A category is a broad group that sorts your WordPress posts by topic. For example, a food blog might have categories like Breakfast, Desserts and Drinks.
Categories help visitors find related content and give your site a clear structure. They also help search engines understand what your site is about. In this article, we will see how they work and how to manage them.
How do categories work in WordPress?
Think of categories as the aisles in a supermarket. Each aisle holds one type of product, so shoppers know exactly where to go.
Here are the main rules:
- Every post must have at least one category. By default, WordPress assigns Uncategorized.
- Categories are hierarchical, so Desserts can have a child category like Cakes.
- Each category gets its own archive page, such as
/category/desserts/. - Categories are made for posts. Pages don't use them by default.
How to add a category
- First, go to Posts → Categories.
- Now, enter a Name and, if you like, a Slug for the URL.
- Next, choose a Parent Category if this is a subcategory.
- Here, add a short Description, which some themes display on the archive page.
- Finally, click Add New Category.
You can also create a category on the fly from the editor sidebar while writing a post.
Rename Uncategorized to something useful, or pick a different default in Settings → Writing. The default category itself can't be deleted.
How many categories should you have?
Keep it simple. A handful of well-planned categories works better than fifty tiny ones. I usually plan my main categories before writing the first post, because changing them later means editing a ton of old posts.
If you delete a category, its posts are not deleted. Posts with no other category simply move to the default one. Learn more in our lesson on WordPress categories and our guide on how to delete categories in WordPress.
Categories give your blog a clean, logical structure. That's all about categories. Do let us know in the comments below how you organize your posts.