How to Setup WordPress Categories and Tags (vs. Keywords)
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Categories vs. tags, tags vs. keywords—aren’t they all the same or at least similar enough to use the same terms for all three? Sort of, kind of, a little bit—no, actually.
Organizing Your Data
Your website is filled with data. Organize your data to make your site user-friendly, meeting visitor needs and intent. Unfortunately, we often lose focus on this primary requirement due to categories, tags, and keyphrases.
When site owners are left to their own devices in almost every case, their SEO obsession kicks in. They assume that categories, tags, and keyphrases are the same.
When site owners think about SEO and “keywords,” they are inclined to include those keywords everywhere they can, including in categories and tags.
Or worse…
This approach is often implemented to the point of overkill. The result is a website that is not readable, intuitively organized, or navigable—and clearly, keyword-stuffed to the gills.
We’ve lost sight of the idea that your site should prioritize the user’s needs over search engines.
Categories, keywords, and tags serve different purposes, none of which dictates they all be the same phrases repeated ad nauseam to “increase SEO.”
The following guide and analogies also apply to your WooCommerce products. It’s all about organizing your data intuitively, making it easy for website visitors to gravitate to their interests. Putting on your customer hat can help you manage your site for visitors.
Keywords/Keyphrases and Ranking Potential
When it comes to SEO, “keywords” apply to the keyword phrases you have researched and determined your target audience uses to find what you offer. Let’s face it: the chance you’ll be above the fold on Google for a one-word “keyword” will not happen. Therefore, let’s wash that right out of our hair right now.
So, we look for 2-3 word keyword phrases that we will incorporate throughout our content, including in post titles, descriptions, and alt tags. Over time, the consistent and targeted use of these phrases can help us achieve relevant rankings.
Again, over time.
Consider Long-Tail Keyphrases Too
Long-tail keyphrases are even better. Create a list of three to four particular keyword phrases. Customers who search more specifically also know what they are looking for.
Therefore, more specific searches are more likely to convert when they find what they seek. Long tails are not as competitive as shorter, more generic terms.
What confuses many is that SEO Plugins have a keyword field. In the Yoast SEO plugin, which I use and recommend, the keyphrase(s) you add to those fields are used by the plugin to guide you in optimizing your content. Putting a phrase in those fields in itself does not accomplish anything.
What about that meta keyword field you may have read about? Pretty much useless. Google knows you can stuff whatever you want in there and that it is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the content on that page.
Other engines use this field to varying degrees to get a hint about what a site is about. But it isn’t a significant player, so obsessing over it is unnecessary. Instead, obsess over creating valuable, properly optimized content.
So now we know how to use keywords. Categories next.
How to Set Up Your WordPress Categories
Categories may very well include some of your keywords. However, that is if it makes sense to do so for the user, not SEO. If you find you are adding words to your categories (or tags) solely for SEO, you are creating a keyword-stuffed site. Please stop.
Keyword-stuff your site, and that will hamper your rankings. Not improve them. This is why you want keyphrases that include variables and plurals. Not just for your website, but a set that applies specifically to each post, article, page, and product.
WordPress Menus and Navigation
WordPress themes have a limited width for your category navigation bar to display. So we need to use this space judiciously. This is also important so that we can have excellent mobile-responsive menus.
This means categories are not sentences. Short, sweet, and intuitive. 1-2 words are best. Use terms that resonate with what site visitors are looking for.
Then, when filing posts within your categories, don’t file them in every possible category that could apply. Instead, choose the top category and add only one or two categories if they really apply.
This helps site visitors navigate to their category of interest and find only posts that apply directly to that category. Unfortunately, categories are not effective when every post is filed in every category. That results in a frustrating user experience.
PRO TIP: Don’t add a new category unless you are confident
you will have at least five new relevant posts created specifically
for that category very soon.
Categories are general terms to organize your content. Tags help you to organize your articles within each category further.
Now, let’s move on to Tags.
How to Use WordPress Tags…
WordPress is a Content Management system. So, let’s manage your content. Think of this analogy:
Some examples of a simple category structure and a corresponding tag:
See how this works? Categories serve as a general topic guide, and tags enable site visitors to drill down further within a topic by clicking on a tag of interest once they are within a category.
Tags are not other adjectives about the post or your products. Above all, tags are the clickable words that users, based on the page they are currently on, would like to refine further.
You can also create subcategories or child categories to organize your data further if you need to segment it more effectively. However, that’s only if you have a vast amount of content. Remember, the goal is not to add extra clicks but to help visitors gravitate to the specific topic of interest as quickly as possible.
Wrapping up Categories, Child Categories, and Tags
Here’s an example of all three:
Category: News
Child Categories: Local News, National News, World News
Tags: United States, Canada, United Kingdom
Category: Entertainment
Child Categories: Music, Movies, Television
Tags: Rock-n-Roll, Drama, Comedy
Category: Cooking
Child Categories: Recipes, Dinners, Vegetarian
Tags: Cheesy, Gluten-Free, Grill
Danger, Will Robinson!
How helpful is it to your site visitors or even search engines if you file every post in every category and tag it with every tag imaginable? Not very.
This is truly a case of less is more. Don’t worry about covering every base—cover the most logical bases. We want our navigation, categories, and tags to be as tight as possible.
What about tags that are only used once? A user clicks on a tag and finds only the article they just read—a wasted click and not user-friendly. Delete singular tags unless you know you’ll have more content that the tag will apply to very soon.
Think of that filing cabinet where every drawer you open has the same folders and content. What’s the point? Pretty frustrating, right?
With that in mind…
While some tags may be the same as your SEO “keywords,” tags are for organizational purposes. What you do not do is develop tags solely to cover all your SEO keyword bases.
7 Tips to Properly Create WordPress Tags
- Create a list of 10-15 tags that can apply to each post (or product) and are unique in meaning from each other.
- Tags are only one or two words. Period. Tags are not phrases or sentences — they’re tags.
- You want a tag list that reflects the specific topics, with at least five posts (or products) for each tag, very soon.
- Tag each post (or product) with just two or three tags from that existing list.
- Do not create new tags on the fly; stick to your list. See #2.
- If you think of a new tag, okay, but don’t add it if it doesn’t pass the “will have five posts (or product) rule.”
- If you have tags that don’t fit the above rules, delete them.
Now you know the differences between categories, tags, and keyphrases. But, above all, remember that categories and tags are primarily ways to organize your site content better.
Moreover, you’ll have a user-friendly site by being focused, thinking of site visitors, and using restraint. Additionally, by following these best practices, your website will be optimized for organic SEO over time.
At your service,
