February 26, 2008

What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories 210

Yo! Have you checked out the Thesis Theme yet? I’d love to explain how optimized, detailed, and easily-customizable Thesis is, but honestly, I know that you’re going to benefit the most from the amazing community of theme users. Smart people offering up tailored solutions to common theme problems? Now that’s serious value.

sexy nurse illustrationBecause of the way they are misused all over the Web, categories have grown to become something that we regard in a purely user-centric light. We think of them as navigational tools and guides for users, but in reality, categories are a powerful tool that bloggers can use to exercise precise control over content in a dynamic environment.

Unfortunately, the true power of categorized content has been masked by the one size fits all implementation you see everywhere on the Web—the proverbial long, ugly list of category links now appearing on a blog near you.

As luck would have it, that awful category list also turns out to be a very poor presentational strategy for your site… But why?

Why Your Category List Isn’t Doing You Any Favors

By giving users a list of categories to browse on your site, you are creating a psychological conundrum that usually leaves them with a severe case of analysis paralysis. This is a condition where users, when presented with too many options, end up selecting nothing at all.

Being presented with more choices, even good ones, can hinder effective action. In one study, doctors couldn’t make a decision when a second promising drug showed up.

Fast Company, November 2007

Counter-intuitive? Maybe. Human nature? Absolutely.

Whether you’re selling products, writing copy, or designing interfaces, you can benefit from playing into basic human psychology. And interestingly, with Website categories, accommodating natural human behavior also turns out to be an excellent SEO strategy!

Automated SEO and Content Management with Categories

At first glance, it seems convenient that WordPress automatically creates category pages, tag pages, and just about every other type of page you can imagine1. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find that this form of page bloat is a remarkably poor site-building practice—it’s a condition that should be avoided whenever possible.

As far as blogs are concerned, categories are the single biggest contributor to both page bloat and link dilution, two of the most abominable SEO sins. Ironically, when used properly, these same categories hold the key to efficient, automated site optimization and content management…

The difference, of course, is all in how you use them. Armed with a bit of knowledge and a few lines of code, you’ll be able to use categories to:

  • display content however you like, wherever you like
  • link directly to interior pages—not to interstitial “bloat” pages like monthly archives or category archives
  • provide your users with a smarter, more intuitive way to browse content that may be of interest to them

WordPress Example: “Popular” Articles

Turn your attention to the sidebar of this site, where you’ll find lists of posts underneath subheadings like “Must Reads,” “Improve Your Blog,” and “Worth a Look.” As you might have guessed, I use categories to control the content of each list, and now we’re going to examine how you can do the same. For the sake of this example, let’s focus on the “Must Reads,” which are controlled by the “Popular” category.

The first step is to categorize each applicable post in an identical and meaningful way—in this case, “Popular.” Keep in mind that it makes no difference how many posts you lump under one category, simply because you’ll establish all display control through your code (which you are about to write).

Once you’ve categorized your articles, the second step is to determine what you want to display and where you want to display it. In this example, the goal is to display a list of popular posts over in the sidebar, so in order to do that, you should open the sidebar.php template file for editing.

Now that you’ve opened the appropriate theme file, it’s time to move on to the third step, which is the coding portion of our show. Here’s the code I used in sidebar.php to generate a list (<ul>, <li>) of popular articles: 2

<?php
   query_posts('category_name=Popular&showposts=5');
   while (have_posts()) :
      the_post();
?>
   <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?> <?php comments_number('0', '1', '%'); ?></a></li>
<?php
   endwhile;
?>

Take a look at the following snippet from the above code:

query_posts('category_name=Popular&showposts=5');

This line tells WordPress to look through its database and fetch the 5 most recent posts from the “Popular” category. Once you’ve acquired the appropriate posts, all you need to do is loop through them, displaying only the information you want. Here’s the code from our example:

<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?> <?php comments_number('0', '1', '%'); ?></a></li>

In this case, I chose to display direct links to the posts, and I also embellished a bit to include the number of comments on each. The most important thing to take away from this is the fact that I could have displayed any piece of information associated with the resulting posts—I just tailored the output to my exact needs.

The Bottom Line

Categories are like a site’s DNA—they literally form the organizational framework that houses all of a site’s information. Like DNA, category structures are unique, and therefore, a one size fits all solution for handling them doesn’t make any sense.

The good news, however, is that you can help your users, improve your SEO, and gain absolute control over your content by implementing your own WordPress category solution!

1 Other CMS platforms do this as well, but for this article, I chose to focus primarily on WordPress.

2 For the sake of brevity, I have chosen to show only the code that loops through the individual list elements (<li>).

210 Comments ↓

#david  at 4:32 pm on Feb 26, 2008

Really useful article, Chris. Thanks for it.

I still think it’s amazing that every time I begin to wonder if Pearsonified is dead, an update pops up soon after. It’s spooky really.

#Mario Vellandi  at 4:40 pm on Feb 26, 2008

So true. I thought about my list of categories a few months back and thought “this is too many. how is this usable for my readers?” so I drastically cut back the numbers, and recategorized many posts. It feels so much cleaner now.

#creativegirl  at 4:44 pm on Feb 26, 2008

The same thing just happened to me. I posted a comment on another post here thinking, well - it’s been a while since he updated, maybe he’s gone and then poof! Here was a new post! Really great information, I’m going to try it.

I was wondering though, do you have a custom 404 error page for the Neoclassical theme? That was my other post, just wondering???

#CP  at 4:53 pm on Feb 26, 2008

A very helpful post. I’m certainly glad I subscribed to your RSS feed. Thanks.

#Bruce Keener  at 5:51 pm on Feb 26, 2008

Another classic post, Chris. Thank you.

I’ve been at for about a year now with a WordPress, have about 400 posts, with 30 categories, and about 45 tags on top of that, with most posts being assigned anywhere from 2-4 categories and 2-4 tags.

Thinking about it makes me dizzy, as I really just don’t know what to do about it. I hard-coded my popular list (selected the links from Google Analytics) so I have the popular list without having a Popular tag, but I like the Popular tag concept.

I guess I could reduce my category list size, but I’d have to spend a while doing some 301 redirects, and don’t know if it would be worth the effort.

You sure have given me something to think about, though. What would you do in my shoes?

#Chris P.  at 6:40 pm on Feb 26, 2008

creative girl — A custom 404 page comes with the Neoclassical theme—it’s called 404.php.

Bruce — Regarding your popular list, you may want to give this dynamic solution a try, simply because it allows for much more flexibility and forward-compatibility.

As far as your categories are concerned, it doesn’t necessarily matter how many you have assigned to a particular post. Remember, your categories are tools, and it may only be necessary to use one of them to accomplish whatever it is you’re trying to do.

With that in mind, I think you probably ought to organize all your content under a few new categories that you create, and then you can simply use these new categories moving forward.

If you’re worrying about your category links… don’t! Not only are they draining your pages of valuable link equity, but they are also distributing your site’s precious link juice to interstitial bloat pages (category and monthly archives pages).

Finally, if you really think about this practice of eliminating category links, you can see how it is essentially an exercise in “cutting the fat” from your site. To put it another way, rearranging your categories in the manner I’ve suggested forces you to adopt a linking strategy that gets straight to the point—something that the digital masses just love.

#Bruce Keener  at 6:45 pm on Feb 26, 2008

Thank you, Chris! Again, another very, very useful and well-done post.

#Cameron Schaefer  at 9:33 pm on Feb 26, 2008

Chris,
Awesome post! I had never even thought of getting rid of categories, but it makes sense that it helps readers for you to get right to the point. As a brand new blogger I’ve really enjoyed learning from your posts and using your Neoclassical Theme (kept 3 of the header photos and replaced 2…trying to find some other good images). Keep the education coming!

#Sumesh  at 9:45 pm on Feb 26, 2008

I’ve always wondered why (idiotic) self-proclaimed SEO experts praise WordPress for its ‘inherent’ SEO advantages. Between the category links, archives, meta, comment links on post loop, category link on the post loop etc., a lot of valuable juice is lost.

I hacked core files to nofollow the comments link and ‘read-more’ link. I had been thinking along similar lines, Chris, and took the normal category list and nofollowed them. Not the best approach, but it prevents drain of link juice. Besides, I don’t use multiple categories, so calling posts by category wouldn’t work.

Speaking of which, when are you going to redesign Pearsonified? :D I’d love to see what you do with the newer SEO techniques.

#Manas  at 10:44 pm on Feb 26, 2008

Great article.. Now the next step, I just got to implement these on my blog.

#Adrian  at 10:53 pm on Feb 26, 2008

Glad to see you back at the helm Chris, with long waited for quality content!

#Adrian  at 10:54 pm on Feb 26, 2008

ie. last post was in November… :-(

#Michael  at 12:03 am on Feb 27, 2008

I can see the advantages of using this strategy but one big question keeps popping to mind — how do users find other related articles within the same category? My first thought would be a prominently displayed Search box but, ironically, you don’t have one.

I’m thinking this technique might be better suited for blogs covering time sensitive information like this one. Whereas information from two years ago may not really be relevant today.

I, like Bruce, have a site with 400+ posts over 46 categories. My site covers BMW restoration tips so almost all posts are timely and relevant. The category links do promote bloat, but at least it makes it easier for users to focus on a specific topic.

