need to control and organize that content by creating classifications to provide a good user experience, so that the process of browsing the distinctive content on your site becomes a comfortable and simple process for the visitor.
The benefits that you will reap from using classifications on your site are not limited to providing a user experience and a comfortable browsing process for the visitor only, but this step will give you a strong boost to your site’s SEO, by improving the search engines’ analysis of the site’s content. A site that has an organized and clear structure is given priority in topping the results. search.
So, in this article, we will discuss the importance of using categories in WordPress articles and when you should use them. We will also highlight the steps for creating categories in WordPress articles and making the best use of them on your site.
WordPress classifications and their usefulness on your site
Categories are an organized tab of the site’s content, with each tab containing a specific type of content that differs from the other tabs. Suppose that you own a website specialized in displaying and providing electronic books and references, you can then add a tab or category for each type of book, such as, for example, placing a tab for books specialized in the field of science and another in the field of technology and others.
The primary goal of classifications, as we mentioned, is to organize and control the content of the site so that the visitor can easily browse the site and find the content he is looking for without being distracted in parts of the site.
To access the classification settings on WordPress, you must go to the WordPress control panel << and then the Articles << Categories option . A page will open in front of you containing all the categories on your site.
The image above shows the categories page for a website specializing in e-books. You also notice that there is a good classification system that divides the books available on the site into independent sections, so that it is easy to access all book categories
As you can see from the previous image, organizing the website content into various categories makes it easier for the visitor to reach the content he is targeting without difficulty.
There are many other positives that you will gain from adopting a rankings strategy on your site, which will be mentioned later in our article.
The difference between basic classification and subclassification
Often times, you will need to organize your site’s content into basic categories and subcategories, such as placing articles that deal with the WordPress platform in a subcategory titled “WordPress Articles,” which falls under a larger basic category, “Technical Articles ,” which may include other subcategories. Such as “ technology news articles ,” for example.
How to add categories to your WordPress site
You can add categories to your WordPress site in more than one simple way that does not require you to have much experience in using the WordPress control panel .
The first way you can add categories to your site is through the WordPress control panel, where we will access: Articles > Categories where you can add categories to your site as you see fit, as in the following image.
We can see in the previous image what the page for adding categories looks like on the site. As we can see, adding a category is a very easy process. We first begin by specifying the name of the basic classification, for example, “ Medical Books ,” and write it in the “ Name ” field. Then in the “ Nice Name ” field, we will put the name of the basic classification, which will appear within the link designated for this classification, similar to this link:
Medical books/www.site.com/category.
As you can see, if you write the word “medical books” in the “nice name” field, it will appear inside the category’s URL. If you leave this field blank, WordPress will automatically use the category name in the “Name” box within its URL.
As for the “ Parent Classification ” field, it is designated for specifying the primary classification under which the subclassification that we specified in the “ Name ” field will fall. However, if we want to include the classification as a primary classification, we will select the “ None ” option in the “ Parent Classification ” field.
If you want to add this category as a subcategory, for example, if you choose the “ Books ” category, for example, the “ Medical Books ” category that you create will be a subcategory that falls under the main “ Books ” category.
As we mentioned, you can leave the “ parent category ” field empty “ without ” if you want to make the category primary and not subcategory.
As for the “ Description ” field, you can write a description of the classification, such as writing, for example, in the description of the main classification “ Medical Books ”: the most prominent modern medical books in all fields and specializations. This field is optional, meaning you can fill it in or leave it blank. It is useful for search engines to know the content of your categories, in other words, it will benefit your site’s SEO.
There is another way to add classifications to your site’s articles, which is from within the article editing page on your site, where you will find the “ Category ” field, as in the picture:
As you can see in the picture, when you open any article on your site, you will find a “ Categories ” field, which contains all the main and sub-categories that you previously created within your site.
In this field, you can choose the category into which you want to insert the current article. You can also click on “ Add a new category ,” indicated by the red arrow in the previous image, in order to add a new category if the available categories do not fit the content you are adding.
Of course, you can modify the current categories available within your site by accessing the Manage Categories page from within the WordPress control panel, as in the picture:
As we can see in the image below each category, you will find the “ Edit ” and “ Quick Edit ” options, which you can click on to edit the category. You can change its name, change its nice name, or change its type from a main category to a subcategory, and vice versa. You can also change the description of the category. Of course, you can completely delete the classification from within your site via the “Delete” option.
Up to this point, the following question may be on your mind: Does deleting one of the categories from your WordPress site cause the content and articles that fall under this category to be deleted?
Answer : No. When you delete a category from your site, only the name of the category and the link assigned to that category are deleted, but the content within this category does not change at all unless you delete or modify it.
