, somewhere between 5-10 categories will be enough for most people to categorize your posts correctly.
Categories are meant to encompass a large group of posts. If you’ve recently started a blog, you don’t need to worry about creating a perfect list.
Just choose 3-5 “broad” categories and add more as time goes on.
You don’t necessarily need to use subcategories.
However, subcategories are helpful if you have a “broad” category where dividing them into several sections is natural.
A good example is on a food or cooking blog, where you most likely have a category for “Recipes” that contains increasing recipes for baking, soup and dessert.
Can A Post Belong To Several Categories?
WordPress puts no limit on how many categories you can choose for a post.
However, the fact that a post belongs to several categories is not so good for search optimization (SEO).
If possible, it is an advantage if a post only belongs to one category. You should only reassign a post if it is helpful to your readers.
If this is a problem you often encounter, it may be a good idea to go through and organize which categories you use on the website.
How Many Tags Should a Blog Post Have?
WordPress has no limit on how many tags you can add to each post. You can add several thousand if you want. However, we do not recommend it.
The purpose of tags is to help link related posts together. Think of them as “micro-categories” or valuable keywords to help your users determine which posts are related.
A good rule of thumb is not to add more than ten tags per post.
Some Final Thoughts
We have discussed how to structure your WordPress blog with categories and tags and how it will effectively manage your content and improve accessibility for readers.
They will help users find content and optimize for search engines if adequately used.
Categories are meant to sort posts into general topics or content descriptions, while tags describe minor details about posts.
Both of them link related content on your blog.
All posts in WordPress must be filed under a category, but tags are optional.
Use only one category for one post, but you can use several tags, but limit it to around ten. You can also create subcategories to organize your content more effectively.
Please provide your comments and questions about WordPress categories and tags.