Perhaps a solution could be to include a Search function that allows users to select a category to search within - like over at Behanced ?

#kristarella  at 3:03 am on Feb 27, 2008

I was thinking about how to present content and archive pages and all the rest. We even had a bit of a discussion about it I think.

I haven’t entirely decided on the topic, but I do like popular post lists. I like the way you’ve used the query posts code - it’s really useful. I’ve used it for creating a sort of portal front page for a website I currently manage.

#David Airey  at 8:19 am on Feb 27, 2008

Michael asks a good question about how there’s no search box here on pearsonified.com. I’m interested to know why too.

#Chris P.  at 8:55 am on Feb 27, 2008

Michael — There is a lot more to the search issue than meets the eye. I don’t have a search box on this site because, quite literally, everything worth reading is linked in the sidebar. On top of that, tons of useful content exists in the comments to my more popular posts, and the default WordPress search function doesn’t include those.

In my own experience, I’ve had the most success from linking posts under a common category and then billing them as a series. A great example of this is my SEO for Everybody series, which I advertise on my home page and also at the end of each post in the series.

Although it takes a bit of forethought and organization to pull a series of posts together, the end results are well worth the trouble. When posts are linked together in this manner, they drive traffic in a meaningful, useful way. Additionally, content that is presented as a series appears more authoritative, and in my experience, this leads to links, links, links!

Finally, I have been giving thought to search functionality on this site, and I have all but decided that a Google Custom Search is the answer. I manage quite a few Web properties, so it makes sense to use a search function that can tie all of that information together in a convenient, usable way.

#David Airey  at 9:04 am on Feb 27, 2008

Good call on the Google Custom Search. I use it on both my blogs, and have found the results to be much more accurate than the defaul WordPress option.

#Michael  at 9:55 am on Feb 27, 2008

Chris — In my own experience, I’ve had the most success from linking posts under a common category and then billing them as a series.

Other than having more control by manually adding links to a series or singular posts, how does this differ from inclusion of using “Related Posts” plugin?

GCS — tried it — hated it. Granted, it is easy to install and can show results across multiple sites but I think its greatest downfall is that it only shows pages that Google has indexed. If a page isn’t indexed, it doesn’t get shown. Maybe this is more of an issue with static sites (where I was initially using the function) but still a deal breaker.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think if you’re going to pay for their search service, they should at least index your entire site — if not only for displaying results on your own sites.

#Chris P.  at 10:22 am on Feb 27, 2008

Michael — The difference is all about control. By using the Related Posts Plugin, you are sacrificing absolute control over the links that get shown to your visitors.

In reality, the Related Posts Plugin is a form of passive interlinking and navigation, and users know this. I’ve found that I am able to drive traffic more effectively by instituting an active interlinking and navigation strategy, and I think categories are the most efficient, most sensible way to achieve this.

As far as the GCSE is concerned, I pretty much agree, and that’s likely why you haven’t seen a GCSE on this site yet.

#spostareduro  at 1:26 pm on Feb 27, 2008

Schweet one..thanks for the tips..I think maybe I have been the cause of quite a bit of analysis paralysis. ooops. *-)

#Shane  at 1:39 pm on Feb 27, 2008

Chris,

It appears to me that there would be a huge market for someone such as yourself to create a wordpress plugin that functions as follows:

A person designates categories on their site.
Those categories display somewhere on their site as a result.
When visiters mouse over the category headings a hidden CSS layer pops up (and is scrollable) with ALL of the posts for the particular category, each link pointing to the perm page. When the user leaves the layer, it hides itself again.

The only alternative I see is to simply use your idea for each category and tell the database to display all posts (tell us how) for each category and place all this in the footer area where it would be less intrusive. Sure it would scroll forever, but does that matter really?

Rock on
Shane

#Shane  at 1:47 pm on Feb 27, 2008

In other words, people get to display their categories, but users don’t have to click to go to a page to see all the stories under this category when the database should be able to populate a layer with this data instead. SEO is happy, bloggers are happy, visitors are happy.

Also, the footer idea I had earlier mimics the functionality of a site map, thus removing yet another interstitial page (Do you agree with this?).

Shane

#kristarella  at 3:34 pm on Feb 27, 2008

Shane - I think part of the idea is not just removing redundant pages, but removing the unnecessary links. Putting all those links on the homepage would dilute link juice a lot.

Anyway, I’m no expert and I’m kind of leaning towards including a tag cloud, which would probably have a similar effect… just a thought.

#Shane Arthur  at 3:46 pm on Feb 27, 2008

krista,

“unnecessary” is the key word. Depends on who your trying to please - SEO or visitors. Chris is saying have categories as it’s easier to manipulate the data but don’t have category pages as it dilutes the link juice of the actual pages. I understand this, yet people leaving comments want visitors to be able to see all of the pages.

Having all page links in the footer, however, would not decrease link juice as they would be the actual page links, not category links which link to those specific pages.

Tough call all the way around.

#kristarella  at 4:10 pm on Feb 27, 2008

Ok, I see what your saying. Yes, that would be like a sitemap in your footer.
Could be a little bit scary for readers looking at all those links. I guess you could use something like javascript accordians to only show one category at a time. Deziner folio used to use this in their sidebar, it looked good.

#Sam Stevens  at 5:49 pm on Feb 27, 2008

Thank you, Chris! Man, bloggers have really started to frustrate me with their insanely long list of categories. Obviously, not too many IA specialists out there. But it shouldn’t take an IA expert to know that usability is severely hindered when you provide too much choice. Repeat after me: Categories are not tags! As for link juice and SEO: satisfy users first, and the engines will follow.

#Bruce Keener  at 6:07 pm on Feb 27, 2008

This motivated me to go ahead and get off my butt to reduce my categories by about 10 and cut my tags in half, with possibly more to follow. I also took out the category and tag links off individual posts. They are still accessible through my archives, but that is the only spot.

Thanks for convincing me to do something I should have done a long while back, Chris.

BTW, I wish WordPress had never come out with tags … categories are okay, properly used, and maybe tags, too, but the tags were just a huge distraction to me and probably did not help my readers one little bit (and did nothing but get the search engines tangled up in multiple pathways).

#Chris P.  at 7:04 pm on Feb 27, 2008

Shane, kristarella — Those ideas all have merit, but I think I left out some important SEO constraints that we need to consider.

Google recommends that you keep the number of followed links on a Web page under 100. Personally, I think you should try to aim for the 30–60 range, and further, I think each of those links ought to be to the most valuable content your site has to offer.

Think of it this way—do you really have 60 individual pages of valuable, compelling content that is also completely relevant right now?

At any given time, the answer to that question is probably going to be “no,” but then again, that’s nothing to be ashamed of! I think you’d have to be incredibly prolific to be 60-articles-relevant at any one moment.

#Chris P.  at 7:10 pm on Feb 27, 2008

Bruce — Don’t even get me started on tags :-D

#kristarella  at 7:25 pm on Feb 27, 2008

Aw, go on. Start on tags :P

#vijayendra  at 4:50 am on Feb 28, 2008

Thanks tons and tons. May your family prosper and may you live to see your grandchildren graduate.

I had been racking my head over my obscenely long category list for months now. Thanks to you, I (code-illiterate) have managed to replace the list with specific lists of my choice.

Thank you so much for writing this.

#Keith Johnson  at 9:44 am on Feb 28, 2008

Great article! Yes, we must use the categories aspect of Wordpress to enhance the visual-organization aspect of our blog. As we clearly identify the categories, we let the reader know that we are organized and have successfully aligned our blog-content with these topics. Kudos & Best Wishes, Keith Johnson, Webmaster “Freemathrescue.com”

#Michael  at 9:52 am on Feb 28, 2008

Okay, feeling convinced — but with the inclusion of a prominent Search box and link to the sitemap that already links to all categories.

Given my sites subject matter, I don’t think consolidating the categories is an option. It’s important for readers to quickly find the information they need. I, for one, would rather go straight to “fuel and exhaust” rather than sift through a larger “engine” category. So here’s the million dollar question.

What code would I use to display popular posts based on page views? Or is this just a pie-in-the-sky impossibility?

#Chris P.  at 10:08 am on Feb 28, 2008

Michael — The solution you’re after would require a fair amount of JavaScript, and it goes well beyond the scope of what I can handle here in the comments.

Regarding categories, I’ve found that they tend to be the least-visited links on every site I’ve ever run. Of course, the subject matter certainly plays a role in that, and I think your site is an example of one where categories could be more useful (if used properly).

For best results, you should always make user interface decisions on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately, this means that some information – this article, for instance – is not going to be applicable in every situation.

Either way, the mere fact that you are really thinking about your category structure is a good thing, simply because nothing on your site will improve without good thinking and solid execution!

#Karmadude  at 12:10 pm on Feb 28, 2008

How do you decide if a post is popular? Using categories to select popular posts might work for user selected popular posts, but when you get into hundreds of posts, this approach might not be very accurate. For something like this, Alex King’s, popularity contest plugin is a better approach.

#Slade Roberson  at 2:33 pm on Feb 28, 2008

Chris, man, this is an absolutely excellent, practical, useful post. The way you not only share your code but walk through it — I actually learn useful WordPress code I can apply in a variety of ways. More please!

