WordPress Categories Vs Tags

Google appreciates a neat and tidy site structure, making it easier to find information and greatly enhancing user experience. Tags and categories, known as ‘taxonomies’ in WordPress, help manage this by keeping content well-organised. 

While their difference in WordPress is clear, many users still confuse the two. In this article, we explain them in detail. 

When Do We Need Categories?

To help our clients, such as medical practice owners or law firm owners, understand the importance of categories and tags, we often use a simple analogy:

Imagine you’re organising a drawer. At first, with just a pair of socks, a belt, and a tie, you don’t need dividers. But as your collection grows—say you acquire 10 ties, 8 pairs of socks, and 4 belts—you’ll want to sort them into separate boxes to find them more easily. As your collection expands further to 40 pairs of socks, you might subdivide them into categories like blue socks, black socks, etc.

This analogy illustrates that categories become essential as your content grows. Initially, with minimal content, you don’t need many categories. However, as your content increases, categorising helps maintain organisation and makes it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.

When Do We Need Tags?

Tags function like labels on those boxes. If you have items that fit into multiple categories, tags help you identify and locate them quickly. For example, in your drawer, you might label a box “work accessories” if it contains both belts and ties for work. On your website, tags serve a similar purpose, grouping related content that spans different categories.

Using a select number of high-quality tags and categories ensures your website remains organised without becoming cluttered, much like keeping your drawer tidy and easy to navigate. This approach enhances user experience and helps visitors find relevant information efficiently.

Categories for Websites: Avoiding Internal Competition

Categories are crucial for the structure and SEO of websites, whether it’s a blog, an e-commerce site, a job board, or any other platform. Here’s why they matter more than individual pages or posts:

• Unlike individual pages, events, or job listings that may expire, categories serve as evergreen containers. They can consistently rank on Google, ensuring your site remains relevant even as specific content changes.
• Categories help avoid competition between individual pages. For instance, in a sports equipment e-commerce site, optimising every product page for “tennis shoes” would result in internal competition. Instead, each product page should be optimised for specific terms like brand, make, and model. All these products can then be part of the “tennis shoes” category page, which will rank for the general term “tennis shoes,” while individual pages rank for their specific terms.

Using Tags in WordPress

In WordPress, tags can succinctly summarise what a post is about in a single word. Even if posts belong to different categories, they might share common elements. This “fil rouge” that goes vertically through different categories are the WordPress tags.

Adding a tag to a post includes it in the tag archive. This is particularly useful for users looking for content on a specific topic, making it easier for them to find relevant posts quickly.

How to Avoid Duplicate Content SEO Issues with Proper Use of Categories and Tags

When you tag a post with a new word, WordPress automatically creates a tag archive. Many website owners don’t fully understand the difference between tags and categories and tend to use tags haphazardly.

We’ve observed that many websites have an excessive number of tags assigned to each blog post. For example, if you have 20 blog posts and each one has 5 unique tags, you’ll create 100 extra pages on your site that don’t serve any real purpose. 

To avoid this issue, only create categories and tags when you have a valid reason and enough content to support them. Ideally, each tag or category should have a substantial amount of content and custom-written text to explain it. 

While this requires effort, it is essential for maintaining a healthy website. Therefore, we recommend using fewer, but more meaningful, tags and categories.

How to choose the best WordPress tags

On your blog posts, you’ll likely notice some recurring themes. These themes make the best tags. To choose the right tags, ask yourself:

• Which other posts is this article related to?
• Which word(s) could summarise what the article is about?

Additionally, avoid creating tags randomly. Instead, conduct a strategic keyword search to find the most effective ones. 

We can help you identify tags with the highest average traffic volume and the lowest competition

Through our monthly Membership Plans, we can also assist in organising your categories and tags. This ensures that your pages rank well and drive traffic to your site. Get started with a complimentary SEO audit and consultation.