1) Do extensive keyword research
If you want to improve the ranking of your website on leading search engines and to drive quality web traffic, you need to use the keyword-rich categories and tags for your WordPress site.
Doing an in-depth keyword research, competitive analysis can help you select a set of most relevant keyword phrases for your site that you can use in your tags and categories to let the search engines and web audience find you instantly.
Just make sure that both the tags and categories are relevant to your blog posts – this can increase the accessibility and readability of your blog post.
2) Make an organizational structure before publishing
Before publishing content on your website, it will be better to create the site’s organizational structure. It eliminates the need of page redirections when you have to alter the existing categories, sub-categories, and tags.
Depending on your keyword research, you can use tags and categories for enhanced visibility of your blog posts. But, keep in mind that you should not use more than 5-10 categories on your website as it will complicate your site.
3) Using WP.com tags & WP.org Tags carefully
WordPress is available in two different versions:
A. WordPress.com- Free blogging platform
B. WordPress.org- Most used CMS
Well, these two WordPress versions are fundamentally different types of services so you must be careful about using tags and categories on these platforms distinctively.
When you work with WordPress.com, you can use a number of tags. It allows WordPress website operators to create a huge fan base and help visitors to find their favorite posts under various tag options.
But, when you run a WordPress.org website, using numerous tags can lead to duplication issues and can have a disastrous effect on its overall performance. Search engines may assume your action (using several tags) as the duplication of categories and they might not consider your content relevant for displaying in their results.
4) Don’t make separate categories for authors
While operating multi-author WordPress websites, most of the site admins make specific categories for each and every author in a bit to separate their posts and streamline their works. But, this is not needed. Why? Because WordPress already has author categorization system.
When you publish a new post on a WordPress site with your name, your name is displayed on that page.
5) Avoid singular vs plural dilemma on categories & tags
When you publish your content, you often seem confused whether you should use the singular or plural form of categories and tags. You face such issues quite often, especially when two tags use the same word- one in singular form and other in plural form. For example- A dog or dogs
Don’t get confused as you are not required to use both forms at one time. Based on your needs, you may select either singular or plural form of categories and tags without feeling any hesitation.
6) Avoid duplication while using categories & tags
As categories and tags are used to help people find the exact content easily and quickly, you should not use a category and a tag on your website with the same name.
For example: If you have a category with “Tree WordPress Themes”, you should not use a tag with the same name. It will cause the duplication issue and will confuse search engines as to which page they should display in results against the user’s term.
7) Don’t ignore categories & tags
Search engines may penalize websites that have inappropriate categories and tags. This creates a wave of panic among various website operators. As a result, to avoid the possibility of being penalized by search engines, they don’t use unnecessary categories and tags at all while publishing their content.
This is not a fair practice in website optimization. If you don’t use categories and tags on your website, users will find it difficult to search posts on your site. It also affects the performance of such web pages and you may get low placement in search engine results and fewer clicks on your website.
So, never develop such ideas in your mind. Use both of them whenever you needed. If you are confused about their appropriate use, you can seek advice from expert SEO professionals having experience in WordPress website optimization.
8) Use simple, clear and descriptive names for categories
To get the most of your WordPress categories, make sure you use clear and descriptive names. This allows new visitors to have a clear idea about your website and the type of posts you have. They can easily find the desired content with the help of simple and clear category name.
So, instead of complicating the things, you should focus on creating user-centric and descriptive categories for your multiple blog posts.
9) Don’t use too many WordPress Tags
Using too many tags could affect the usability and accessibility of your site. Well, it is not clear that how many tags are enough to use in a single blog post, but you should be aware of the fact that each tag that you create will generate a separate archive page on your site.
So, if you have a huge amount of blog posts, then it is better to compress the tags that link at least 2 to 3 posts. You just need to be consistent while using tags for your posts.
10) Structure your categories properly
Don’t forget to structure your categories if you want all of your related posts belong to one specific category. Since WordPress wants each post to belong to at least one category, make sure you do it before publishing your content.
This can help both the search engines and web readers to find the blog posts available in specific categories.
