WordPress in Plain English... categories

 Hi guys, and welcome back to the WordPress in Plain English series. If you're new to WordPress or if you're just joining us, you should read the first few tutorials in this series to catch up before reading this section.

 In this tutorial we're going to prepare your WordPress blog for some content. Content includes everything like text, images, links, videos and is usually added to either a page or a post.

 

 Before we add more pages or new posts, the first thing you'll want to do is to create some categories. You can think of categories as TOPICS.

 In WordPress, each category/topic can also have sub-categories or sub-topics. This helps to keep you blog well organized and easy for readers to find exactly what they're looking for. To create your categories...

- login to your WordPress admin panel (see previous tutorials)

- look for the posts section on the left side of your admin panel

- open the posts panel and click on Categories (see image below)

 

 

 Now you'll be in the Categories sub-panel and ready to add your first category. Before you do that, since categories are like topics, think about what topics your blog will cover so your posts will be easy for your readers to find when they're searching through your blog.

 

 To create your 1st category, in the Add New Category panel...

- fill in the name with an SEO friendly, brief, clear description of the new category you're creating

- the slug section will be the URL extension for this category (again keep SEO in mind)

   i.e. manhattan condos will become  http://YourBlog.com/category/manhattan-condos

- parent in where you can add your categories under other(parent) categories creating sub-topics

- the description should be a more detailed, relevant description about the category

- to save this new category, click on the Add New Category button at the bottom of the panel

 

The image below is an example of a category for someone who might be specialized in Manhattan Condos.

 

 You can create as many categories as you like or need but keep this in mind...

 Common mistake #1 is having too many categories or very vague topics that don't really describe much of anything.

 Common mistake #2 is adding posts to too many categories. It becomes confusing for readers when they find the same posts under too many categories so... it's a good idea to put some thought into how you want to organize your content so it makes sense to the reader and keeps things well organized for you.

 You can get additional details and info about categories in the WordPress documentation at...

WordPress Codex: Manage Categories SubPanel

 

 If you're confused about anything or if you have any questions about this tutorial, just ask me in the comments.

 

 If you're just joining us, you can catch up by reading my earlier posts in this series at...

WordPress in Plain English

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