#Anthea  at 9:20 pm on Feb 28, 2008

Chris,
What a great way to organise content. A few days ago I removed the “Archives” option from my sidebar and added a Sitemap instead - quite an oversite on my part. My site isn’t quite a year old and I initially added the “Archives” option to the sidebar as a way to populate it. But, I have never followed the “Archives” option on any site I have ever visited! Your idea on using the categories on the sidebar in this way is excellent and I’m going to take a closer look at my categories (currently in the form of a tag cloud). Funnily enough, along with viewing my site stats, I think it will also give me greater insight into the real direction my site is heading, rather than the way I think it is heading.
Thanks for a great post!

#Rudy  at 12:26 am on Feb 29, 2008

My mantra has always been “The less # of categories, the better.” But, as ideas pop up, the “general” category just doesn’t cut it and has to be expanded. Sometimes people just decide to run another blog site to talk about that particular (popular) category. That’s another problem in itself.

Also, it is kinda creepy (and astonishing) that Chris P. keeps ignoring the hints to tell us what happened between Nov 2007 and Feb 2008. ;-)

#Geld Lenen  at 8:52 am on Feb 29, 2008

I always use categories in another way, that is, with pages. In my pages, I list my category posts, with a nice description.

I think this is the way that users (like myself) love to see categories!

#Jason  at 4:55 pm on Feb 29, 2008

Great site!
I love the template you’re currently using on here. Will that be available to use for the masses?

#Adam Kayce  at 8:06 pm on Feb 29, 2008

Great article, Chris, thank you… you had made similar points and hints in the Neoclassical discussions, and I was just about to start piecing together this strategy for my new site; you just saved me hours of fiddling.

I’d love to see your thoughts on tags spelled out the way you did here with categories… after seeing what you wrote before, I’m tempted to just not even bother tagging anything at all.

A thought just entered my head, on behalf of those who aren’t up to the coding… I wonder if the Top Posts By Category plugin could do the heavy lifting for the less code-fluent? I haven’t looked at it in a while, but it may be worth a gander.

#Paul Burani, Clicksharp Marketing  at 1:57 pm on Mar 2, 2008

Something for newbies to take note of if they’re using Wordpress — you have to enable Permalinks on the Options panel, if you want the categories’ resulting URLs to come out looking legible and SEO friendly. (Not sure if the recent upgrade takes care of this, but in past versions it was not a default…)

#Edwin Joseph  at 12:16 am on Mar 3, 2008

Hey..this is a true eye opener for every blogger..Many have misinterpreted the use of categories. A lot of people thought that creating so many categories would impress its viewers, but the truth is that is simply creates confusion for them…

Thanks for this post, this may truly help me!
Its good to drop by in your blog!

#Richard Butler  at 12:19 am on Mar 3, 2008

That is very true! Before i use to create numerous categories hoping that my readers would be impressed. Unfortunately, it makes them decide not to click because of confusion. They don’t what to click best thats why they just leave the website easily!

This was a good tip!

#Jenny  at 11:26 am on Mar 3, 2008

thanks for the tips. this was really helpful. i’ll have to go over and relook my categories.

#NiklasK  at 6:33 pm on Mar 4, 2008

I’m not really native to php so I wasn’t really sure where in the sidebar.php file I was supposed to put the code.

I tried it in a variety of different places but the df-marine theme I’m using right now won’t display anything in the sidebar. Could someone specifically point out where I should be putting that code.

#Chris P.  at 6:43 pm on Mar 4, 2008

NiklasK — I left out the surrounding code for brevity’s sake, but all you have to do is create a new sidebar widget by copying the markup structure from your recent posts widget. Get rid of everything between the <ul> tags, and then place the code from this post in that spot.

#NiklasK  at 6:49 pm on Mar 4, 2008

Sad to say that df-marine although looking really nice doesn’t support widgets.

#Buddy  at 7:00 pm on Mar 4, 2008

How do I reach Chris Pearson directly?

#Chris P.  at 7:43 pm on Mar 4, 2008

NiklasK — Pardon my confusing terminology. I did not mean actual WordPress widgets; instead, I just meant the collection of <ul> and <li> elements in your sidebar.php file.

Buddy — Due to the impossibly high volume of specific requests, I cannot accept direct inquiries from people. Sorry!

#kristarella  at 7:47 pm on Mar 4, 2008

NiklasK - your site looks like it supports widgets - if you look at the source code it shows the categories within a list with the classes “widget” and “widget_categories”. That code is either generated by a widget or in sidebar.php.
Normally the code would go in sidebar.php, If you can find the code that generates the category list you can copy that then remove the category part and add the code from this post (as Chris said), but if the category code is from a widget you might need the ExecPHP widget.

#NiklasK  at 8:24 pm on Mar 4, 2008

Alright well I changed the header.php file since that is where the Related Post function was previously declared and listed at the top.

Here’s what I had in the section related to it:

Recent Posts
get_results("SELECT ID, post_title FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND post_date_gmt

post_title == '') $post->post_title = sprintf(__('Post #%s'), $post->ID);
echo "ID).”‘>”; the_title(); echo ‘‘; }?>

the code I replaced it with is:

Most Popular

<a href="" rel="bookmark">

However now when I go to my homepage the Most Popular box at the top works and lists my most popular posts which I have put in that category, however it won’t display my most recent posts in the main window, instead it just displays the posts I listed as most popular.

Any idea how to change that?

#Chris P.  at 8:33 pm on Mar 4, 2008

NiklasK — That theme’s code is a mess. I’m afraid it’s not worth my time to investigate further; instead, I can just direct you to my Neoclassical Theme, which is much more user-friendly.

#NiklasK  at 8:40 pm on Mar 4, 2008

Sorry about that your comments don’t allow the code tag and your site just swallowed half of the tags and stuff. I uploaded my comment onto a text file.

http://www.blog-tutor.com/images/Code.txt

#Chris P.  at 8:46 pm on Mar 4, 2008

NiklasK — I realize that the code did not come through in your previous comment, but the mere fact that your theme has weird functions defined in header.php makes me want to pull my hair out. Seriously, just check out Neoclassical to see the difference in the code.

#NiklasK  at 9:16 pm on Mar 4, 2008

Yea I tried fiddling around with the header file a bit more. I could get rid of every line of code except the query post and as soon as that happened it would get 1 of the most popular but the entire page would revert to that category.

Going to try and contact the designer and if that doesn’t work out I guess I’ll start theme hunting again starting with yours.

#Julie  at 10:59 am on Mar 5, 2008

Great article…..now I just have to implement it;-)

Julie

#Rico  at 12:17 am on Mar 6, 2008

Would you be able to implement the list-making code on your 404 page? Showing a list of popular posts would be a great complement to just showing the “return home” link and search form.

#Katie Loncke  at 2:29 pm on Mar 6, 2008

Hi Chris,

I’m a college student and recovering technophobe who just switched to Cutline for my group political blog. Needless to say, it’s vastly superior to the free WordPress theme I was using previously. However, I’m dying to find a handsome, functional, dark theme that will work at WordPress.com (as I have no access to a free, stable server). Most of the ones out there are bug-ridden, gaudy, or both.

Any chance you’ll put those amazing graphic skillz to use on a classy black/gray/aubergine theme one of these days? :)

#cheryl  at 6:21 pm on Mar 7, 2008

Hi Chris!

Interesting that your article comes out a couple weeks after I completed a heat map analysis of what visitors do on my site once they get there.

And it mirrors what you are saying.

I tested 2 separate things: what visitors do when they come through the front door of the site and what visitors do when I send them to a specific page on the site.

Well…the ones that came through the front of the site rarely clicked on the Archives list and much less than 1% of all visitors clicked on the Categories list. I ran this test on about 5300 visitors.

Of all the clicks that occurred on that page, 3.4% went to the Categories and 1% went to the Achives. But if you just total the number of visitors by the clicks in those 2 sections, combined, did not tally 1%.

The numbers were a little different to an internal page. On that test, 6% clicked on the Categories and, get this, the same 1% clicked on the Archive.

However if I looked at the percentage of ALL visitors that clicked on the Category links on the targeted page, it was less that 1/2%. The results were worse for the Archives - essentially nil. My visitors spent their time with internal links, repositioned pages and related links.

And with telling their friends about the post.

So…

If I ever had any qualms about removing those 2 sections, I don’t now. I found that people who wanted to check out what else was in the site clicked the Archive and Site Map links at the top.
:o/
cj

#Michael  at 7:40 pm on Mar 7, 2008

Cheryl’s stats are interesting but I think it should be premised with the fact that those stats are specific to her site and shouldn’t be accepted as a global truth for all sites (even though they are pretty close but lower than one of my sites). Meaning, the positions of those two sections on the page and how they’re titled have a huge impact on click-through rate.

For example, imagine a blog design that mimics Portfolio.com whereas the navigation under their logo (without the drop downs) represented your categories. This is a highly desirable location which, I’m sure, would increase click percentage as opposed to the majority of sites whose category section is placed far down the right column. Not to mention the Archives section which is usually displayed so far down the page that the majority of users never even see it.

I do agree with Chris that the misuse of categories drains link juice from your pages and I have already removed them from one of my sites to test the results. But I have to wonder how the scenario would play if your categories (limited to 4-5) were placed as main Nav links at the top of your page (e.g. Portfolio.com) and then implemented Chris’ idea of a top 5 or 10 on each of those category pages — instead of the page just listing articles as they were posted.

