Guide to creating blog tags and categories
When you first begin a blog, one of your first tasks will be to establish its structure and framework. Many new bloggers struggle at this point, wondering what blog categories and tags are, what they are used for, and how to create them. It’s a lot to take in at first, but if you frame it as a means to organize your blog, it all starts to make sense. The Digital Dot team understands how organizing your blog posts into categories before you start cranking out content like crazy is crucial. We’re here to tell you – creating blog tags and categories is not as complicated as it might sound. After reading this guide, you’ll feel confident and ready to start organizing your blog.
Blog tags and categories – what are they and how to create them?
You can use categories to organize your posts in a more general way. Think of these as directions for your blog, helping visitors discover the articles they are most interested in. Because of their hierarchical nature, categories allow for the creation of further subcategories. Basically, they can help you make your website easier to navigate and thus more user-friendly.
On the other hand, you should use tags to describe specific aspects of your posts. You might think of these as the “index terms” for your site. However, many people use tags merely as another place to stuff keywords in the vain notion that doing so will attract more eyes to their site. But in order to do so, you need to know the proper ways to use tags on your post.
Now let’s take this post as an example to better explain the concept of tags. Given the topic, we’ve tagged this article with the following terms: blog tags and categories, SEO tips NYC, SEO, and best content guidelines. You won’t be able to see these tags anywhere. However, if you use them to conduct keyword searches on our blog, this post will show up as a result.
When it comes to blogs, categories and tags are two separate and distinct approaches to content organization. Experts from New York SEO company advise that, while it’s possible to employ both at the same time, doing so without a well-planned method might lead to chaos and even harm your website’s ranking in search engines.
The biggest differences between blog tags and categories
Even though creating blog tags and categories serve to organize your content, there are some distinct differences between them. For example, categories are a necessity while tags are completely optional. Categories can also be hierarchical and they are usually related to general topics. On the other hand, tags are hierarchically unrelated and are linked to specific topics. In a nutshell, you can think of categories like a table of contents in a book while tags are best described as an index of contents.
By default, your blog’s material will be organized using categories. They are both specific and flexible enough to support a large range of subcategories and posts. Your visitors may quickly ascertain the focus of a blog by looking at the categories it uses. Your blog’s size will determine how many categories it needs, but unless you plan to cover every topic under the sun, you should expect to have only a handful of them.
Tags, on the other hand, are typically used to provide a more specific and non-hierarchical description of the blog’s content. You can multiple tags to your blog posts or you can choose not to add any if you want. However, we do advise against that as using tags is one of the best techniques for boosting organic traffic.
Simple ways for creating blog tags and categories
Now that you understand what blog tags and categories are and why you should add them to your WordPress blog, it’s time to learn how to create them. To best assist you, social media marketing agency New York experts offer simple advice on how to easily create blog tags and categories.
How to create categories?
There are two simple ways to create categories on your WordPress blog. First, you can use the Category editor. Simply go to Posts > Categories on the dashboard and you’ll be sent to the editor where you’ll find a list of your existing categories and the means to create new ones. Here, you’ll find options to specify the category name, slug, parent category (if this is a subcategory), and description under “Add New Category“.
You can also create a new category within any post you’re editing. When editing a post, look for the Categories area on the right side of the editor, and click “Add New Category” to create a new one. When you click here, a few alternatives will appear. Type in the new category’s name, then click the Add New Category button after choosing a parent category from the drop-down menu. The newly created category will become a subclass of the parent category you choose.
How to add tags to your posts?
Adding blog tags is easy because a free-form tag entry area is available within the post editor. On the right side, you’ll see the Tags area and simply by typing a tag’s name into a post’s text will add it.
If you’re searching for a tag you’ve used before, a list of possible matches will appear below the search bar. Make your choice and then either select again or press the enter key. You can separate multiple tags with commas or type them one at a time. You’ll now see the tags appear in the Tags section. In case you want to delete any of them, simply click the X next to it.
On the other hand, you can also use the Tags editor. The process is the one we’ve explained in the previous paragraph.
The bottom line
As you can see, creating blog tags and categories is pretty simple. Having that in mind, there is no reason not to use them on your blog. And the last piece of advice – you should never forget that your site exists to serve its readers, not the search engine crawlers. Making your blog easy and convenient to use will not only please your readers, but will also help your search engine optimization efforts.