Typically, anyone who has worked with WordPress (WP) has at least some knowledge of categories and tags. Although, even veteran bloggers might benefit from better understanding of the difference in these functions. They may want to do a better job of using categories and tags to label and organize content. In fact, the differences between these functions are substantive. But, many want more clarity on how they differ. We’ll go into that now.
Using Categories and Tags for Organizing Your Content
A lot of questions swirl around the use of categories and tags. Often, real questions arise simply about how many to use. Can one post have a number of categories? Can it have a number of tags? In fact, one of the most common beliefs about tags is that they are like meta keywords. One thing is certain, there seems to be much uncertainty about using categories and tags.
Knowing what categories and tags are designed to do will help a ton in knowing how best to use them. Their sole purpose is to organize your content nicely and neatly. In fact, that’s all about achieving great usability for your site. As a result, a user visiting your site can easily browse your blog, but by topic. Users simply love that choice! The only other option is searching by date. Ugh!
Difference Between Categories and Tags
Let’s start with categories. These are a top level means for grouping your posts. They can be viewed as a kind of table of contents for your site. In fact, categories should be the main identifiers for what your blog posts covers. In addition, you can add sub-categories to your categories. You can anchor and select as many categories to a post as needed, in fact this will help users and also Google identify whether your blog post relates to specific topics.
Tags are meant to describe specifics in your posts. They let you identify details. That in turn lets you categorize content by minor info. Although, unlike categories, you cannot add sub-tags.
One final key point to note: categories are a must. In fact, if you don’t categorize your blog, it will default to uncategorized, which tells Google you are not organized. That will give no helpful direction to the user or the search engines. Not good!
If you would like to know more about best practices for using categories and tags, give us a call at ProStyle Development. We specialize in WordPress blogging and have written more than 2,500 blog posts for clients over the years. In fact, we specialize in complete WordPress development, SEO and Digital Marketing. You’ll love the benefits and advantages that come your way. Get the best in WordPress solutions with the team at ProStyle Dev. We would love to hear from you.