The secondary benefit of the above is that it would free up your right column on interior page for other uses — perhaps even display top posts for other categories or for monetization.

Do I think it would be as efficient in directing traffic and juice as Chris’ method - No. But I do think that if your site really needs to use categories, then this would be a good blending between the two.

#Dianne  at 1:27 pm on Mar 9, 2008

Dear Chris,
Thank you for this suggestion. I am using your beautiful Neoclassical theme, with widgets in the sidebar. Thus, I put the new code into sidebar.php, but it didn’t show up on the site. I like the idea of copying the new code into the Recent Posts widget, but, alas, I don’t know where to find the code for that widget. Can you help, please?
Thanks very much again.

#Butler  at 7:52 pm on Mar 10, 2008

Chris, great article are usually. I think you can help SEO efforts with some well thought out category terms for certain types of websites. Again different solutions for different folks.

#anil bisht  at 1:25 am on Mar 13, 2008

I’m a non-technical person can you elaborate a bit, as i find it hard to use this code. I’ll be greatful

#Wanna  at 12:47 pm on Mar 13, 2008

Google Blogger does little smarter job by choosing “label” :o)

#Michael  at 3:21 pm on Mar 13, 2008

Chris-

I haven’t been able to find contact info. Do you consult or are you booked? My company is building a multi-user blog on WordpressMU and having a tough time finding Wordpress Gurus with capacity…

thanks,

#Chris P.  at 4:06 pm on Mar 13, 2008

Michael — Unfortunately, I’m completely booked, but you never know… I may pull a crazy client recruitment stunt at any minute :-D

#GamerEdie  at 9:27 pm on Mar 13, 2008

Chris,

First, I want to say that I’ve enjoyed your blog very much. Not only is it well designed, it’s a great read.

I do have one question for you: I’m having quite a bit of problems using one of your themes, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of documentation on how to set it up.

That’s how I’ve found your site.

Is there a more comprehensive site for how to set up PressRow (comments and next/previous posts just not working) other than what you have on FindCreditCards.org?

#Hning  at 1:18 pm on Mar 15, 2008

Ouww….
Longtime not ’seeing’ you chris… :)

Anw, thanks for giving a clear explanation about categories. I haven’t expected before about this. Let me check what i’ve done so far with this one.

#Mary  at 9:30 am on Mar 17, 2008

I’ve just boookmarked your site. It is very helpful. Also, I’m using one of your templates for my blog. Thank you for that, too, especially since I’m a neophyte. This may not be the right forum for this call for help, but I’ll give it a try anyway. Maybe someone will see it and respond. My template has two columns. But, yesterday, the column on the right disappeared! Well, not really. It is now at the bottom of the column on the left. How do I fix this? Merci beaucoup. Mary

#Hning  at 12:58 pm on Mar 17, 2008

Chris, this could be a little Out Of Topic. I’d like to know, how to seperate article using a ‘tag’ to show a Feature Article. I saw alot of WP Magazine theme use it, but it’s duplicated in ‘Categories or Recent Post’.

Related with your topic above, it can be solved, but it means the Feature Article only cover 1 Category, more or specific.

Straight forward, i’d like to use a Feature Article which comes from all Category in my site.

Thanks before Chris :)

#Dave  at 7:35 pm on Mar 19, 2008

Chris, wondering what you think about this one little Google thing about your site (right now).
Your site description starts with-sexy nurse illustration- which is for the image with this article. If you no followed the image would it not show the description?

#/sms ;-)  at 8:36 pm on Mar 19, 2008

sweet picture…
red cross? - white cross = switzerland
greez from *.ch

#Lee Cameron  at 3:59 am on Mar 21, 2008

With reference to the 404 page in neoclassical do I have to do something to get them to work?

Also, I am adding pages to my site and navigation using manage pages in WP but these don’t show or work. Again, do I have to do something to enable them?

#Trish  at 5:13 pm on Mar 23, 2008

Brilliant article. Thanks so much for sharing!

#Bahadir eryigit  at 1:39 am on Mar 26, 2008

Very good article. Thanks so much for sharing!

#varun  at 12:51 am on Mar 28, 2008

The results for me have been far more astonishing using this.Well it really helped me.Sure you need an applause.
I need to thoroughly revise your blog Pearson.And one more thing.You are the only one hanging with PR7 without updating your blog.You need to be genius to do that.

#Rob  at 3:11 pm on Mar 28, 2008

“analysis paralysis. This is a condition where users, when presented with too many options, end up selecting nothing at all.”

And this differs from your column on the right which has THIRTY ONE posts broken down into different sections?

…I’m just sayin’

:)

By the way, I completely agree with you. It all comes down to the reality that less is more. Clutter is a killer. Insert sloganistic reasons to trim down here. Regardless of the reason, it’s the right thing to do, and it applies to much more than categories.

#Alana  at 5:33 am on Mar 29, 2008

Space above the fold is precious and specificity is king to getting readers to stay at your site. Thanks for the tip - I’m already seeing the benefits of targeting my through traffic with this technique.

#Murphy Mac  at 8:54 pm on Mar 29, 2008

I’m planning the first overhaul of my site - thanks for this post, great information and it gives me some ideas.
I’d love to implement some of the look and feel of this site. It’s very pleasing to the eye. Thanks again.
- Murphy

#Amanda  at 5:35 pm on Mar 30, 2008

Hey, I went to your blog because I’m using your wordpress theme for my site. Anyway, good article. It took me awhile to figure out just how want to use and organize the categories. But I think I’ve got it down and it should work. Thanks for the tips on this article.

#Cheryl  at 9:52 pm on Mar 31, 2008

This is the best advice - the librarian in me loves it and wonders why I didn’t think of it myself. Now that I have chosen a handful of categories for my ButWhatNow blog, I am more focused on what I will choose to write about.

That alone is worth its weight in gold.

#Norswap  at 6:48 am on Apr 5, 2008

Diminishing the clutter in the sidebar is sure a great thing to do, but deleting categories is a bit extreme, so basically I clearly disagree with you.

I wrote about it here.

#Ralph  at 8:13 am on Apr 9, 2008

Thank you for this article to help me to improve my own blog-concept in next time ;)

Ralph

#Ted  at 7:30 am on Apr 16, 2008

With Brian and Aaron moving to the premium content model do you have any plans to bring Pearsonified or DIYThemes down that route?

#Manny J  at 11:22 pm on Apr 16, 2008

First of, thanks for your free WP template. I am playing with it right now and incidentally, in the middle of deciding how to setup the Permalink Structure properly for my new blog. I am quite new with this so I am learning much about your ideas here.

Anyway, I just want you to know that I bookmarked your site just to get a quick look at your ideas from time to time.

Thanks for this meaty post. Sure will help a lot of people.

#ClarkeW  at 1:38 am on Apr 17, 2008

Thanks for the tip. I’m getting ready to implement this on one of my blogs to clean things up a bit.

#Dan  at 5:35 am on Apr 18, 2008

I’ve taken a long hard look at my categories lately, and am about to pair them down for the second time in the life of my site.

Originally I had a very high number, but migrated them across to tags (as they were really only supplying “meta” data, and not providing any structure). The problem is, even if you assign each post to a category, you’re still giving your readers a “river” of posts.

My upcoming redesign takes my new category structure (which consists of 4 categories) and arranges the front page of my site in such a way that posts in these categories are grouped together.

In my mind, for a blog that has no single topic, this is a better structure than floods of unrelated content.

#lizzie  at 1:17 pm on Apr 21, 2008

Chris
Your article on categories was very interesting and many of the points you make seem extremely valid.

However, being new to your blog, I found myself roaming around trying to establish the relationship between articles listed under “Must Read”, “Improve Your Blog” and “Worth A Look”.

Where did I start? What was the sequence? Perhaps in this case, there is no sequence and that is the answer. Every article is of equal interest. In which case, the headings are attractive but meaningless.

There is a case for categories and archives as basically our minds like order, however boring it might seem. We store information using patterns, and the more familiar those patterns are, the more likely we are able to retrieve that information again.

I would really like my blog to end up as attractive as yours, but will probably go for the familiar.

#Anthony  at 9:52 pm on Apr 21, 2008

I can’t believe I’ve only just discovered this place. :) So a great place to learn. As for this post, well, it’s a brilliant article. It’s definitely got me thinking about my categories . Luckily for me a have 3 blogs so I can go and do some experimenting :)

#Law Firm Marketing  at 4:30 pm on May 3, 2008

Chris:

I’ve just recently completed a total overhaul of my site and am currently implementing your Neoclassical Theme.

My clients are all lawyers, over analytical and TIME PRESSED.

These posts are right on.

People don’t have time to just wander around a site anymore.

You need to provide direction through “Most Recent Posts”, “Worth a Look” etc.

I’m implementing what I’ve read here right now as my visitor stats confirm what you are saying.

Keep up the great work and thanks for the GREAT theme.

P.S. I’m just implementing Thesis on another site of mine and think DIY Themes is a great idea…about time you started making some money from all of this.

#Create a custom homepage in WordPress: the content — kristarella.com  at 6:32 am on May 8, 2008

[...] To show recent posts from certain categories, as I’ve done on the ASSSoc website, you can use code adapted from Chris Pearson. [...]

