The following is a guest blog post from Chris Eggleston, Creative Strategist at exPRESS< it > Web Design.
If you use WordPress, you’ve probably had this debate before. You’re trying to figure out the best way to organize your blog post, but you’re a little fuzzy on the difference between categories and tags.
First, let’s explore these two features.
When I think of categories, I think, subject matter or table of contents.
Typically your categories are the main topics or subjects you blog about frequently. They tend to be a broad term that might encompass several sub-topics.
For example, my blog categories include topics like, Internet Marketing and WordPress. Now both of these categories are broad terms.
The WordPress category, as an example, could include sub-topics like WordPress Plugins and WordPress Themes.
At this point, I have two options. I can create a sub-category for these sub-topics or I can use Tags to list these sub-topics.
When I think of Tags, I think, related keywords or key terms. Or in other words, sub-topics.
Tags can be described as supportive keywords, and their biggest benefit is to provide searchable terms to help your website viewers find the content they want.
Search engines treat Tags like keywords. Now, don’t start stuffing your post tags with keywords thinking it will help your page ranking, because it won’t, but they do help search engines connect your content with the right searcher.
Now let’s address the question everyone has been asking, Do we really need to use tags?
The answer is no, and technically, you don’t even need to use categories. They’re more for convenience. However, I can tell you from experience, using categories makes your life a lot easier, especially when you have thousands of pages of content with many different topics.
Would I recommend you use tags? If you have a need and a feel they will help you better serve your audience.
I do, however, recommend you use categories. They will enhance your site’s navigation by helping the visitor find related content and move around from one topic to another.
Chris Eggleston is the Creative Strategist at exPRESS< it > Web Design. Chris is an expert at website design, internet marketing, WordPress, business development, and business strategizing. You can learn more about Chris at http://expressitwebdesign.com/chris-eggleston.