Categorize Your Posts

byphil1944

8.6K followers

3 years ago

Categorize Your Posts

The above image is categorized on PixaBay as Dogs, White, River, Water, Vietnam and Lifestyle, so it can be found under any of those seaches.

I'm often asked to look at WA members' websites and see blog post after blog post labeled as "uncategorized".

And when I point this out, I'm asked how to fix that.

When to Add a Category

Like most things in WordPress, it's pretty simple.

And can be done from different access points.

But the best time to do it is when you're creating the blog post. Do it every time and you'll never be faced with the major task of having to edit all your previous posts.

Well, major task if you've got hundreds of them.

How to Add a Category

When you create a new blog post, there are a number of options made available to you in the right hand sidebar.

One of them is categories.

Click Add New Category and add a category that is appropriate to this blog post.

Note that the category you add will be permanently stored and will be available for future blog posts, so try to choose category names that can link associated blog posts together.

How to Use a Previously Added Category

Previously added categories will be shown in a list. All you have to do to select one is to click its check box.

Uncategorized will be selected by default.

Click to uncheck it.

Can I Make Global Changes?

You also have separate access to the categories you've created and can edit them (including changing the name, adding new ones and deleting them). This will automatically update existing blog post categories.

In your WordPress admin area, go to Posts >> Categories.

There you will see all of your existing categories and can edit them or create new ones, which will then become available to be added to blog posts.

Categories in a Menu

A powerful use of categories is in your header menu.

You could create a header menu item called Categories and then drag individual categories across as sub-menu items.

Then, when your visitor clicks on the category name, your website will immediately display all the related blog posts that share that category.

This is powerful stuff and helps to keep your site relevant and nicely organized.

Let me know if you'd like more detail about how to do this. If enough members are interested, I'll create a separate tutorial for it.