In Blogger they’re called “labels”, in WordPress, they’re the more obvious “categories”. (What’s the difference between categories and tags in WordPress? Categories are a broad description – Beauty, Fashion, Lifestyle – but tags allow you to define things a bit more – Lipstick, Mascara, Outfit Posts, etc) Separating your blog posts into subjects is a great idea because it allows your reader to read more about a specific thing – if they’ve come to your blog because of a DIY (for example!), then they might want to see all of your DIY’s.
If you’re just starting your blog, or want to tidy things up on your blog, then you’ll want to organise your categories. It will take a little time, but your readers will possibly stay on your blog longer (because it will be easier to find related content) and it’s useful for you as well, not just to look back at your old posts, but to be able to find old posts to link back to!
Make Them Obvious!
While it’s tempting to have categories like “Things I Like”, the reason that categories/labels/etc are useful for your blog is that they can act like keywords. Search engines can use those keywords to guide people to your blog, so they’re pretty important to make sure you’re using the right ones! Choose simple names for your categories – “Beauty” “Fashion” “Lifestyle”, things that are more obviously searched for.
Choose General Topics
Choose topics for your categories that are pretty general – that way, it will be easy for you to keep your posts together. Think about it – you could choose “Lipstick” as a category, but then how do you categorise a lipgloss? Choosing “Lip Products” instead of “Lipstick” for your category means they all get collected together – you can still define each post further with tags (in WordPress) or more labels (in Blogger) Avoid having too many categories though!
Always Use Them!
There’s no point in going through all your old posts to label them and then never using the labels again. Make sure every blog post you do has relevant categories and tags, and if you can, incorporate the links to the label or category page into your blog design. Make it super easy for people to find what they’re looking for, and they’re more likely to stick around.
I think this is a great idea and I will put it to the test on my blog
that’s some great tips there! I thought I would just rely on the ‘blog archive’, but I think I’ll start to use labels, thanks again! :D
This is something I’ve been working on and I totally agree on simple straightforward categories are the best!