{"id":17620,"date":"2022-06-15T14:57:08","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T18:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/?p=17620"},"modified":"2026-03-18T09:04:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T13:04:55","slug":"everything-in-its-place-how-to-use-categories-to-organize-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/2022\/everything-in-its-place-how-to-use-categories-to-organize-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything in Its Place: How to Use Categories to Organize your Website"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-5xl  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n            <div class=\"cu-textmedia flex flex-col lg:flex-row mx-auto gap-6 md:gap-10 my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 max-w-5xl\">\n        <div class=\"justify-start cu-textmedia-content cu-prose-first-last\" style=\"flex: 0 0 100%;\">\n            <header class=\"font-light prose-xl cu-pageheader md:prose-2xl cu-component-updated cu-prose-first-last\">\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] pb-5 after:w-10 text-cu-black-700 not-prose\">\n                        Everything in Its Place: How to Use Categories to Organize your Website\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                \n                            <\/header>\n\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n<p>If you\u2019re keeping up with Web Services, you might know that we wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/2022\/spring-cleaning-the-virtual-version\/\">an article about our virtual spring cleaning last month<\/a>. A vital part of this clean-up was using tags and categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Continuing the analogy of spring cleaning, categories and tags are like your bookshelves, cupboards, and other storage. Leaving your things piled on the floor makes it harder for you and others to find what they\u2019re looking for. Web content is similar: categories and tags provide a structure for your content and make it easier to find, group, and access related content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"tags-or-categories\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tags or Categories?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have read our spring-cleaning article closely, you might notice that we used tags to organize our posts. So, what\u2019s the difference between a tag and a category?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Tags<\/strong> are only available for the post content type and provide a secondary way to organize your post content<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Categories<\/strong> can be applied to any content type, not just posts. Because of this, the rest of this article will refer to categories, but if you\u2019re working with posts, tags will also fulfill many of the same functions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"are-categories-worth-it\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Are Categories Worth It?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe now, looking at the task before you, you\u2019re not sure if it\u2019s worth the time and effort to categorize your content. However, you\u2019ll most likely feel differently the next time you\u2019re searching for a piece of content on your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rather than wait for the motivation that comes with the panic of realizing you can\u2019t find a piece of content, get motivated with the following benefits of categorizing your content:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"organization-for-you-and-your-team\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Organization for you and your team<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright wp-image-17622\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"709\" height=\"434\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Categories-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17622\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Categories-1.png 709w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Categories-1-512x313.png 512w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Categories-1-320x196.png 320w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Categories-1-360x220.png 360w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Categories-1-200x122.png 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 100vw, 709px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">How your posts appear in the back end of CMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The most noticeable benefit of using categories is probably the improved organization within your website. Like the example above, you\u2019re most likely to notice a lack of organization when it prevents you from finding the content you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since our spring cleaning, we currently have 183 posts on our Web Services website. That\u2019s quite a lot of content to look through when searching for a specific post, but we\u2019ve used categories to separate our posts into groups of related content that are more easily sifted through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"organization-for-your-visitors\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Organization for your visitors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft wp-image-17623\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1155\" height=\"602\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Category-links.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17623\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Category-links.png 1155w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Category-links-512x267.png 512w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Category-links-1024x534.png 1024w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Category-links-320x167.png 320w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Category-links-768x400.png 768w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Category-links-360x188.png 360w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/Category-links-200x104.png 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1155px) 100vw, 1155px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Links to categories at the bottom of a CMS post<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019re not the only one who benefits from organized categories, however. Visitors to your site use your categories to navigate to relevant content. At the bottom of a post in CMS, the post\u2019s categories are available as links. Clicking them brings the visitor to a list of other posts in that category, helping them navigate your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is great not only to help visitors find content, but also will likely help keep them on your site, making it more likely that they\u2019ll explore your other content and perhaps engage with your calls to action (ex. signing up for a newsletter).