WordPress is one of the most popular platforms for businesses and bloggers. WordPress’s flexibility makes it possible for businesses to sell tangible and digital products and publish blog posts to make it easier for your target audience to discover you in search.

Making it easy for your visitors to find the information or products easily will increase the odds of having them return and making a purchase.

Organizing your can be easily done with categories in WordPress.

What Are WordPress Categories

WordPress Categories are a place where you can store relevant content. Think of it as a filing cabinet.

Let’s say that you put all of your valuable information in one box in your home or, even better yet, several places around your home.

When it is time for you to find an important piece of paper, it will become an unpleasant situation. It will cause stress and anxiety that could have been easily avoided if you had a designated place for the papers. For example, it would take you no time at all to find your homeowner’s insurance information if you had a file for home insurance.

Adding categories to your art blog is like having a file for each specific topic you write about, which will make it easy for your readers to find the content or products they are searching for.

How to Add Categories

There are two ways that you can add categories in WordPress.

You can create a category while creating a post, or you can decide what categories and subcategories you will be focusing on and add the categories and subcategories before publishing content.

Not only will categories make it easier for your readers to find the content they are interested in reading but it will also help you to stay on track and write content based on your business goals.

 Here is how to create categories for your WordPress website.

Create Categories in WordPress Posts

It is possible to add a new category create while you are writing a new post.

Once you have completed writing the content for your new post, scroll down and find the Posts Categories box on the right.

This is where you will be able to click a category that you have already created to have the new post filled under or add a new category for the post.

If you would like to add the post to a category you have already created, click on the box next to the category name you want the post to be added to. This will place the content in the specific category you have chosen.

If there is no category that fits the content you are about to publish, click Add New Category.

Type in the name of the new category in the box provided.

Click the Add New Category link when you are done. The category will automatically be selected for this post. Check and see if there is a checkmark in the box next to the new category. If there is not, click on the box next to your new category, and a checkmark will show that it has been selected.

Providing high-quality content that is easy to be found by your readers will help you to build a loyal following.

What Are Parent And Child Categories

WordPress also makes it easy to find relevant content for your readers by offering Parent Categories and Child Categories.

Parent Category is the main topic. Think of it as a filing drawer that is dedicated to bills. In that drawer, you have folders for all of the different companies that you pay bills to. If you need to find the electric bill, you open the filing drawer and pull out the electric folder.

WordPress also lets you break down your Parent Categories into smaller (folders) Child Categories to make it even easier for your readers to find relevant content that they are searching for.

An example would be:

Cake (Parent Category)

         Chocolate (Child Category)

          Vanilla (Child Category)

          Strawberry (Child Category)

In this example, a reader can go to the cake category and find all of the content that relates to cakes. They will find all of the chocolate cake recipes, vanilla cake recipes, and strawberry cake recipes all in that category.

If they are just interested in a chocolate cake recipe, they can click on the chocolate child category, and they will only find cakes made out of chocolate.

You can place a post in just the Child Category or both the Parent and the Child Category. Placing a post in just the Child Category will not be found when someone clicks on the Parent Category. They would have to click on the Child Category to find that specific post.

How To Add A Child Category

You can also create a Child Category while creating a post or create child categories ahead of time, just like regular categories.

After you have written, your content scrolls down and find the Categories box on the right.

You will be able to click a category that you have already created or create a new category.

After you have created a new category, click on the Parent Category drop-down box. 

Select the category you wish to be the Parent Category of the new category that you have created.

Categories and subcategories will be displayed differently in the Categories drop-down box.

Parent categories will be all the way to the left, and subcategories will be displayed towards the right under the parent category like the example below. Working Artist Tips is the parent category, and Inspiration and motivation are indented.

How To Add WordPress Categories in Advance

The second way you can add categories is by making a plan of how you would like your blog laid out.

You will need to sit down and decide what categories your website will be focusing on.

After you have decided what categories you would like to create, login to your WordPress dashboard.

Hover over posts on the left-hand sidebar.

Click on Categories

Type in the name of the category in the name box.

You can also choose a parent category here.

When you are completed filling this out click on add a category on the bottom to save the new category that you have created.

Final Thoughts On How To Add New Categories

As mentioned earlier, categories make it easier for visitors to find the content or products they are searching for on your WordPress Website.

You can choose to create a category name before creating content or after you have created content publish.

If you publish a post that does not fit under your categories, you can always place it in the uncategorized category.

Creating post categories aims to make it easier for your visitors to find the content they are searching for.

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