custom taxonomy | The Blog Pros

Are you looking for a better way to manage post series in WordPress?

If you’re working on an online novel or simply want to cover a broad industry topic, then creating a long post may not work for you. A post series allows you to dig deep into a particular topic and encourage readers to keep coming back for more.

In this article, we’ll show you how to efficiently manage post series in WordPress.

Why Publish Post Series in WordPress?

If you are writing about a complex topic on your WordPress website, then it is often better to write a series of posts that break the topic up into smaller chunks than to write one long post.

For example, our ultimate guide to speed up WordPress is a roundup of a series of posts we published on different ways to improve your site’s performance.

When you write a big series of posts like that, it can be tough to help your readers navigate the series and find all the information in the right order.

You could simply add a paragraph before each post telling your users that the post is part of a series and then list the rest of the posts at the bottom. But then you would have to manually update every post each time you publish a new article in the series.

Another solution would be to create a custom taxonomy called ‘Series’, but this also creates more work, such as creating or customizing template files.

Luckily, there is a WordPress plugin that will help you manage a series of articles. Let’s take a look at how to efficiently manage post series in WordPress.

How to Efficiently Manage Post Series in WordPress

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Issues and Series plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

There is a premium version with more features, but for this tutorial, we’ll use the free plugin.

As soon as the plugin is activated, you will be able to create new series and add posts to it.

Creating a New Series

To create your first series, you’ll need to head over to the Posts » Manage Series page. This looks similar to the page you see when adding new categories.

Once there, you will need to type a name, slug, and description for the series. When you’re finished, you’ll need to click the ‘Add New Series’ button at the bottom of the page.

You’ll notice that the new series is added to the list on the left.

Adding Posts to the Series

Now you can add some blog posts to the series. To start, simply create a new post or edit an old one.

In the settings panel on the right of the screen, you’ll notice a new section called ‘Series’. Simply click the button next to the series you created to add this post.

Make sure you click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button at the top of the page to push the post live as part of the series.

Next, you should add any other existing posts to the series. As you continue to write new articles, simply repeat this step to add them to the series.

Customizing the Order of Posts in the Series

By default, your articles will be displayed in the order you add them to the series. However, you can customize the post order by visiting the Posts » Publish Series page in your WordPress admin area.

Here you will see all the series you have created, with columns to show how many articles are published, unpublished, and scheduled in each. You will also see links to update the post order, publish or unpublish all, and view the series.

Click the 'Update Order' Link to Reorder Your Posts

To change the order of the posts, you will need to click the ‘Update order’ link. You will now see a list of all the posts in that series.

You can reorder the articles by dragging the post names up or down the list. When you move a post, the ‘Current Part’ number will be updated automatically to reflect the new order.

Drag and Drop Your Posts to Place Them in the Right Order

When you’re happy with the order of the posts, make sure you click the ‘Update Order’ button to store your settings.

Previewing Your Post Series

Now you can visit your WordPress blog to see how your new post series looks. Simply view a post that is part of the series.

At the top of the article, there will be a message that the post is part of a series. You will also see a list of all posts in the series and can easily navigate between them by clicking a link.

You will also find links at the bottom of the article to navigate to the next and previous article in the series.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to efficiently manage post series in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to track visitors to your WordPress site, or check out our list of must have plugins to grow your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How To Efficiently Manage Post Series in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

Readers often ask us, what’s better for SEO: categories vs tags?

You might not be sure what WordPress categories and tags actually are, and how they’re different. Knowing this can help you use them correctly.

In this article, we’ll explain the differences between categories vs tags for organizing your content, and how they can impact SEO rankings.

What’s the Difference Between Categories and Tags?

Categories are meant for broad grouping of your posts. Think of these as general topics or the table of contents for your WordPress site. Categories are hierarchical which means you can create sub-categories.

Tags are meant to describe specific details of your posts. Think of these as your site’s index words. They let you micro-categorize your content. Tags are not hierarchical.

For example, this blog post on WPBeginner is in our category “Beginners Guide”. You can see all the posts in this category by going to Blog » Beginners Guide in our navigation menu.

This post has the tags: categories, categories vs tags, custom taxonomy, seo, seo best practices, sorting your content, and tags.

You won’t see these tags displaying anywhere on our article. However, they do help users find this article in relevant searches on our blog.