#Categories ain’t what they used to be  at 6:19 pm on May 8, 2008

[...] Chris Pearson explains, there are far better ways to present your content than through a long, boring list of categories. [...]

#Are Your Categories SEO Sleek or WalMart Wobbly? — SEO Noobs  at 6:21 pm on May 14, 2008

[...] Pearson came up with an excellent use for categories in his post “What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories“. Using two or three categories, not only can you guide readers to your best and brightest [...]

#Charles  at 10:19 pm on May 14, 2008

Excellent arguement. I think you are right. Surfers aren’t the most patient people, so you have a very limited time window to grab them before they leave. Streamlining your blog makes sense not only for the visitor, but you’ll reap seo benefits too.

#TheYoungGuy  at 2:03 am on May 20, 2008

Chris, First let me tell you I love this idea. It is exactly what I have been looking for. However, with the theme I am using (and don’t want to lose) I can’t seem to get it to work. Maybe I don’t understand just how to get it to work right. I posted the code in the (in mycase) lsidebar.php file directly under and I can see the the post listing (followed by number???) but it doesn’t match the font of the page and its really an eyesore. So take a look and tell me how I can get it to look the way the rest of my page does. If I can get this right, I will be killing the other items in my sidebar. But please help me out.
Site address - http://www.theyoungguy.com
-TheYoungGuy

#David Cooley  at 4:04 pm on May 20, 2008

Excellent article, most blogs need to work on Categories and Tags.

I have taken 1 or 2 more steps on my site.

I renamed the Category to Tips, so that the url now includes the word Tips instead of Category. I then assign only one Category to each post, and use Tags to break it down. I think of it like a Music Store, each category is like a genre, then the Tags are the real descriptors.

Using this method I have Blogging Tips, Programming Tips etc and I show the last 7 from each Category, giving me 28 previous posts in the sidebar.

Another benefit is that the Tags are giving me a lot of double listings in the SERPS this way.

#Bruce Keener  at 4:13 pm on May 20, 2008

David,

A heads-up: if you haven’t already, you probably need to modify your .htaccess file so that it contains something like the following

Redirect 301 /category/ http://www.yoursitename.com/tag/

Otherwise, for all of your pages that have been indexed by Goolge, Yahoo, MSN, and who knows who else, those indexed pages are going to generate 404 errors. Unless you fix it, this could end up hurting your ranking and will drive your search traffic to way down.

#Chris P.  at 4:15 pm on May 20, 2008

TheYoungGuy — In order to get your new sidebar items to display in a manner that is consistent with the rest of your sidebar, you simply need to mimic the existing markup structure when you insert your new items. Here’s the exact code you’ll need to add for your template:

<li class="widget">
   <ul>
<?php
   query_posts('category_name=Popular&showposts=5');
   while (have_posts()) :
      the_post();
?>
      <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?> <?php comments_number('0', '1', '%'); ?></a></li>
<?php
   endwhile;
?>
   </ul>
</li>
#Bruce Keener  at 4:16 pm on May 20, 2008

BTW, David, if you want to see what 404 errors are being generated, you may want to install Alex King’s 404 WordPress Plugin. It works nicely for that. You’ll see a lot of meaningless stuff (such as hack attempts, where someone tries to use a GET to access your information), but you will see where there are genuine problems, too.

#Chris P.  at 4:18 pm on May 20, 2008

David — I love the music store analogy. Sometimes it helps to have some real-world metaphors to get you thinking and organizing things in a sensible way.

#David Cooley  at 4:24 pm on May 20, 2008

@Bruce, I took care of the redirects initially. I have no “Category” pages indexed, and my Tag pages rank very well. As it is, I probably monitor my site to much, lol. Thanks for the Tip on the plugin.

My 404 page retrieves my Tags which has helped immensely keeping visitors on my site even when they hit a 404.

#David Cooley  at 4:30 pm on May 20, 2008

@Chris, Thanks, I love analogies, they really help me learn. I even rank for the term “analogy examples”, lol.

#Chris P.  at 4:43 pm on May 20, 2008

David — Ha, that’s great! I’d say that’s definitely your bag.

#TheYoungGuy  at 10:58 pm on May 20, 2008

Chris P. - Well I posted the code you gave me and its still not working correctly. I don’t need to wipe the rest of the code for the lsidebar.php do I? I don’t think I should. When I posted the new code, it spaced out the post titles. Thats it!!!

Check it out again… Tell me where I need to be posting this code.
http://www.theyoungguy.com
-TheYoungGuy

#TheYoungGuy  at 11:04 pm on May 20, 2008

Ok so… I got the format of the links to show correctly but how do I add the header for each section. And, Im sorry… Im an idiot when it comes to php.

There is still a “0” after each link too… Why?

-TheYoungGuy

#kristarella  at 11:40 pm on May 20, 2008

TheYoungGuy — The 0 is the comment count. If you don’t want comment numbers remove:

<?php comments_number('0', '1', '%'); ?>

As for headings, have a look at your source code (right click on website and ‘view source code’). You can see how the widget headings come out: <h2 class="widgettitle">Popular Posts</h2> before <ul>. Should do.

#TheYoungGuy  at 1:47 am on May 21, 2008

Kristarella - Thank you!!! You are a life saver. Collectively I thank you all….
This blog is fantastic and I will continue to return. Also I will add a link to my site for this one.
Once again, Thank you Kristarella and Chris P.

-TheYoungGuy-

#Links 05/22/2008 (a.m.) « Peter’s Side Thoughts  at 4:45 am on May 22, 2008

[...] What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories — Pearsonified [...]

#Mastering Your WordPress Theme Hacks and Techniques  at 4:59 pm on May 25, 2008

[...] 1)What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories- You can help your users, improve your SEO, and gain absolute control over your content by implementing your own WordPress category solution! [...]

#Meticulous Design: Information Architecture » Inspiration Bit  at 6:32 am on May 28, 2008

[...] them in my blog’s new design anymore, thanks to Chris Pearson’s enlightening article on What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories, where he warns us that: By giving users a list of categories to browse on your site, you are [...]

#Toure  at 10:53 am on Jun 2, 2008

Who you fooling? Your links don’t work!

#Chris P.  at 12:16 am on Jun 4, 2008

Toure — Sorry about the problem with the links! Murphy’s Law dictates that I am eternally screwed, and in keeping with that trend, the DIYthemes server crashed while I was traveling across the country in a U-Haul.

You’ll be happy to know that everything is fine now, though :-D

#PocketBlogger  at 6:11 am on Jun 4, 2008

Hi, I just wanted to let you know we are going to use your theme for our mobile weblog! It’s a easy design thanks!

#Pinay Jade  at 8:40 am on Jun 4, 2008

Very useful article. Thank you for writing this…I badly need to re organize my blog, I will definitely come back and make good use of your tips.

#Category Label in Sidebar Important or Not ? : Tech At Hand dot Net | Philippine, Blogging, SEO & Tips  at 8:26 am on Jun 7, 2008

[...] Remove the category links at the sidebar , This is because I have been influenced in by this post [ What Every Blogger Needs To know about categories ] , With this I could be able to follow the sufggestion of most SEO practicioner , That in order for [...]

#» Blog Design And Category SEO Killers Blog Marketing Journal  at 10:44 am on Jun 12, 2008

[...] recently came across an oldish (Feb 08) post on Pearsonified titled What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories which had a novel but sensible twist on categories. Rather than divide categories into the normal [...]

#Tony Kenoi  at 11:23 am on Jun 17, 2008

This is a really good use of categories.

My thinking is that in order to control “bloat” it is good practice to opt for either tags or categories but not both.

What do you think?

cheers
Tony

#Chris Pearson  at 12:01 pm on Jun 17, 2008

Tony — If categories and tags are using sparingly, there are very few semantic differences between the two. In most cases, I would opt for categories, simply because they are set up more like a filing system, especially on the WordPress dashboard. The categorical hierarchy can be useful for serving up very specific types of information in different areas of the site, so on that basis, I think categories may also be slightly more useful.

Either way, though—you’ll be controlling link bloat, and that’s a great move for the future of your site!

#Brisbane web designer  at 12:06 am on Jun 19, 2008

I really like the idea of a “must read” category. I’ll give it a go. Thanks for the tip.

#Matt O'Toole  at 1:22 am on Jun 20, 2008

Chris,

I’m using this inside a text widget but it’s not working. Here’s my code — I changed the category name to Featured, and nixed the comment count:

<a href=”" rel=”bookmark”>

BTW I’m changing to your Thesis theme shortly.

#Matt O'Toole  at 1:28 am on Jun 20, 2008

Oops, I guess I can’t post code to your comments!

#Chris Pearson  at 2:59 am on Jun 20, 2008

Matt — Have you tried inserting code directly into, say, sidebar.php instead of inserting it through a text widget? I’ve noticed that WordPress tends to spit out a lot of unnecessary HTML in text widgets, and more than likely, you’ll be able to eliminate these problems by doing it yourself. Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes.

#Kher Cheng Guan  at 2:40 pm on Jun 21, 2008

Yeah, that’s why when I look at your “WORTH A LOOK”, I suffer a severe case of analysis paralysis. Anything more than ten is “busy” or “hazy”.

#Chris Pearson  at 2:47 pm on Jun 21, 2008

Kher — I completely agree. I think I’ll whip up a bit of code to randomize and display 5 posts from that category. Thanks for the tip!

