WordPress is a CMS used by nearly 43% of websites worldwide. Its popularity is largely due to the many themes, plugins, and features it offers, including taxonomies.
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Through this comprehensive guide, learn more about WordPress taxonomies, how to use them, and how to customize them with a plugin.
What is a taxonomy?
We talk about taxonomies when referring to tools that organize and categorize a website's content. On an e-commerce site, a brochure site, or a blog, taxonomies are particularly useful for improving user navigation. By classifying content, visitors can search more quickly.
To give you an idea, you can use taxonomies to group blog posts on the same topic to direct your readers to relevant articles based on their interests. On an e-commerce site, it's common to create taxonomies to group products for sale that belong to the same category.
As you can see, taxonomies are used on WordPress CMS to allow webmasters to organize their content and optimize the user experience of their website.
What are the default taxonomies in WordPress?
When using WordPress, you can use the following default taxonomies: categories, tags, link categories, and post formats. Each taxonomy has its own specifics. Discover their uses to better guide users browsing your website.
Categories in WordPress
The first WordPress taxonomy default taxonomy we want to introduce is categories. These allow WordPress site owners to group content (posts, products) into hierarchical categories.
Concretely, on WordPress you can define your blog post categories by going to the "Posts" section then "Categories" on your website. In that specific place, define your categories and subcategories to organize your posts.
Alternatively, you can also create categories while editing a new post. Simply add them by clicking "Add New Category" on the right sidebar. However, you won't have the freedom to write the description or choose the slug for your category when using this option.
If you are tempted to add several categories to your posts, we recommend changing your hierarchical system by choosing broader main categories. Then refine your users' searches by creating more specific subcategories.
Tags in WordPress
On WordPress, tags are very useful for grouping posts with similar content. For example, while you might assign the category Gardening to a post, tags like vegetable garden, garden furniture, or composting will specify the article's topic.
Tags are different from categories because they do not allow the creation of a content hierarchy. Thus, tags are considered optional compared with categories.
Tags are intended to clarify the nature of content precisely, whereas categories group content more broadly. Sometimes a tag is used for a single blog post or product, which is not the case for categories.
Link categories in WordPress
Link categories are WordPress taxonomies allowing you to create typologies of links to classify your sources, for example. These taxonomies are particularly useful when you want to display your sources in an orderly way at the end of a blog post, for example.
Post formats in WordPress
Faced with the widespread use of audio and the ongoing virality of video, many businesses and individuals want to enrich their blog posts with content that is more illustrated and easier to consume than text. Because of its large user base, WordPress adapts to different needs by offering several post formats.
It is also important to mention the taxonomies represented by WordPress post formats. They give you the freedom to classify your posts according to their format. For example, you can classify posts as video posts, standard posts, or even audio posts.
By organizing your post formats in this way, you will make it easier for visitors to navigate your WordPress site and thus improve their user experience.
How to use taxonomies in WordPress?
To use WordPress taxonomies well, our first piece of advice is to focus on the user experience. By concentrating on how visitors search your site, you will be able to optimize your taxonomies.
The second step is to define the categories. For a blog, start by defining the main categories based on the major topics covered. Then take care to create subcategories that stem from your general categories.
Keep in mind that your website's categories should make it easier for visitors to find what they are looking for. If you want to define categories for your e-commerce site, determine your general product categories (appliances, clothing, furniture, shoes) and plan to create product subcategories (ovens, jackets, tables, sneakers).
Once you have defined all your categories, it's time to create tags. As we noted earlier, tags are not mandatory when defining taxonomies. They are used to specify the content of blog posts or product pages.
To give you an example, in a blog post use them to specify the topics covered. On an e-commerce product page, create tags to provide information about the material, size, or origin of the product.
Finally, if you want to display your categories or tags on the front end of your WordPress site, there are suitable widgets. Go to the Appearance tab in your dashboard, then to Widgets. Drag the "Categories" widget and the "Tags" widget into the right-hand sidebar. Once that’s done, don’t forget to save your recent changes.
Tip: to clarify the display of your site structure, favor removing category suffixes to avoid long URLs. To do this, simply use the WordPress Remove Category URL plugin or SEO-focused plugins like Yoast SEO and SEOPress to easily disable these prefixes.
Create custom taxonomies using a plugin
To create categories that perfectly match your website’s needs, you can customize your taxonomies. Do you want to organize your WordPress site’s content by customizing taxonomies with a plugin or manually? Here’s the procedure to follow.
Using plugins will save you time when customizing your categories. We recommend popular plugins such as Custom Post Type UI, Toolset Types or Pods. Start by downloading one of these plugins and activating it on your website.
In the settings you’ll have the option to create new specific taxonomies by choosing their slug and post type. Note that for taxonomy customization, the three plugins we recommend are easy to use, quick to install, and well supported for sites built with WordPress.
If you want to customize your WordPress taxonomies manually, simply use the register_taxonomy() function and add it to the functions.php file in your site’s directory.
This customization method requires a solid knowledge of coding; otherwise, favor using plugins. Note that the rules differ when creating tags (non-hierarchical) versus categories (hierarchical).
Our tip for using taxonomy effectively on WordPress
There are different types of WordPress taxonomies. It is essential to distinguish between categories, tags, link categories and post formats. These taxonomies each have their own specific features. You should choose them as appropriately as possible to better guide your users when they navigate your site.
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