One of the biggest differences between tags and categories is that all WordPress posts must be filed under a category, but they don’t have to have tags.

If you don’t give your post a category, WordPress will automatically assign it to the default category. This is called “Uncategorized”, but it’s often helpful to rename the “uncategorized” category to something like “Other” or “Miscellaneous”.

Note: By default, only blog posts have categories and tags in WordPress. However, you can add categories and tags to your WordPress pages using a plugin.

How can You Add Categories and Tags in WordPress?

You can add categories and tags in WordPress when creating or editing a post. You’ll find them on the right-hand side under the ‘Document’ settings.

You can also go to Posts » Categories and Posts » Tags to add new categories and tags.

For more about the process of adding categories and tags, check out our explanations of What is a category? and What is a tag? for help and guidance.

How Many WordPress Categories Should You Have?

There’s no specific number of categories that you should have. In most cases, you’ll want somewhere between 5 and 10 in order to properly categorize your posts and make your site easy to browse.

Categories are meant to encompass a large group of posts. You can use sub-categories and tags to split your posts into smaller groups.

If you’re just starting a blog, then don’t worry about trying to come up with a perfect list of categories. Just choose 3 – 5 broad categories and add more as time goes by.

Do I have to use sub-categories?

You don’t have to use sub-categories, and many large blogs (including WPBeginner) don’t. However, sub-categories are helpful if you have a large category with a lot of posts that could be grouped into smaller sections.

For example, you might have a “Recipes” category that contains a growing number of gluten-free recipes.

You can put these posts into their own sub-category, so it’s easy for readers to find them. You create a new child category for “Recipes” called “Gluten-Free” and move these posts into that category.

Using Categories in Your Posts’ URLs

Some sites use the Category name in permalinks (post URLs), which you can set up under Settings » Permalinks.

If that’s the case on your site, then your post will initially have a URL something like this:
…/recipes/gluten-free-pancakes/

After moving the post to a child category, it’ll have a new URL:
…/recipes/gluten-free/gluten-free-pancakes/

Normally, WordPress will try to redirect the old URL to the new one. It’s definitely worth checking that your links are still working. If necessary, you can create a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one.

Another option is to keep the post in the parent category as well as assigning it to the child category, but this can have drawbacks.

Although, WPBeginner website has categories in the URL, we always recommend users to use shorter URL structure that only contains “Post name”.

This will give you maximum flexibility to reorganize content without worrying about setting up redirects.

All of our new websites use the modern Post name URL structure. WPBeginner is over 10 years old, so it has legacy URL structure and changing URL structure is not recommended for SEO which is why we have stuck with it.

Can I Assign One Post to Multiple Categories?

WordPress lets you put a post into multiple categories. This could be several parent categories, or a parent category plus a subcategory or subcategories.

Having multiple categories won’t benefit your SEO. You should only assign posts to multiple categories if it makes the most sense for your readers.

It’s possible that having your post in multiple categories could cause some SEO issues due to duplicate content.

If you do use multiple categories, then try to avoid putting one post into two or more main (parent) categories. Each post should fit within one main category.

Is There a Limit to How Many Tags a Post Can Have?

WordPress itself doesn’t have any limit on the number of tags you can have on each post. You could potentially assign 1,000 or more tags to a post!

However, we definitely don’t recommend that.

The purpose of tags is to help link related posts together. Think of them as an index section in a book. Each tag is like a keyword in the index.

Tags are helpful for users searching your site. Some plugins that display related posts use tags to help them figure out which posts’ topics are related.

We suggest that you normally stick to 10 tags maximum per post.

Categories vs Tags: What’s Better for SEO?

Are there any WordPress SEO advantages of using categories over tags or vice versa?

The short answer is No.

Categories and tags both have different purposes. You have to use categories, but you don’t have to use tags if you don’t want to. However, we recommend using both, appropriately, to help readers navigate your site.

Ultimately, you should design your site with users in mind. All search engines want to show users the content that’ll be the most useful to them.

This means that by organizing your content for best usability will also help you get better SEO rankings.

We hope that this article helped you understand categories vs tags and the SEO best practices for sorting your content. You may also like our article on how to track WordPress category and tag analytics, and our comparison of the best keyword research tools for SEO.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Categories vs Tags – SEO Best Practices for Sorting your Content appeared first on WPBeginner.