How do I create categories and tags in WordPress?

What is the difference between categories and tags?

Categories and tags are both good ways to organize posts on your site.

• Categories are best for broad groups. Think of them as large organizational topics or subject headers for organizing information. 
• Tags are good for marking themes or common elements across posts. Think of them as sub-topics or sub-titles that give more information about specific elements of a post so that the reader can find other posts with the same element.

For example, if you were writing posts about books, you may have categories for "Fantasy," "Mystery," or "Biography." You might then have tags for "vampires," "parenthood," "magic," or "1950s."

Learn more in the WordPress.com Support post on about categories vs. tags.

Creating and adding categories

To create new categories:

1. Go to Dashboard > Posts > Categories
2. On the left side of the Categories page, there is an option to Add New Category. Enter the information about your new category.
3. Click on Add New Category button. 
4. Your new category should appear on the list on the right-hand side of the Categories page.

To add new or existing categories to a post:

1. While editing a post, click on the gear at the top left of the page.
2. In the Post tab, click on the drop-down menu for Categories.
3. From this menu, you can select which categories to add to your post.
4. To create a new category from this menu:
   1. Under the list of existing categories, click on Add New Category and enter the information.
   2. Click the Add New Category button, and the category will be added to the list.

You can add more than one category to a post. By default, all posts are given the category "Uncategorized" unless you change it.

Creating Tags

To create new tags:

1. Go to Dashboard > Posts > Tags
2. On the left side of the Tags page, there is an option to Add New Tag. Enter the information about your new tag.
3. Click on Add New Tag button. 
4. Your new tag should appear on the list on the right-hand side of the Tags page.

To add new or existing tags to a post:

1. While editing a post, click on the gear at the top left of the page.
2. In the Post tab, click on the drop-down menu for Tags.
3. Type your chosen tags into the text box. To enter multiple tags, separate them with a comma or press Enter after each tag.
4. If you enter a tag that doesn't exist, it will create a new tag.

You can add more than one tag to a post. By default, posts have no tags.

Using Categories to Organize Posts

Categories and tags are typically used to organize posts, either for your personal organization in the dashboard or to display posts on a page according to their category.

Once a post has a category, you can place them on pages dynamically using the "Latest Posts" block. To set up this block:

1. While editing a page, add a new "Latest Posts" block.
2. Once the block is added to your page, select it and click on the gear at the top left of the page to open the block settings menu.
3. From this menu, you can choose which parts of the post to display, how many and what order they should appear in, and which posts to show. To filter by category:
   1. Scroll down in the block settings menu to the "Sorting and filtering" tab.
   2. In the text box for "Categories," type the category you would like to filter by (after a few letters, you will see suggested categories).
   3. Choose a suggestion from the list or click Enter to save the category.

Once the "Latest Posts" block is set up, all current posts with that category will appear with your chosen formatting. Any future posts that you assign this category will automatically appear in this block as well.

Finding help with WordPress

For general WordPress questions, email techdesk@bucknell.edu or stop by the Tech Desk on the first floor of Bertrand Library.

From there, Digital Pedagogy & Scholarship can help you with your WordPress site. We offer consultations to help you get started with a WordPress site, discuss site structure and usability, offer plugin options, or troubleshoot with the WordPress interface. Contact our department directly using our main email: dps@bucknell.edu

Find more articles about WordPress in our WordPress FAQ.