Sites built with the content management system (CMS) WordPress get about 365 million unique visitors per month, according to the WordPress website. John Haydon outlines seven techniques to make better use of tags and categories in an article called “A quick, helpful guide for nonprofits using WordPress,” posted on Socialbrite.org.
“Categories are like aisles in a grocery store and tags are like ingredients in the various different foods,” wrote Haydon. “Tags (ingredients) link together all of your posts (food items) across your categories (aisles).”
Best practices for tags include:
- Put your readers before anything else. If the reader clicks on the tag, will the person find what is being sought?
- Use existing tags first. Make use of the auto-complete feature when entering tags, wrote Haydon
- Make a regular habit of deleting tags that are redundant or too general. Pare down your tags until you have a handful of highly-specific, often used tags
And for categories:
- Make them clear. While tags should be specific, categories can be a bit broader
- Consolidate categories. Regular reviews will show you what categories don’t have many posts
- Clean your slugs. The URL associated with each category, of articles and prepositions—this will help with search engine optimization
- Start another blog if some of your categories are too divergent from others