#Erik  at 7:10 am on Jul 2, 2008

Great post, and I’m working to restructure about 60 posts on my site. My question is whether it is best to implement siloing with posts, pages, or both. I’ve read many articles (some linked to here) that highly recommend using static pages for key articles and posts to expand and link to the pages.

#Chris Pearson  at 2:54 am on Jul 6, 2008

Erik — Unless your URL structure differs between pages and posts, it really makes no difference which you use for your major articles. From a search engine’s standpoint, there’s no difference between pages and posts—at that point, it’s all just HTML.

#Matt Wilson  at 6:41 pm on Jul 17, 2008

This could of not been more clear. On my website I had a total of 4 categories and under each category I had about 2 to 3 different internal links. I had an avg. of 59% rate read through the first 30 seconds on my page. In other words 59% or so of all traffic stayed longer than 30 seconds on my site, this of coarse includes spiders and such. I thought that by adding more options and more categories to choose from, I would bring in a wider span of the traffic, I was wrong. My bounce off rate increased to 73%. I found that 73% off the traffic were just leaving the page within the first 30 seconds. Too much choices, not enough time.

#Aaron Queen  at 5:53 pm on Jul 21, 2008

Chris.. I have been debating removing the category list from my sidebar and instead putting popular posts in its place. What are your thoughts on this. I was also going to remove the category list from the home page but possibly leave it on for individual posts or the other way around. I would love to know what you would do.

#app  at 2:30 am on Jul 22, 2008

I started using Wordpress as a CMS to make my life easier, converting a directory of book links from a single hand coded static page of over 400 links to something much easier to manage and much more useful to my visitors.

The categories list is important to my site, and without it on my sidebar, I might as well have kept the old crappy static page, with the category list in a table at the top and anchor links to jump to that part of the page, and entries repeated multiple times on the page. (it became a lot of work to add new links and remove dead ones!).

In the partcular case of my very specialized book directory, the longer my category list is, the better my site is (or at least it is perceived that way by my visitors), and visitors can tell at a glance if I could possibly have what they are looking for.

I probably have the best use of the default style of displaying the categories list that you have seen. The list was pretty much planned before I made my first post.

Those category pages are the most viewed pages on my site.

If you take a look, you will probably agree that in a case like this, the long list is the best way to do it, otherwise I would have to do what you suggested for every category and the sidebar would be many miles long, because ALL of the posts on my blog are “valuable, compelling content that is also completely relevant right now”.

http://appsapps.com/ebooks/

(I really could use a 3rd column, though. Need to mess around and add one when I am not feeling particularly lazy)

#Rexibit  at 12:01 pm on Jul 22, 2008

Another great article. Using categories to manage your blog into smaller chunks is a necessity. The trick is to divide it enough to be organized, but not enough to be empty.

#Brock  at 9:37 am on Jul 23, 2008

Hi Chris - This is the first article that I’ve read on your site, but I’m sure it isn’t the last! Thanks.

In thinking about how I might apply this to my site, it occurred to me that I could have posts that fall into more than one category (to use your system as an example, a “Must Read” article that is about how to “Improve Your Blog”). But I don’t see any duplicates in your sidebar. Do you only apply one category to each post? Would it be a bad idea to have the same post appear in different parts of the sidebar?

Also, what is your basis for categorizing articles as “Worth A Look”?

Thanks again. Great site.

#Chris Pearson  at 1:43 pm on Jul 23, 2008

Brock — My sidebar links are more about visibility and SEO than any meaningful type of categorization. If an article is a “Must Read,” then I do not place it in the “Improve Your Blog” category, even if it makes sense to do so. Basically, I just want one link to the article from every page on my site, primarily because that is most efficient setup for optimization.

Oh, and “Worth a Look” is simply a catch-all for articles that I wanted to be visible but really didn’t know how to categorize. I’ve written about a variety of topics over the years, and categorizing them all appropriately would have resulted in too much junk in the sidebar.

#James Joyner  at 7:46 am on Jul 24, 2008

My main site’s got 21,000 plus posts and counting so I’m not sure how I’d use this sort of system. I use use Similar Posts and Recent Posts but I also display categories and tags, which have their own archive pages.

I seem to do quite well in search rankings and get a significant number of referrals coming in to monthly archive and tag and category pages because of the cross-pollination of keywords.

I also own a celebrity gossip site with a ridiculous number of categories, most of which I’ve deprecated to tags since moving to 2.5. I display those links and get an inordinate amount of my traffic as a result of having all those keywords showing up.

#James Joyner  at 7:48 am on Jul 24, 2008

Should have noted above: I think that most of the “How To Blog” blogs are written based on the experiences of “How to Blog” bloggers, which is a unique subset. If you’re writing a how-to guide in serial fashion, there’s much less utility in traditional categorization than if you’re writing a news site.

#John Haydon  at 4:57 pm on Jul 29, 2008

Chris,

I tried to implement this code, but realize that it’s actually cut off in your posting. Where can I get the full code?

Thanks,

John

#Chris Pearson  at 5:30 pm on Jul 29, 2008

John — Unless you’re using IE6, you should be able to scroll the code boxes and see everything. I just checked the source, and it’s definitely not cut off.

#John Haydon  at 7:24 pm on Jul 29, 2008

You were right. Damn… IE is really a piece of crap….

#Changes to RowdyKittens  at 1:25 pm on Aug 2, 2008

[...] night I read, What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories, and decided to make some changes on [...]

#ClarkeW  at 12:58 am on Aug 5, 2008

Hey Chris,

Thanks for this tip. I seem to have run into a weird problem with this when I implement it on my sidebar. Currently I’m running to the All-In-One-SEO plugin to customize by post titles and description tags. Everytime that I implement custom categories with this code in my sidebar it seems to mess up the way the plugin displays my titles and descriptions. I’ve analyzed it and I cannot come up with why it would be doing this.

Have you seen anything like this before?

Thanks,
Clarke

#Categories Function - DIY Themes Forums  at 2:43 am on Aug 6, 2008

[...] and then list the five or six most recent posts under those categories as per Chris’s blog: What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories Pearsonified so when I stumbled upon the bit of code in the sidebar.php I thought they might be related .. but [...]

#Interesting Articles #8 » DivitoDesign - Webdesign Blog  at 2:21 pm on Aug 6, 2008

[...] What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories - Wanted to post this article for some time now. This changes the way we look at Categories and [...]

#mithun  at 8:58 am on Aug 7, 2008

thanks for the post. i just subscribed ur Rss. and now onwards i will be a regular visit to ur blog. thanks

#What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories — Pearsonified | SEO Update  at 8:25 am on Aug 15, 2008

[...] What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories — Pearsonified. [...]

#Mel  at 11:00 am on Aug 22, 2008

I was getting soooo confused and freaky over categories, tags et al. THANK YOU for making sense of them. Now to do something about it…
btw - Love your work … shame you’re not for hire ;)

#Ride it like you stole it  at 1:59 pm on Aug 25, 2008

Is there a Blogger Widget available for most popular posts?

#5 Articles To Better Blogging — Custom WordPress  at 12:08 am on Aug 26, 2008

[...] What Every Blogger Needs To Know About Categories: Because of the use of categories, and now tags, sometimes our most important content gets lost in the belly of the beast (blog) so to speak. Chris Pearson shows you how to manipulate your categories to show your readers where your most valuable articles are. [...]

#Bill Bennett  at 11:53 pm on Aug 31, 2008

Is there a way of using this concept in a Wordpress.com blog?

#John Haydon  at 12:26 am on Sep 1, 2008

Hi all,

Since I implemented this category/tag approach in my blog I have doubled my traffic and newsletter subscribers.

Great job!

John Haydon
http://www.corporatedollar.org

#100+ Killer Wordpress Resources | Steffan Antonas' Blog  at 1:36 pm on Sep 1, 2008

[...] What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories [...]

#cesty  at 11:54 am on Sep 2, 2008

Chris,

I would really like to do something like this with the Thesis theme, except I would like to do it with pages rather than posts.

Would you explain to me how I could accomplish this?

#Chris Pearson  at 2:59 am on Sep 4, 2008

Bill — I don’t think WordPress.com allows you to add custom PHP, so you won’t be able to create easy-to-use sidebar widgets to help with your category links. However, if you simply “prune your category tree,” so to speak, you can still achieve similar results. Internal linking is more of a strategy than a coding challenge, and if you give this issue some thought, I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with a solution that will help boost your site.

cesty — WordPress allows you to work with both posts and pages, and because of this, you’ll be able to build your site however you want. Thesis doesn’t care whether you’re using posts or pages, so you should have no real trouble building a page-based site with Thesis as your underlying framework. The only issues I can foresee would involve linking up some of your pages in the sidebar, but you’ll definitely be able to get the job done using default tools provided to you by both WordPress and Thesis.

#Bill Bennett  at 4:06 am on Sep 4, 2008

Hi Chris, that’s pretty much what I did. I’ve dropped from about 18 to 12 categories. I think it can drop further as they are only for internal navigation and not tags used externally.

This is yet another reason to consider switching to self-hosted Wordpress. But to be honest, at this stage I’m not getting enough traffic for it to be worth the effort.

#cesty  at 5:07 pm on Sep 4, 2008

Thanks for the response Chris.

Actually, if you go to my site now you will get an idea of what I want to do, as I made a major update to it.