Adding categories to your WooCommerce store
In the previous paragraphs, we assumed that you own a website that publishes written content, such as articles, news, etc. But what if your site is an online store and you want to create classifications for the products that you display, can you add classifications to them? Yes, easily.
If you own an online store using the WooCommerce plugin within the WordPress platform, then within the WordPress admin panel you will find the “Products” option, within which you will find the “Categories” option. When you enter it, a page will open for you containing all the categories that exist in your online store. However, if you have not added categories before, you will find that the page contains only one category, which is “ Uncategorized .” It is a default classification in which WordPress places products within the store that do not belong to a specific classification.
The following image shows the WooCommerce Product Categories Management page , which is almost identical to the regular Article Categories Management page.
As we note, the page contains categories for the products that you set previously. In our example here, we set categories such as “ Travel Products ,” “ Children’s Products ,” and others.
You can add new categories on this settings page by entering the “ name ” for the category and also entering the “ gentle name ,” “ parent category ,” and “ description .” We explained all of these fields in the previous paragraphs when we talked about adding categories to articles.
After adding the categories for the products, these categories will automatically appear within the categories box located inside the edit page for any product, similar to articles, as in the following image:
In the image above we see the edit page for one of the new products in the store. On the left of the page we can see the “ Product Classification ” box, through which you can choose the classification into which you want to assign the current product.
You can also click on the “ Add a new category ” button to add a new category to the products if the current categories do not fit the product you are adding, very similar to the method of adding categories in the articles that we explained previously.
We must note an important note when adding classifications to your online store, which is that there are two types of classifications, which are “ article classification ” and “ product classification ,” and you must differentiate between them. You can access each category type through the WordPress control panel, as we explained previously in our article.
Also, when you create a navigation menu within your site, you must pay attention if you want to add regular categories within the navigation menu, or add other categories specific to products, as in the picture:
As we can see in the picture, inside the menu items panel there is a “ Categories ” item; These are the classifications of articles within the site, and there is also a similar element called “ Product Classification ,” which contains the classifications of the products available in the store. You should choose “ Product Category ” if you want to create a navigation menu that contains sections and categories for products within your site.
How to change the name of categories within URL links
To explain the idea well, we will take an example of the WordPress website in Arabic. When you enter the WooCommerce explanations section on the WordPress website, a special page will open for you with articles that fall under the “WooCommerce explanations” category, the link to which is as follows: https://www. wppr.net/category/woocommerce
Let us assume that we want the word Category to be replaced with the word Articles, so that it becomes as follows: https://www.wppr.net/
Yes, you can change the fixed text in the link for any category easily from within the WordPress control panel. You must go to the “ Settings ” tab, then the “ Permanent Links ” tab, as in the picture:
As you can see on the permanent links page, you will find the “Category Structure” option with an empty box next to it in which you can write any other word you want to replace with the word Category that appears in the category link for your site’s categories. You can use this method for both article categories and product categories.
Manage where categories are displayed from within “widgets”
As we mentioned previously, you can add and display categories for your site within one of the site’s navigation menus. But how do you display the categories within the side bar or footer of the site?
In this case, you can access the widgets from within the WordPress control panel, then go to Appearance , and the widgets page opens.
Inside the widgets page, you will find the “ Categories ” widget. When you click on this widget, you will see all the places where you can add the “ Categories ” option to your website’s template. For example, you can easily display the categories inside the side bar, inside the footer, or any other part, as the following animation shows:
Edit a group of categories
Does your site contain more than 100 categories and you want to edit or modify all of them without wasting time editing each category individually? Website owners encounter a large amount of unorganized classifications on their sites when they begin to grow and expand with new content added every day, so what is the solution? Is it possible to edit and modify several categories at the same time?
Yes, you can. In this case, you can rely on the Bulk Edit Categories add-on , which enables you to edit and modify dozens and hundreds of categories on your site in one sentence, so that you install and activate the add-on on your site, as we explained how to install a add-on in WordPress .
Then, after installing the add-on and activating it on your site, you will find its “wp sheet editor” tab, and from it we will choose “Edit Categories” as you can see in the following image:
After clicking on Edit Categories, a page will appear containing all the categories that exist on your site, through which you can edit any category you want, where you can modify the name, nice name, and description, and you can also activate or delete some categories in an easy and quick way, as you can see in the following image:
This concludes our simple guide on how to create categories in WordPress for both articles and products. Inserting categories on your site is an essential step that you should take without hesitation, as it provides a distinctive user experience and a comfortable browsing process for your customers and visitors to your site, and helps you organize the content on your site
