What are tags and categories?

How do they work?

What are the best tags and categories to use on a blog post?

How do you make the categories and tags you’re using on your blog posts more influential? 

WordPress offers two different ways to organise blog posts; Categories and Tags. And every blogger should be using them. 

What are categories?

Categories act like groups where blog posts that have a connection with each other are stored.

For example, if you’re a travel blogger, you could have a category called The United Kingdom, of which you could list the sub-categories – Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. 

Every blog post should have at least one category.

Categories are important because they make finding specific blog posts easier to find for visitors to your blog (especially first-time visitors).

Let’s say I’ve just read a blog post you published about your Grandmother’s recipe for the world’s best apple pie. 

I want to find out if you’ve published other recipes for pies, and search for a recipe category. 

Unfortunately, you don’t have one, or you don’t categorise any of your posts (so they all fall under ‘uncategorised’).

I could search for the information (if you have a search bar on your blog), but I want to check out all your pie recipe posts, not just one. 

The only option I now have is to scroll through all your posts looking for pie recipes that may interest me. 

I don’t have enough time to do that, so I’ll probably search for pie recipes elsewhere.

It’s likely that I’ll never return to visit your blog because you don’t categorise your blog posts.

Adding a category to your blog post is simple to do. 

How to add a category to your blog post

• While drafting a blog post, you’ll see a toolbar on the righthand side of the page. 

• This is where you can add categories.

For more information about adding categories to your blog, click here. 

It’s also a good idea to do some housekeeping of the categories you have on your blog. 

For example, delete categories that are no longer being used. Update categories and give them a new name if you think something works better. 

How to maintain the categories on your blog

• On the dashboard of your blog, click on Manage and Settings.

• On the Settings page, click on Writing.

• Click anywhere inside the  ‘Categories‘ box. 

• A page will appear showing all the categories you have and how many blog posts are stored under each one.

Any sub-categories will show under each category.   

• To edit, delete, view posts or set a category as your default category, click on the three vertical dots next to the number.

You may have noticed in one of the above images that I have set my default category to ‘uncategorised.’ Doing this makes it easy for me to search for any blog posts I’ve not categorised.

What about adding tags?

Like categories, tags can be added to blog posts in the toolbar that appears on the right hand side of a draft post. 

Generally, tags do not need to have a connection with each other but, when used correctly, can generate lots of extra traffic to a blog post.

Tags act as the keywords you think somebody would add to the WordPress search bar when looking for specific blog posts. 

For example, somebody searching for blogging tips may add ‘blogging’, ‘blogging tips’, blogging advice’ blogging help’ in the search bar. 

When adding tags to your blog post, think of words you would use if searching for the post.

Check out the tags I’ve added for this blog post. They appear at the end of the post.  

Each tag should be separated with a comma or by pushing ‘Enter’ on your keyboard.

Don’t tag your blog post with words that have nothing to do with the subject of the post.

15 tags is still a lot, but you don’t need to use all of them.

As a general rule, I add no more than three categories and between six and eight tags to my blog posts. 

Tags containing more than one word (such as ‘Blogging tips’) act as one tag word. 

As with categories, it’s essential to also do some housekeeping of the tags you’ve used on your blog. 

How to delete and update tags

• As we did earlier with categories, on the dashboard of your blog, click on Manage and Settings.

• On the Settings page, click on Writing and then on the ‘Tags‘ box.

• A page will appear showing all of your tags and how many blog posts contain each tag.

• To edit, delete, and views posts containing a tag word, click on the three vertical dots next to the number.

Conclusion

• All blog posts should be categorised and tagged.
• Categorising and tagging your blog posts makes your blog user-friendly. As a result, people are likely to keep coming back.
• Not categorising your blog posts means they get mixed up and not easy to sort through.
• If you don’t categorise your blog posts, how will people find them?
• When tagging posts, think of keywords that other people will use when searching for your blog post.
• Don’t use tag-words that have nothing to do with the subject of your blog post.
• WordPress users – Never add more than 15 tags and categories (combined) to your posts, otherwise they won’t show up on the WordPress Reader.
• Remember to perform regular housekeeping of categories and tags on your blog. Keep them tidy and in order.
• Adding the right tags to your blog posts will result in more readers finding them. More readers means higher stats, more comments and new followers.

What about you?

• Do you have any tips for adding categories and tags to your blog posts?
• Do you have any rules for how many tags and categories you add?
• Do you categorise and add tags to all your blog posts? If not, why not?
• Which tags-words work best for you?
• Is there anything you’d like to add about adding categories and tags to blog posts that I’ve not mentioned?

Join the discussion by leaving me a comment that I can respond to with more than just a ‘thank you.’

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