Notice where it says, Inspiration, Subscribe Here, and Bible Study…

I wanted my ‘parent’ pages to be set up like that rather than to have them as subpages to the Title sections.

If you have a solution for this that would be great. However, I can live with the way it looks now as it doesn’t look bad.

#Dave Dragon  at 2:02 pm on Sep 9, 2008

Anyone know of a Blogger hack for doing this?

#Rapid Blogger  at 6:24 am on Sep 11, 2008

I strongly agree with this post. The more organized your categories are, the better for the blog. When I look back, I realized that I have not harness this powerful linking tool to my advantage. I think it has worsen my other sites SEO position.

Thanks for providing this info. Very informative.

#Bryan Thompson  at 3:46 pm on Sep 12, 2008

I tried implementing this with my Thesis Theme. I tried embedding the code in a Text Widget. That didn’t work. Maybe I’m too new to this, but I thought if you start using widgets and modifying sidebar.php were mutually exclusive.
Also, I was laboring under the assumption that with Thesis, I might be able to stay out of the sidebar.php altogether.
Chris, what do you mean in your post to Cesty ‘using the default tools provided by Wordpress and Thesis.
Thanks for any clarification.

#legacy daily  at 1:35 pm on Sep 14, 2008

I appreciate your article here and have implemented what you propose on my site. However, my greatest challenge is finding meaningful categories. Any advice? Ideas?

#Chris Pearson  at 12:40 pm on Sep 16, 2008

Bryan — Typically, if a technical or WordPress-related article appears here, you can bank on the fact that I’ve incorporated it into Thesis in some way. In this case, you should use a built-in Thesis function (thesis_widget_recent_posts()) to generate category links.

For the sake of example, let’s say that you want to display 6 posts from the “popular” category, and you want your sidebar widget to have a heading that says “Popular Posts.” Here’s the code you’d need to add to your sidebar.php file (this assumes you’re running version 1.1):

thesis_widget_recent_posts('popular', 'Popular Posts', 6);

I’d offer this code in a widget that you can access from the WP dashboard, but the problem is that doing so would not allow you to call multiple versions of this widget. For instance, you may wish to loop through posts from 3 or 4 categories in your sidebar, and with a WordPress widget, you’d only be able to specify one category (and then you wouldn’t be able to use that widget again).

I’m working on a workaround, but for now, this is what you’ve got to do if you want to loop through categories dynamically.

#Zack Live  at 2:46 pm on Sep 17, 2008

List of Ping Service Websites…

Ping service is for you to tell the world automatically that your blog was updated. Here is the definition of Ping from Wikipedia:
In blogging, ping is an XML-RPC-based push mechanism by which a weblog notifies a server that its content has been updat…

#ThoughtFarm » Blog Archive » 5 Articles To Better Blogging  at 4:53 pm on Sep 19, 2008

[...] What Every Blogger Needs To Know About Categories: Because of the use of categories, and now tags, sometimes our most important content gets lost in the belly of the beast (blog) so to speak. Chris Pearson shows you how to manipulate your categories to show your readers where your most valuable articles are. [...]

#John McGehee  at 5:34 pm on Sep 27, 2008

Do you have any comment on Link Categories. In my limited experience, they are all set to “blogroll”.

#Bryan Thompson  at 5:52 pm on Sep 27, 2008

John, Blogroll is the default link category. You can create addtional link categories Then when you add other Links, you can assign them to a specific Link Category(other than Blogroll). It is similar to Posts which will go to the Uncategorized Category until you create more Categories and then assign posts to those categories.

#Bryan  at 9:57 am on Oct 2, 2008

Chris, I posted a question on the DiyThemes about styling widgets and got no replies. I’m not asking for a direct how-to do this, but if you could point me in the right direction or how to ask the question, I would sure appreciate it. Here’s the question.

How does one customize the Catalog comments as you did here on Pearsonified and over at Copyblogger? I don’t want to grab the exact layout, but I would to have some more control over font, color and the ability to stick some sort of image in there as you do.
ps. I am willing to pay for this kind of information (or someone who knows how to do it)

#Chris Pearson  at 11:01 am on Oct 2, 2008

Bryan — Each sidebar widget is labeled with a unique class (in the HTML) that you can use to apply custom styles through your custom stylesheet. This allows you to target and customize the elements you like without affecting the rest of the layout.

The only real downside here, though, is that it requires you to understand (and be able to use) both CSS and HTML. If that doesn’t seem like something that’s going to be reasonable for you, then I recommend asking for some customization help over in the forums. There are quite a few users roaming around who are quite competent and would probably love to help you out for some small fee.

#Doug C.  at 1:51 am on Oct 9, 2008

That’s why I just made myself a “Best of” content box and update it regularly with links to articles that get the most visitors.

#Grace  at 3:16 pm on Oct 12, 2008

Hey Chris,

I saw this great post on categories from a link on ProBlogger, and I’ve linked to THIS site in my post on 25 ways to make a post stickier.

Hope that’s OK?

And yes, I DO use DIY themes. They rock!

Great writing!

Grace

#John Haydon  at 4:28 pm on Oct 12, 2008

Chris,

I love how your category links are formatted here. Mine are bunched together on my blog (see “popular”, “how to”, “latest”). I have my categories based on this sidebar 2 php code I’m using:

<a href="" rel="bookmark"></a>

Any tips on how I can get my category linked formatted better?

Thanks,

John

#Ron  at 7:01 am on Oct 25, 2008

hoo hoo, nothing like a little linguistic porn to spice up a site. (I’m going to go look for that widget right now! >(:?D

#Blogging Basics 101 » Do you know the difference between tags and categories?  at 1:59 am on Nov 19, 2008

[...] What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories via Pearsonified [...]

#johan  at 4:28 pm on Nov 22, 2008

The code worked great for me, until I moved it from my footer to my sidebar. When it is placed before my posts and the loop it effects the rest of the page so now only the the posts in the popular category are displayed on the page.

Does anyone know what the problem is?

#kristarella  at 6:45 pm on Nov 22, 2008

johan, yes the query_posts will interrupt the loop.

One solution is to get a semantically written theme. In my opinion it is poor form to put the sidebar before the content. It’s not necessary for styling and your most important stuff should come first in the code, load first etc.

Apart from that the WordPress docs say you should use WP_Query for extra loops. I didn’t really figure this extra query stuff out, but I know Chris knows how to do it now, maybe he can help out.

#johan  at 7:41 pm on Nov 22, 2008

kristarella, thank you for the reply. It’s true that the code might not be semantically correct. I’m still developing the site and change stuff all the time. Originally I had not planned to use a sidebar, so added one the easiest possible way, by using float: right. It’s simple, valid and doesn’t need hacks to work in i6.

Multiple loops are documentet here but my php skills are really limited. I would be great if someone knew what to do.

#kristarella  at 8:11 pm on Nov 22, 2008

Ok, thanks for that link. Very helpful.

In that case, using the last example in this post, you might be able to do something like:
<?php
$my_query = new WP_Query(’category_name=Popular&showposts=5′);
while $my_query->have_posts()) :
the_post();
?>
<li><a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><?php the_title(); ?> <?php comments_number(’0′, ‘1′, ‘%’); ?></a></li>

<?php
endwhile;
?>

Haven’t tested that. If it still interferes with the loop you might need to unset the query:
<?php
$my_query = new WP_Query(’category_name=Popular&showposts=5′);
while $my_query->have_posts()) :
the_post();
?>
<li><a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><?php the_title(); ?> <?php comments_number(’0′, ‘1′, ‘%’); ?></a></li>

<?php
endwhile;
unset($my_query);
wp_reset_query();
?>

#kristarella  at 8:58 pm on Nov 22, 2008

Hmm, if you copy the above code you will probably need to replace those quotation marks with plain ones.

#johan  at 9:07 pm on Nov 22, 2008

Thank you for the effort. I got syntax error even after replacing the quotations, but with your code and the wp codex I think I can get it right if I only spend som more time with it.

But maybe rewriting the css is the best thing to do after all… Anyway, it’s getting really late here so it has to wait until tomorrow. Thank you so much for the help

#Royal Dragon  at 4:52 pm on Nov 24, 2008

Thanks for this very useful post!

#How to Customize Sidebar with Hooks - DIY Themes Forums  at 10:43 pm on Nov 25, 2008

[...] reading Chris’ post on "What Every Blogger Needs To Know About Categories" url below… What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories Pearsonified Chris advocates grouping posts under selected categories which the sidebar displays a few. But the [...]

#精通Wordpress系列教程- 1: 精通Wordpress主题Hacks与技巧 - pi4.cn 屁事网  at 10:32 am on Dec 7, 2008

[...] 1)What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories- 你可以帮助你的用户, 改善你的搜索引擎优化, 并且对你的内容获得绝对的控制权,从而实现你自己的WordPress分类解决方法! [...]

#Next Up - How to Use Categories in WordPress  at 1:45 am on Dec 15, 2008

[...] the topics I will be focusing on this week will be utilizing categories throughout my site and (later this week) figuring out how to work effectively with [...]

#Martin Czernik  at 11:47 am on Dec 15, 2008

What if I want to use the Categories to make content for separate pages?

I have only two main Categories, News and Blog.
I would like to divid these entries to two separate pages.

I have the links, but how do I make them work together with Pages?

