How to Use Categories and Tags Effectively in Your Blog
In today’s article I would like to discuss Categories and Tags and cover how they can be used effectively on your blog.
Categories and Tags look very similar and the differences between them can be hard for someone to spot who is new to blogging.
Let’s take a closer look at each one and see why they are important for your blog.
What are Categories and how are they useful?
Categories are best thought of as being the main chapters for your blog or filing cabinets for information. They are the way authors break down information into various subjects.
Most blogs will only have a limited number of Categories. The more categories you have the harder it becomes to navigate your blog using categories.
I have found the best method for creating categories is to plan out your site ahead of time. Look at your blog as though it were a project. What do you plan to cover during the course of your project? What will the main topics of discussion be on your blog?
As you can see from looking at my site I have eight main Categories that I plan to use to sort out all the information I will present. I came up with these categories by planning out what I will be covering in the blog, and created different categories to accommodate these topics.
Let’s look at an example of how to come up with Categories. Say we are writing a blog about “Cars”. (I am using this as an example because I know very little about cars and their inner workings.) Now being a car novice, I would think the following topics would make good categories for a blog about cars:
- General
- News
- Building
- Repair
- Restoration
- Maintenance
- Buying / Selling
- Car Shows
Now this is not a definitive list by any means. I’m sure there are some car guys reading this that are already thinking of better Categories for their site. That’s ok. The point of this example was to showcase that even someone who is unfamiliar with a topic can create a good system for organizing data.
Our Categories act as folders that we store information in so it easy for our readers to find what they are looking for. Keep in mind that categories are a primary way that people navigate your blog to find what they are looking for.
How are Tags different from Categories, and how are they used?
Tags are more like additional bits of information that help to describe an article that has been filed under a given Category.
For example, if I wrote a post about “Why Adsense is the Best Way for Beginners to Monetize Their Blog” I would file it in the “Monetize” Category since that is the underlying point of the post.
But because there are so many articles I could write about Monetization we want to be a little more specific to help our readers find what they are looking for. This is where our Tags come in.
To better organize my Adsense post I could add Tags like “Adsense” “Beginner” “PPC” or “Pay Per Click”. All these Tags would help someone find the information they are looking for quicker and it would also give them a better idea on the specifics of a post.
The thing to keep in mind is using consistency in your tags. Since most words can have numerous synonyms you want to pick the word that best describes some detail of an article, and use it whenever you have an article that can described in that same way.
So if you have an article that uses the Tag “Money”, do not label other articles about money with “Cash”, “Moola”, “Dough” etc. Stick to using “Money” as the Tag. This way your tags are consistent and they able to serve their purpose, which is providing a second tier of navigation on your blog.
How to Plan out Each Category for your Blog.
When you first create your blog plan out what your Categories are going to be. For some blogs this is easy enough to do because you can already see what types of information you will need to post to present detailed ideas to your readers.
In other cases you may not be anticipate everything you will be writing about. If this is the case, no problem, just take it one Category at a time.
Whether you plan out your categories in advance or create them as you go, just make sure to put some thought into the layout of your blog. Plan your Categories as though they were chapters and you will make things easier for yourself and easier for your readers also.
Remember that even if you create several categories when you develop your blog they will not show up until you have added articles to those categories, so no one will know what you are planning in advance.
(My theme actually allows me to display Categories that do not have articles yet, but normally this is not the case with most themes.)
Setting up your categories for your blog is very much like “planning and structuring a blog post”. The categories will act as points of interests and your articles fill in the details on these topics.
Once you have created your Categories you will have a much easier time creating content for your blog since you will have a road map to come back to if you are having trouble coming up with your next article.
Now that you have a better understanding of Categories and Tags, let’s take your first article and actually publish it to your blog. To move on to the next article click on my link below for “Posting Your First Money Maker on Your Blog”.