How to use WordPress categories and tags
3 October 2016Here’s a little guide to using catgeories and tags within your website.
Easiest way to explain the difference between categories and tagging is to think of categories as ‘folders’ on your computer. So they’re a good way to organise posts / articles. Tagging is like keywords. So they’re a good way to get people clicking aorund your website, which Google likes.
We use this analogy in our WordPress trainings:
If you imagine that someone has been searching for recipes for an evening meal. They have searched for ‘beef stroganoff’ and, lo-and-behold found, your website.
They read through and decide that they’re now not sure about whether they want to be spending hours preparing everything from scratch.
They see that your ‘beef stroganoff’ recipe is in ‘Gourmet food’ catgeory and decide to go have a look at what other recipes your have under that category.
They also see that you have tagged the article with a list of the ingredients eg: beef, onions, rice, stock etc. and decide to see what else comes up if they click on ‘beef’
This is a very simplistic way of using tags and categories, but can help with getting a plan for going forward in your head.
You need to decide what you think people will be searching for and what’s likely to get them clicking around your site. There’s no hard and fast rules.
Hope that helps.
Leigh