#lenen nl  at 12:49 am on Dec 16, 2008

I like to have 2 categories. One for permanent knowledge and 1 for news etc.

#kunstacademie  at 4:47 am on Dec 17, 2008

Thanx for this great article! I liked it a lot!

#Are Your WordPress Categories SEO Sleek or WalMart Wobbly?  at 8:36 pm on Dec 22, 2008

[...] Pearson came up with an excellent use for categories in his post “What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories“. Using two or three categories, not only can you guide readers to your best and brightest [...]

#Are Your WordPress Blog Categories SEO Sleek or WalMart Wobbly? | Internet Marketing Snowballs  at 3:09 pm on Dec 30, 2008

[...] Pearson came up with an excellent use for categories in his post “What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories“. Using two or three categories, not only can you guide readers to your best and brightest [...]

#Dotty  at 8:33 pm on Dec 31, 2008

Hi Chris
Could you elaborate on the correct way to use tags? Also is Technorati Tags the same as Tags? How does a Tag cloud effect linking as far as SEO is concerned?

When I started my blog I was told to use 1 Category per post and no more than 3 tags per post. I have no idea how this effects search rankings.

#Ken  at 1:59 pm on Jan 4, 2009

I have wondered for sometime now, how I could create a better structure for my posts, since I never like the default categories system in WP, that much.

Thanks to your post, I have started to think out of the box, for how I should do this on my own blog.

#Maddy  at 11:09 am on Jan 21, 2009

Amazing post, very useful. Thanks!

#Live voetbal kijken  at 4:37 pm on Jan 21, 2009

Nice post! Definitely time to take a critical look at my own categories, it’s quite a mess indeed.

Thanks!

#Blog Shot  at 5:22 pm on Jan 25, 2009

I love the nurse graphic. She’s hot ! I’d like to see a similar discussion about tags.

#Holland Blinds  at 10:21 pm on Jan 27, 2009

Yes, tags are a bit of a mystery to me. Won’t tags create duplicate content on the blog with a page for every tag?

#Will  at 3:55 pm on Jan 28, 2009

Hi, I inserted the catergorizing code in sidebar.php, and it worked great. I was able to add a couple h2 headings and slap the code under each– just what I was after. The only problem is that, for some reason, when I add the code my meta group disapears from the sidebar. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

Will

#Temple Web Design  at 6:40 pm on Feb 1, 2009

Thanks, this brought me to look at your own categorization and see what you did right. I think it’s hard to find examples of blogs that are both well laid-out and make sense as far as usability.

I’m having trouble categorizing my blog because I’m not sure what its focus is right now. Should I use subcategories? General categories like “Email” and “Web Design”? How much do I really have to say about Blogging?It’s tough when you haven’t written all that much, and you’re not sure what you have to say and what readers want to see.

#Leyton Jay  at 11:18 am on Feb 4, 2009

Awesome take on the use of catergories, genius.

And I’ll definately be using your WordPress themes in the not-too-distant future.

#Weer Amsterdam  at 2:28 pm on Feb 21, 2009

I’ve got a wordpress website as well and have incorporated the theme immediately. I rank higher now!

#Intermediate Search Engine Optimization Tips from SEO Expert Gab Goldenberg | The Truth Diggers  at 1:32 pm on Feb 22, 2009

[...] positioning and anchor text. That’s a plugin I had created specially. You can also do what Chris Pearson did with his sidebar, which was to feature the best posts in each category. You don’t need to [...]

#Helena Denley  at 2:11 am on Mar 22, 2009

I came across this post last night - very impressed with the idea, so went through my personal blog (which I am completely re-doing) & installed the Thesis theme, got rid of all the old categories, came up with a few new ones that I want to sit in the sidebar - like you have on this site & then discover that when I jump into the theme editor in the Wordpress dashboard, there is no “sidebar.php” file there to edit as you list instructions above.
I’m used to customising Studiopress templates & Thesis is very different in it’s layout.
So my question now is, how do I implement your suggestions above into the Thesis layout?
Help

Helena

#Joanne of Open Mind Required  at 1:47 pm on Mar 31, 2009

I would also like to know the answer to Helena’s question. My blog is a mess and I’m going to be getting the Thesis template.

I SO needed to read this article and all the comments. I’m so excited about upcoming changes to my hidious blog. And you’ve really clarified the purpose of categories for me.

It would also be great if you could comment on the questions regarding the purpose of tags, because I’m equally confused about that. (I’ve just now learned about link juice!)

#Chris Pearson  at 4:00 pm on Mar 31, 2009

Joanne — Personally, I would recommend that you avoid the use of tags entirely. With Thesis, you’ll be able to use tags in a way that doesn’t affect your SEO, but unless you have a very specific, compelling reason to use them, I think you simply ought to avoid them.

#Joanne of Open Mind Required  at 6:43 pm on Apr 2, 2009

Thanks, Chris.

This theme rocks!

#How to use categories to your advantage  at 8:43 am on Apr 10, 2009

[...] What Every Blogger Needs To Know About Categories at [...]

#Jade Barbee | EFT  at 8:02 am on Apr 21, 2009

I’m glad someone is finally talking about this! I’m just learning the fine art of organizing categories to accept and display my content. My buddy Jason (http://www.jasonwhipple.com) is creating my new site to take even better advantage of using categories — He’s making a magazine layout for my site where, as I assign a category, my data can fly to the pages where I need it.

#WordPress Resources: The Ultimate Collection « DivitoDesign  at 4:52 pm on Apr 27, 2009

[...] What Every Blogger need to know about Categories [...]

#Interesting Articles #8 « DivitoDesign  at 4:58 pm on Apr 27, 2009

[...] What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories – Wanted to post this article for some time now. This changes the way we look at Categories [...]

#sjefen  at 9:32 am on May 12, 2009

Hmm.. Another thing i must control. Weird that i never has read this another place, but, i know when i play with the big dogs. :P

#Sarah B  at 9:44 pm on May 22, 2009

Very useful information. I love the categories you use and the way they are presented with interesting and appeling graphics.

#Craigs  at 12:13 pm on May 28, 2009

Not sure if the iron is still hot here…but here goes.

ChrisP you mentioned liking real life examples. I have
spent the whole week trying to get my head around
this one….maybe this will grab you.

I am building a web property that will present
helpful information about Homeopathic Remedies.
It is being compiled from a synthesis of multiple
medical textbooks.

Using the fantabulous Thesis :)

I am wondering if I can use Categories and Tags
together in a creative way to make the content
highly searchable later.

Each REMEDY could be a POST (probably end up with 2-300)

The nature of homeopathic remedies though is that
a single cure can deal with multiple ailments.

In real life, I understand that searchers tend to come at
research with the physical ailment….and probably not
look for or even know the
name of the specific name of a remedy solution (product.)

By placing all the POSTS (remedies) inside a single category REMEDIES….this then gives the ability to list them all in various ways
in a side bar and also in a dedicated page. (correct?)

But how to I deal with the multiple to one relationship of the symptoms.
Can I deal with this using TAGs….would this allow me
to also create a sidebar list alphabetically listing the symptoms.
(show all TAG’s in alphabetical order from Category REMEDIES)

The usefulness, would further extend if I could find a search plugin that would allow me to search the Remedy category to show POSTS (Actual Remedies) that are combination of multiple SYMPTOMS (TAGS) together.

If so, would re-naming the TAG function to SYMPTOMS be appropriate…or am I flogging a dead horse here?

Another line of thinking led to me dealing with the SYMPTOMS not
as TAGs, but as PARENT & MULTIPLE CHILD categories
Parent Cat= Symptoms
Child Cat1= Headache
Child Cat2= Anxious
Child Cat3= Fearful
Child Cat4= Hypertense
…I guess a sidebar could show just child categories of Parent Category Symptoms, but could a search querie pull up results for multiple child cat’s together? (i.e. show me all products if you have Headache
& Fearful & Hypertense symptoms together…

In this last example, I would end up with Just two parent categories
REMEDIES & SYMPTOMS…the latter would have maybe upto 30
child categories for specific Symptoms.

Since I use Wordpress for everything else including regular sites, I would like to have a crack at this using it as CMS, but am unsure if there are flaws in my thinking.

Thanks for any replies with ideas of suggestions. :)
PS I’m pretty good at getting in and hacking.

#patrick  at 12:26 pm on Jun 8, 2009

terrific post. i see your criteria for “must read” is that the post is popular (i suppose), hence the category name. how do you decide the post is popular, in the beginning? or am i missing the “aha” moment?

what is the criteria for the “worth a look category?” what other category examples can you give us, besides the ones you use?

#Chris Pearson  at 11:10 am on Jun 15, 2009

Patrick — My popularity criteria are a mix of both subjective and objective evidence. For example, most of my “must read” articles are not only articles that I like and believe are still relevant, but they are also proven winners in the search engines (which means that these topics are things people are actually showing interest in).

For the record, I control my “must read” articles manually, and I absolutely do not use things like comment count to determine whether or not something is worth reading. Ultimately, I envision the “must read” section as a consolidated resource for the most beneficial, useful articles on my site.

#Craigs  at 12:52 pm on Jun 15, 2009

Found a serious answer to my previous request for guidance on the homeopathy multiple parent & child categories… By creating multiple taxonomies.

Hoot and/or Holler ↓