Categories Vs Tags In WordPress:  What’s The Difference?

You’ve heard of categories and tags, but did you know they’re two separate things? Categories are used to organize posts into groups or topics, and tags are keywords that describe a post. They’re great for organizing posts, but they don’t necessarily create a hierarchy within the post itself.

Categories and tags both play important roles in SEO. The difference between them is that categories are used to group posts together under a specific topic, whereas tags are keywords that describe a particular post.

Categories and tags are the two most common ways to organize and categorize content on a WordPress website. A category is used to group similar content, while a tag describes a content more precisely. 

To increase traffic and improve SEO, you should use categories and tags appropriately, while keeping in mind their differences. In this post, we’ll cover the basics of these two WordPress features – categories and tags – and how they can help your site.

What Are Categories In WordPress?

Categories are typically used to group similar types of content together. For example, if you have several blog posts about different kinds of flowers, you could create one category called “SEO.” This way, all of your SEO-related posts will be grouped together.

The beauty of categories is that they allow you to organize your content by topic, rather than just by date. Categories also give users an easy way to browse your entire archive of posts. If you want to organize your content by subject matter, then categories are the perfect solution.

How To Create Categories In WordPress?

You can easily create new categories using the dashboard menu. Simply hover over the ‘Posts’ link in the left navigation bar and click ‘Categories.’

You’ll then see a list of available categories and also the “Add New Category” option on the left side of your screen.

Enter the name of the category you want to create (e.g., SEO) and select whether you want it to be a parent category or not. Then click ‘Add New Category.’

Once created, you can add any number of posts to the newly added category. To do so, simply navigate back to the Posts page and choose which category you’d like to add the post to.

What Are Tags In WordPress?

Tags are keywords that describe individual posts. These keywords aren’t always limited to describing the actual post. Some people use tags as a way to organize their posts, too.

For example, you may write a post about your favorite kind of coffee and include some information about where it comes from. That post would likely be tagged with words like “coffee,” “latte,” and “roast.”

Tags are keywords or phrases within posts that help search engines understand the context of your post. They can be added to any piece of text in a post or page.. Tags are useful because they allow search engines to better index and understand your content.

How To Add Tags Categories In WordPress?

Creating tags for your posts is very similar to creating categories. You can find the same options when you’re editing a post.

On the Edit Post page, click the ‘Tags’ tab at the top of the page. Enter the keyword(s) you’d like to assign to each post. Click the enter key or separate with the tags commas. This saves the tag to your post. It’s important to note that tags can only be assigned to individual posts, not pages

Categories vs Tags In WordPress: The Key Difference

If you’ve ever wondered which method is better between categories and tags, the answer is simple: Neither! There’s really no difference between the two. They do different jobs, but they’re both equally effective.

The difference between both lies in your usage. While the category decides the content genre with a broad classification, the tags give your posts more in-depth detail.

Categories are more like folders or buckets, whereas tags are like labels. A tag can be attached to multiple posts, while categories only apply to one post at a time.

A category is a general topic, and tags are keywords or phrases describing a particular topic. Both categories and tags are used to organize and categorize web pages, and both are essential parts of any website. Using both will provide you greater flexibility in organizing your posts and creating an organized site.

Tags:

Tags are short, descriptive words or phrases that describe the subject of a page. Using tags makes it easy to find similar topics across multiple pages.

Category:

Categories are used for grouping posts in a website. It allows visitors to quickly find what they are looking for on a website without having to dig through hundreds of posts. 

Benefits Of Using Both Categories And Tags To Your Site

There are many benefits of using both categories and tags. Here are some of them:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Adding both categories and tags to your posts gives Google and other search engines a clear picture of what your site is about. Adding tags and categories will improve the SEO of your blog. Since tags and categories are used by search engine algorithms when ranking sites, having these features means you’ll get higher rankings and more traffic.
2. Better Navigation: One benefit of adding categories and tags to your site is making it easier to browse through your archives. With categories, you can see everything related to a certain topic in one place. You won’t have to scroll through dozens of posts to find something. 
3. Better Metadata: By using both categories and tags, you’ll be able to add additional metadata to your posts. Metadata is data about your content that can help authors, editors, and others make decisions about your content.
4. Improved User Experience: By providing a list of categories available for each post, you’ll make it easier for users to find articles that match their interests. This will encourage people to read your content.
5. Better Categorization: If you add tags to your posts, you’ll have a more accurate categorization system. If you want to know how many posts fall under a specific category, you can easily check this number.

How To Build a Tagging and Categorization Structure

If you want to build a tagging and categorizing structure for your WordPress site, here’s how you can go about it:

Step 1: Create Categories & Tags

First things first create categories and tags. Add all categories and tags you’d like to use on your site. Make sure you pick simple, clear, and descriptive names for categories so they’re not too long.

Step 2: Add Posts To Categories

When you’ve finished with Step 1, start adding posts to categories. Add all categories and subcategories you would like your posts to appear in. Remember to assign the appropriate tag to each post as you do this.

Step 3: Use Categories To Organize Content

With your categories set up, you can now begin to use them to organize your content. For example, if you had a category called “Health,” you could put all of your health posts into that category. Now you can sort your archive based on which category your posts belong to. 

Conclusion

Both tags and categories are useful tools for organizing and cataloging information online. Both are essential for building a strong blog. While categories are used to group together posts, tags are used to classify them.