What is Category in WordPress – A Beginners Guide in 2023

WordPress has several plugins that will help you organize your site.

Categories are basically groups of posts that write about the same topic or serve some other function.

For example, if you consistently post reviews on all the board games you play.

Then it might make sense for you to create a Category called “Board Game Reviews.”

Categories are tightly integrated with tags, so if you have a tag called “family”.

Then any future posts that are assigned to this category will automatically have the tag as well.

However, Categories are supported in most post, page, and archive listing views in the WordPress admin area.

You can add new categories when you are writing your posts.

Or edit an existing category by clicking the small arrow next to Edit and choosing “Add new category.”

They are also used for other areas of WordPress, including the navigation menus, and all post listings.

All WordPress sites have either one or more categories assigned to them.

You do not have to assign a category to your post, but it is better to do so if you are publishing multiple posts with similar content regularly. 

An un-categorized post listing on a blog can make it difficult for readers to know if there are any other posts that they also might want to read. 

Beginner’s Guide to WordPress Categories!

What are WordPress categories?

WordPress categories act like file folders where you can categorize your blog post as well as create sub-categories for more specific options.

Think of this as an organizational tool to help you find your valuable content. 

You can think of Reddit and WordPress categories in the same way.

You organize the content into categories for better searching and accessibility to readers.

How to create a WordPress category?

To create a new category in WordPress, navigate to the page where you want to set up the new category.

That is typically a post or a page. After you’ve navigated to that post, click on “Edit”.

You will find a category section in the right sidebar (Under the Posts tab).

You can assign the post under any category you want. You can also create a category directly from here.

Just click on add new category.

The Categories section should look something like this:

You can also create categories by navigating to the admin dashboard – Posts – Categories – Add new.

How can I use WordPress categories?

A WordPress category is a way to better organize your blog posts.

A post can be assigned more than one category, and all the categories that are assigned to it will be displayed in the sidebar using widgets.

Login to your admin dashboard,

– hover over to appearance – widgets

– Select the widget’s location (Like the header, footer, etc.) where you want to display your categories section

– click on add – Search add the category.

Another way of viewing this sidebar is as a navigation column on your blog.

The sidebar navigation appears on every page of your blog, whether it be a category, search results or even a tag.

If you click on a category that features several child categories, the child categories will appear as links below that main category heading.

For example, if someone clicks on the Photography & Graphics category,

they will see links to all the posts assigned to that category and those belonging to its child categories.

Is creating a category good for SEO?

Google certainly weighs categories when assessing your site’s importance.

Thus, having a large number of categories will boost your Google Page Rank as well as gain increasing amounts of authority over time,

especially during the initial months after the categories are established.

You may also create sub-categories and merge them with parent categories at a later date.

Can you link back from a category page? Absolutely.

You can add links to books, creative content, social networks or anything else you desire. 

What if I delete a category?

Deleting a category is simple. On your dashboard, hover over to posts, and click “Categories”. After you find the appropriate category, delete it.

Nothing happens that harms your SEO.

If you delete a category will that delete all the posts from that category?

No, deleting a category does not delete your posts.

This is because categories are primarily seen as navigational tools.

So when posts are deleted, the category itself is considered inherent and usually left alone, especially when the category itself holds so few posts.

Conclusion

This article is the best way to learn how to use WordPress categories. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below.

I will try to answer your questions as soon as possible. Thank you for reading, and happy blogging!