When should you use a blog page instead of a post? How do you know what should be a category versus a tag? After this post, you will know exactly what to do.
I’ve received questions about this from readers and clients this week about pages vs. posts and categories vs. tags, so I wanted to answer them in a post for everyone else who also be struggling a little with these.
Pages vs. Posts
Blog pages are timeless permanent content. Blog pages live outside the normal date/time chronology of blog posts. Most of what you write for your blog should be posts. Frequently updated new content belongs in posts. Here are some examples of what should be in pages:
- Information about you and your blog (the “About” page)
- A contact form
- Advertising rates
- Disclaimers, terms of service, and comment policies
- Products and/or services you sell
- Email list sign-ups (yes, I know I’m not doing this, yet, but it’s coming)
Here are some things that could be in pages instead of being posts or being in your blog’s sidebar:
- Archive links
- Blogroll or resource links
- Author information on a team blog
- Articles (longer than posts)
- Glossaries
- Image galleries
- Affiliate product reviews
TIP: If you plan on having a lot of pages, choose a blog design that handles many pages well, and which can work easily with parent pages. Parent pages allow you to designate any existing page as the parent of another page. This sets up a link structure that is seen in your blog’s page links (in various ways). Look for themes that have cascading menus or other navigational goodies, like expanding & collapsing sections.
Any other content you create should go into posts.
Categories vs. Tags
Categories have been around for a long time. Tags are a more recent way to classify content on your blog. There is a difference between them. Categories only live in one place, but tags can repeat themselves and live in many places at once. Categories are like big buckets to divide the information itself, but tags are ways of labeling and identifying characteristics about the information.
Food blogs are a great example of how to use categories and tags correctly. Take Feelgood Eats, for example, who is a blog consulting client of mine. Sue has categories for major types of recipes. In fact, they’re not even called categories, they’re just called recipes:
- anytime recipes
- fall recipes
- holiday & party recipes
- local foods
- resources
- spring recipes
- summer recipes
- whole grain recipes
But the tags on Feelgood Eats are a more detailed breakdown of the ingredients that might end up in any recipe, plus other ways of classifying food info:
- bread
- breakfast
- cookbooks
- dressings & spreads
- drinks
- feelgood eats
- fermented
- gameday eats
- greens
- local food
- main course
- on the grill
- pantry
- parties
- pasta
- quick meals
- resources
- restaurants
- salads
- sandwiches
- seafood
- sides
- slow cooker
- small bites
- soup
- vegetarian
- vermont
- whole grains
The analogy works for any kind of blog: what are your “recipe types” compared to your individual “ingredients”? Think of it that way, and you’ll be more easily able to assign categories and tags to blog posts.
Does this clear things up for you? Let me know if you have further questions in the comments!
22 Comments
This category/tag system has worked great - when I first started out I set-up a lot more categories and I think it was hard to navigate. Having fewer categories has made it easier for me to organize and I think it looks better for viewers.
Got a question for you.
I have yet to understand the possible usefulness of tagging. Do people actually click these things? I don’t. I also know Lorelle on WordPress has mentioned that tagging may not be such an effective method of categorization.
So… tell me how tagging can be useful. Make me a convert
@James - If you wanted a recipe specifically with pasta or seafood, tags would serve you better than just “dinner recipes”.
Without a way for people to see and use the tags, there’s no point in using them. Sue’s SEO is set up so that her categories are used in her permalinks and categories are indexed by Google to the exclusion of tags and date-based archives.
This turns her categories into powerful keyword attractors. This strategy is not possible with tags because by their nature tags are meant to used more than one to a post.
And as you can see on Remarkablogger, I care deeply about tags.
They’re great for Sue’s blog and for some blogs, but not necessarily others. Don’t use them or dismiss them as a matter of course. Look at the situation.
@Sue - definitely the fewer categories the better. Food blogs are a great example for how categories and tags can work together. Not all blogs would really benefit from tags.
I agree with you michael. Tags can be really usefull
So as one of the instigators f the tag/category question, I still am a bit lost.
Like Sue, I’ve found that categories are great SEO keywords - my site OLPC News owns the searches on many of my categories. “olpc canada” is a great example I looked up today.
But if I used less categories - say “olpc countries” and used tags to drill down to “olpc Canada” would I then loose the Google rank? I think so. Which has my back at too many categories…
Ha! I just checked and I own the “olpc countries” Google search too, but no one searches for that phrase.
Michael,
Wait, you say “And as you can see on Remarkablogger, I care deeply about tags. ”
Um, help me out - I don’t see where you use tags at all. Or was that a joke I missed? And if you do not use them, why should anyone else?
@Wayan - searches against your own blog have nothing to do with your placement in Google search results. Your WordPress permalink structure is date-based. Unless you’re using a plugin such as the All-in-One SEO Pack to block Google from indexing your date-based and category-based archives, Google is indexing your content twice, believing that two different URLs means two different pages which have the exact same content. That is what SEOs mean when they talk about “duplicate content”.
In other words, what you’re doing with your categories is likely not helping your search rankings at all. Your categories are helping visitors access the posts they want, however.
Sarcasm is difficult to get across successfully in writing, but that’s what that was when I said I cared deeply about tags. You don’t see them here, I was being sarcastic.
Makes perfect sense. Great explanation!
Are the differences simply for searching and classifying on the site or does one need both for SEO reasons? If only one is needed for SEO, which one?
@Cheryl - Thanks for your comment and question. Unless you are deliberately engaged in SEO efforts for your blog and you know what you’re doing, your choices of categories and tags will not be for SEO reasons.
If you change your permalink structure to be category-based and then change what Google is allowed to index (categories but no other), then your choice of categories had better reflect some really good keyword research.
Another way to think of it is in comparison to a book. Categories are like your table of contents and tags are like your index.
@Doug - I like that! Excellent comparison.
That is great post. for me, sometime, i feel difficulty to divide the categories into my blog.
Whenever I post an article, I see if they can be tagged under a category instead of creating a new category.
Tags are imo useful and also serve as sub categories without cluttering your sidebar.
@Louis - I don’t recommend you create new categories at all if you can help it. I realize things change, but if you plan your blog well from the start (and I know most people don’t and that’s just way it goes) then you’ll have all your categories figured out.
A new category means you didn’t plan as well you might have wanted to or you’re changing direction with your blog. Either of those things should give you pause and prompt a reevaluation.
Great tutorial. Thanks!
Tags work great for me. I blog about vintage fashion. I have categories, but the tags really get down to the basic characteristics of a post. For example, if you read one of my posts and it happens to mention something about 1950s clothing, you will find ’50s as a tag (most of the time). So if you want to see more ’50s stuff, you can easily find it.
I also have my “Related Posts” link to blog posts with common tags automatically. It’s really increased my page views.
I also have a food blog and use categories / tags in the same way as you’ve suggested. It works really well for me.
Found my way here via a retweet by Skellie about you trying to get more followers on Twitter. Glad I came by, lots of good content, thanks!
@Christie - Glad to hear that setup works well for you, too. There’s something about it that’s just so perfect for food blogs. Thanks so much for stopping by from Twitter.
Hi Michael,
Your post on categories/tags helps me a great deal with my conceptualizing how to organize the information on my healthewoman blog. Although I understand you don’t find tags useful, I think my content may be more conducive to making tags work i.e. as an index vs. the “table of contents” of categories.
Thanks again!
Shelley
@Shelley - that’s great! Yeah, my content doesn’t lend itself to tags so much as categories only.
wow thats great, i could try to implement this, thanks
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