There are few things that can help a site with organization more than getting things categorized correctly. There are also few things that can be more confusing, over-used or more diluted than how these terms are defined on a site. Let’s look at the good, the bad and the ugly and ways to clean things up so that using categories actually work for your users and help them find what they are looking for. We’ll also explore cool ways that you can use categories to display your posts in interesting ways – there’s way more than the list in the sidebar!

1. CATEGORIES, TAGS & TAXONOMIES
Oh my!
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

2. ABOUT BECKY
 Theme Dev from Chicago
 1st WordPress site in 2009
 1st WordCamp – Chicago 2010
 Speaker Chicago, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City,
Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, NYC, Miami & Europe.
Attendee at dozens of others.
 Number of WordPress custom themes built – 50+
 Mom – both kids out of college
 Beckydavisdesign.com @beckyddesign
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

3. WHY
 Organizing a site is a HUGE pain point
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign
This can be avoided!

4. PURPOSE
 If categories are
your table of
contents
 Tags are the Index
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

5. PAGES AND POSTS
Pages - for most of the regular “static”
pages of the site, i.e. Home, Contact, About
They generally do not have dates or
comments or categories attached to them
Posts – for the “blog”
All posts show up in a list and work as a
group
Default is Latest First
Usually has comments, but doesn’t have to
Can be assigned Categories, Tags & custom
Taxonomies
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

6. CATEGORIES
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign
 A group of terms that can be hierarchal
 Parent term
 Child term
 Can be added to the menu or sidebar
 Can be specifically queried on template pages
 Create site.com/category/term URL
 Should be pre-defined and broad ranging
Breakfast Lunch Dinner

7. TAGS
 A group of terms that are NOT hierarchal
 Can be added to the menu or sidebar
 Can be specifically queried on template pages
 Create site.com/tag/term URL
 More freeform and specific
Eggs
Breakfast Lunch Dinner
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

8. CUSTOM TAXONOMIES
 Follow all the same rules as Categories
 Categories and Tags are built into core and are
taxonomies
 Custom written for site or theme
 Powerful way to group and cross-categorize
content
 Be aware of reserved terms
 https://codex.wordpress.org/Reserved_Terms
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

9. BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign
 Terms = the words you assign
 2 ways to add Terms
 In a post
 In Categories or Tags

10. WHERE WE GET INTO TROUBLE
 Similar terms
 Couch, sofa, divan, davenport
 Same terms at different levels
 Not illegal, but confusing
 Inconsistent terns
 Chevrolet, chevy
 Too MANY categories, keep it
simple
 Just typing it in without thinking
 Think of your audience!
 Inconsistent and similar terms dilute
the group and are confusing
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

11. SOLUTION: THINK AHEAD AND PLAN
 Define terms as much as possible ahead of time
 TRAIN and discuss with site editors
 “If the word is in the title or in a category, don’t tag it with
the same term”
 Cleanup later is a lot harder than planning ahead
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

12. DISPLAYING CATEGORIES
Category widget
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign
Display Category
widget
With a Query
$query = new WP_Query( array( 'category_name' => 'breakfast' ) );
Post Title Post Title
With Facets
Useful when there are Lots of posts and categories/taxonomies
Building custom templates to show a bunch of things

13. DISPLAYING TAGS
Tag Cloud widget
Many plugins in
repository
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign
With a Query
<?php _e ('<p>Keywords:','vet'); echo " " . get_the_tag_list(' ',', ','</p>'); ?>
Most themes include a placement for categories and
tags in the theme

14. PRECAUTIONS
 Staying on top of
things as Posts and
site grows
 Using multiple
languages? Stay
away from typing it in.
 Don’t forget the
reserved terms when
creating taxonomies
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign

15. REFERENCES
 http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-
guide/categories-vs-tags-seo-best-practices-which-
one-is-better/
 https://www.wpsitecare.com/wordpress-categories-
vs-tags/
 https://make.wordpress.org/training/handbook/user-
lessons/categories-vs-tags/
 https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/cate
gories-tags-custom-taxonomies/
Thanks!
BeckyDavisDesign.com @beckyddesign