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"search-engine-optimization-seo\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Search Engine Optimization (SEO)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Search engines also appreciate the use of categories. Google indexes categories to get an idea of your site\u2019s content and direct appropriate traffic to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Using categories can cause search engines to rank your site higher in search results for terms that are relevant to your site\u2019s category, resulting in more relevant search traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"how-to-use-categories\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to Use Categories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Both CMS and CuTheme have the ability to categorize your content. The basic principles of assigning categories and using them to pull content onto a page are consistent between the two themes, but while CMS has different types of listings for different content types, CuTheme centralizes all listings with the listings block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn how to use categories on your CMS or CuTheme site with the following tutorials:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"cms\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">CMS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Categories: <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/cms-help\/basic-training\/module-1-getting-started\/categories\/\">view our tutorial on categories in CMS here<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Listing: CMS uses different post elements to list different content types, but the process is pretty similar overall. On your page:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Select Add Post Element<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Choose \u201cList (content type)\u201d, for example \u201cList News\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Select the category or categories you would like to be displayed of that content type<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You may have other customization options in this screen<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Click Insert Element<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you\u2019re looking to list a specific content type, browse our CMS Help Centre for the content type and there should be instructions on listing it. For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/cms-help\/basic-training\/module-2-types-of-content\/posts\/#sect1.2\">this is the tutorial for listing posts<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"cutheme\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">CuTheme<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Categories: <a href=\"https:\/\/staging2.carleton.ca\/demo\/basic-training\/module4-listing-blocks\/categories\/\">view our tutorial on categories in CuTheme here<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Listing: CuTheme uses the listing block to pull content onto a page. After adding this listing block, you just need to pick the type of content you\u2019d like to display and then you can select categories to list specific content. <a href=\"https:\/\/staging2.carleton.ca\/demo\/basic-training\/module4-listing-blocks\/listing-block\/\">A full tutorial on using the listing block can be found here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"categories-across-content-types\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Categories Across Content Types<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Since categories are used for many different content types, this means that there are different types of categories on your website. For example, you can\u2019t put files into an events category. If you have files for students as well as events for students, you will need to create both a \u201cStudents\u201d File Category and a \u201cStudents\u201d Event Category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"best-practices\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Best Practices<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Using categories is already a great step in organizing your website and reaping the SEO and usability benefits. However, here are a few additional tips to help you make the most of your categorizing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"naming-categories\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Naming Categories<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When naming your categories, use simple, clear, and descriptive names. For example, don\u2019t use non-descript category names like \u201cOther\u201d, or ambiguous ones like \u201cImportant\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Be consistent when naming content. For example, if you use singular category names for the most part, don\u2019t mix in plurals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"number-of-categories\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Number of Categories<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Use categories that will cover a large group of posts, not just one or two. If you think of categories like a library, you should have sections divided by genre, not by author.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Don\u2019t create too many categories. If you have almost as many categories as you do content, then you\u2019re just as disorganized as you were without them! Again, create general categories rather than hyper-specific ones and you shouldn\u2019t find that you need too many categories.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"categorizing-content\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Categorizing Content<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Assign posts to more than one category where appropriate. For example, this post is categorized as both \u201c杏吧原创 CMS blog\u201d and \u201cWriting for the Web Tips.\u201d This lets us display the post in multiple locations, as well as gives readers an opportunity to explore either category by clicking the category name at the bottom of the post.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"category-users-across-carleton\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Category Users Across 杏吧原创<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Many websites across our virtual 杏吧原创 campus use categories to organize their content. Here are some examples of different sites making good use of categories:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Pages: <\/strong>The ITS Help Centre, which is a knowledge base style site, has <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/its\/help-centre\/\">pages listed by category<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Files: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/awards\/forms\/\">Awards and Financial Aid lists application forms using a file listing on their Forms and Templates page.<\/a> These files are categorized as either \u201cBursaries\u201d or \u201cFinancial Aid\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>People: <\/strong>Neuroscience uses categories to <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/neuroscience\/where-are-our-undergraduates-now\/\">showcase the accomplishments of their undergraduates after completing their degree<\/a>. These people posts are organized by category, such as \u201cEmployed in a Related Field\u201d, \u201cMedical School\u201d, or \u201cGraduate School\u201d.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Posts: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/deputyprovost\/jobs\/academics\/\">杏吧原创\u2019s Academic job postings use categories to sort by faculty<\/a>. By opening the \u201cFilter by Faculty or Type of Opportunity\u201d and selecting a type of posting, you are brought to a page where only postings in that category are listed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>FAQs: <\/strong>The International Student Services Office has a <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/isso\/faq\/\">Frequently Asked Questions page which uses FAQ categories to divide the inquiries international students may have by category<\/a>, such as \u201cImmigration\u201d, \u201cUHIP\u201d, or \u201cStudent Life\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Hopefully these examples of the various uses of categories, as well as the above list of benefits and instructions on how to implement categories, inspire you to categorize content on your own site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019re keeping up with Web Services, you might know that we wrote an article about our virtual spring cleaning last month. A vital part of this clean-up was using tags and categories. Continuing the analogy of spring cleaning, categories and tags are like your bookshelves, cupboards, and other storage. Leaving your things piled on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[390,391,276],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-keep","category-rewrite","category-tips-and-tricks"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21407,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17620\/revisions\/21407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}