Millions of people blog using the popular open-source CMS platform, WordPress, but most of them fail to capture its full capabilities. If you are one of them, there’s a chance you may be overlooking a tremendous opportunity. Today, we will discuss two main reasons why it’s important to segment your WordPress blog into “Category” pages. First, though, let’s define what these Category pages really are.
What Are WordPress “Category” Pages?
When using WordPress for blogging, users are able to create Categories where each post may be attributed. Put simply, these pages help blog authors to group posts about similar topics together. Best practices dictate that a blog use about 5 – 7 Categories and that those appear in the blog’s sidebar to make it easy for readers to find topics of interest. As we mentioned above, there are two major reasons for authors to take advantage of these Category pages.
Reason 1: Search Engine Optimization
Category pages are great for search engine optimization, or SEO. These pages can basically serve as landing pages when users search for keywords or phrases relevant to the topic. This is great for site owners because it provides natural traffic to their blog and also because it helps to attract targeted traffic. By showing that there are several posts relevant to the searcher’s desired topic, the Category page has helped the blog’s owner to establish some authority on the topic.
Reason 2: Improved User Experience
If a visitor lands on your blog by way of a single post, he or she may leave without ever knowing what else you have to offer. By displaying Category pages on your page, you give that person a high-level overview of the topics you’ve written about. This gives the user the chance to click on the things that he/she is interested in. This can be a great way to engage with users and develop new followers – especially if you’re using your Google Analytics data to help guide you to which Categories are getting the best response.
What Should You Do?
If you’re using WordPress for your blog, setting up Categories is a must. If you haven’t already, go into your settings and do so today! You can retroactively assign existing posts to new Categories, so go in and take care of that as soon as you’ve created your Categories. Once you’ve done this, you will have Category pages built out. Provide some information on these pages as to what specifically you’re writing about and how it can benefit users. All done? Congratulations! You are now one step closer to a perfectly-optimized WordPress blog.
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