Categorizing Posts

A blog is organized and structured using categories and tags. Think of categories as a header and tags as a sub-header. Readers searching for information written on a broad topic will benefit more from categories. Those readers looking for a more specific topic will find tags to be more useful because they narrow down the information to a particular topic. Categories and tags will help readers navigate a blog's content easily to find the information they are looking for.

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Categories

Categories give readers a broad overview of what kind of content a blog holds so that they can decide if that blog holds the right information for them. When choosing a category for a post, bloggers need to consider the readers that will visit their blog and what needs they might have. Bloggers must find the balance of being specific with a category so that the kind of information it holds is clear without being too broad. Readers must be able to look at categories within a blog and know right away if they are in the right place, very much how the heading of an article pulls a reader in and gives them a general idea on what the article is about so that they can decide if reading on is worth their time. One thing bloggers must be cautious about when choosing a category is that they have more than one post that can fit under that category. Displaying a single post within a category will give the readers the impression that you don't know a lot about that subject. On the other hand a blogger doesn't want to make a category so strong and filled with too much information that it will need it's own blog site.

Tags

Tags are similar to "keywords" and help readers find a specific topic within a category. Tags help readers identify specific information within a particular post. Posts can have many tags which allow them to be categorized with other posts to make it easier for readers to navigate a blog. A tag name must be specific, for example if a blog post is about how to make home made pizza you would put it under a cooking category but one of the tags would be pizza. Readers can find the tag links under each post, by clicking on the tag links readers will be taken to an archive where every post related to that tag can be found.

Descriptive Categories

Categories should describe to readers what content they hold without a huge explanation of them. With each category a blogger creates they must keep in mind the over all focus of their blog and what their readers are looking for. Make it obvious what kind of posts a category holds. Bloggers have the difficult task of finding the happy medium between a category being too broad or too specific in their description. If the category is too specific it leaves the reader with less choices, if it is too broad its too hard for a reader to find what they are looking for and they will move on. When bloggers are brainstorming about how to describe their categories they should keep in mind how it will appear in a search engine. A blogs category along with it's tags will help readers easily find the blog they are looking for in search engines.

References

1. Carroll, Brian. (2010). Writing for Digital Media. New York: Routledge. Retrieved 4 April 2013.

2. Categories versus Tags Lorelle On WordPress Web. Retrieved 9 April 2013.

3. Making Blog Categories More Useful Wired Impact Web. Retrieved 9 April 2013.

4. An Overview of Blog categories About.com Web. Retrieved 9 April 2013.