What Are WordPress Categories? – How You Can Use Them To Group And Organize Your Posts

WordPress categories are an extremely simple yet effective way to organize all of the posts on your website. Using categories allows you to create a hierarchical organizational system that you can utilize a simple user experience.

Every post you create can be assigned to multiple categories. This ability gives you the control to display the posts you want exactly where you want them throughout your website, widgets, menus, and sidebars.

In the first section of this tutorial I will show you how to add and organize new WordPress categories. In the second half I will demonstrate how to assign your posts to specific categories.

How To Add and Organize WordPress Categories

To better demonstrate the hierarchical nature of categories, I will show how you can add multi-level categories using the theme of “Vehicles”

Step 1: Log into your WordPress dashboard and hold your mouse over the (A) “Posts” tab on the left menu. Then slide your cursor over and click on (B) “Categories”.

Step 2: First we will create the top level category entitled Vehicles. You only need to enter in the category’s (C ) “Name”. The (D) “Slug” (what the URL of your page will look like) will automatically be created based on the name you create. If you would like, you can create a custom slug , but it is not necessary.

For a top level post you will leave the (E) “Parent” set to none. The (F)“Description” is also optional. In most themes the descriptions will never show up anywhere on your website; however, in some cases they may be displayed.

Once you have entered in this information, simply click on (G) “Add New Category” to complete the progress. You will then see the category listed in the (H – Step 3) table to the right.

Step 3: Now we will create a subcategory entitled Cars that will live underneath the Vehicles category. To do this we follow all of the same steps except this time we will select (J) “Vehicles” as the “Parent” and click on “Add New Category”

It’s as simple as that! We now have a top level category named Vehicles and a sub-category called Cars. If you wanted, you could even continue and create a sub-category under cars.

How To Assign Categories To Posts

Step 1: Enter the “Edit Post” page for whichever post you would like to assign to a category.

Step 2: On the right side of this page you will see a box entitled (K) “Categories”. In this box you will see all of the categories you have created. All you need to do is to check the box next to the categories you want to assign this post to. Once you are happy with your selection, click on (L) “Update” to finish the process.

There you have it! It's pretty easy isn't it?. You have now created two new categories and have assigned them to one of your posts!

You may also be interested in checking out these additional posts:

• How To Make A New Blog Post In 11 Simple Steps
• Pages vs Posts? What's The Difference And Why You Need To Know
• 4 Simple Steps To Build Your Website With Wealthy Affiliate
• 10 Characteristics Of A Great Blog Theme

If you have any further questions regarding WordPress categories, please drop me your question below!