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When managing a dynamic website, uploading articles, blog posts, and various content types are vital practices to align with the WordPress SEO Checklist. However, the tasks don’t end there. Ensuring visitors’ effortless navigation to this virtual library where they can discover each of the information quickly matters the most.
Consider the significant entry of WordPress taxonomies right here! It’s a powerful tool that allows you to categorize, classify, and arrange each web content piece with precision. Here, a must thing to note is that WordPress taxonomies are bordered on its built-in features but also lets users create custom WordPress taxonomies.
Keen to learn more about WordPress taxonomies? In this comprehensive guide, we’ll get on each of them step-by-step by first unraveling the WordPress taxonomy term, the default taxonomy WordPress offers, and creating custom WordPress taxonomies.
What is the Taxonomy Term in WordPress?
By considering Taxonomies in WordPress, you can ensure improved user-friendliness by making it easier for them to manage and navigate your website. WordPress Taxonomy terms are used to assign attributes or categories to posts, pages, or custom post types.
Default Taxonomy in WordPress
Categories and tags are the two primary built-in or, we can say, default WordPress taxonomies:
1. Categories
Categories are hierarchical taxonomy. You can create a structured hierarchy of categories to classify and structurize related content.
For example, on a food blogging website, you might have categories like ‘Appetizers’, ‘Main Courses’, and ‘Desserts’. You can further nest subcategories within them.
2. Tags
Tags are non hierarchical taxonomy. They are more flexible and allow the addition of descriptive keywords or labels to content.
Tags are typically used for more granular classifications. For instance, let’s take the same example of a food blogging website. You might use tags like ‘Vegan Food,’ ‘Must to Add in Diet Plan,’ and ‘Low Carbs Food.’
When you create or edit a custom post type, page or post in WordPress, you can assign one or more taxonomy terms to it. Adding the correct and related taxonomies makes it easy for users to find related articles and explore much more information under the same topic niche.
Create Custom Categories and Tags in WordPress Using Gutenberg
In WordPress, you can create new WordPress categories and tags for both pages and posts to organize your content. Here are the steps to create categories and tags for pages and posts:
Steps to Create Categories and Tags in WordPress Pages Using Gutenberg:
If you specifically just want to add a category or tags to your site’s page or post, you can follow the steps mentioned below. In another case, if you are seeking to create a custom taxonomy then you must skip this portion and hop to the next one.
Step 1: Access Your WordPress Dashboard
- Log in to the WordPress admin dashboard using your administrator credentials.
- For easy navigation to the web admin login page, you can add ‘wp-admin‘ at the end of your domain URL.
- If the login page is set customly, several methods exist to find WordPress login URL.
Step 2: Go to the Pages Section
- In the WordPress login panel, navigate to the tabs section displayed on the left side of the dashboard.
- Click on ‘Pages‘ to access the list of your pages.
Step 3: Add or Edit a Page
- Choose a page that you want to add categories or tags to.
- If you’re creating a new page, click ‘Add New.’
- Select the page you want to modify if you’re editing an existing page.
Step 4: Find the Categories and Tags Sections
- In the WordPress block editor – Gutenberg, you’ll find the ‘Page Attributes’ panel on the right side section.
- In this panel, you can add categories and tags to your page.
Step 5: Add Category
- To add a category to your page, click the “Categories” section.
- You can select an existing category; all you need to do is select.
- To create a new one by clicking the ‘+ Add New Category’ link.
- Please Note: You can assign a particular page to one or more categories.
Step 6: Add Tags
- Below the categories section, you’ll find the ‘Tags’ section.
- Here, you can add relevant tags to your page.
- Tags help further describe the content of your page.
- You can add multiple tags, separated by commas.
Step 7: Update or Publish Your Page
- After adding categories and tags, click the ‘Update‘ button (for an existing page).
- Tap on the ‘Publish’ button (for a new page) to save your changes.
Steps to Create Categories and Tags in WordPress Posts
These steps are to categorize your blogs and add related tags to them.
Step 1: Access Your WordPress Dashboard
- Log in to your WordPress admin panel.
Step 2: Go to the Posts Section
- In the left sidebar, click ‘Posts‘ to access the list of your posts.
Step 3: Add or Edit a Post
- Select a post you want to categorize or add tags in.
- To create a new post, click ‘Add New.’
- To edit an existing post, choose the post you want to edit.
Step 4: Find the Categories and Tags Sections
- You’ll find the ‘Page Attributes’ panel on the right-hand side in the block editor.
- In this panel, you can add categories and tags to your post.
Step 5: Add Category
- To add a category to your post, click the ‘Categories‘ section.
- You can select an existing category; all you need to do is select.
- To create a new one by clicking the ‘+ Add New Category’ link.
- Please Note: You can assign a particular post to one or more categories.
Step 6: Add Tags
- Below the categories section, you’ll find the ‘Tags’ section.
- Here, you can add relevant tags to your posts.
- WordPress tags help further describe the content of your posts.
- You can add multiple tags, separated by commas.
Step 7: Update or Publish Your Post
- After adding categories and tags, click the ‘Update‘ button (for an existing post).
- Tap on the ‘Publish’ button (for a new post) to save your changes.
By following these steps, you can create categories and tags for both WordPress pages and posts, making the organization and classification of your content more accessible for better navigation and user experience.
Why Do Users Need Custom WordPress Taxonomy?
So, when default WordPress taxonomies are already available, why would anyone need to create a custom WordPress taxonomy? Well, that’s a good question, and the answer is: 1) Greater specificity and 2) Granular Classification Options.
While default taxonomies like category and tags are versatile, they can’t sufficiently address the unique organizational needs of every WordPress website.
For instance, for a site selling clothing where eCommerce SEO is the most crucial factor, a custom taxonomy like ‘Clothing Sizes’ can help shoppers filter products by size, enhancing the user experience and increasing the product sales ratio.
Here are several important reasons to consider Custom WordPress taxonomies:
1. Consistency and Standardization
Custom taxonomies enforce consistency and standardization in content classification. This ensures that all content creators on the site use the same set of terms and categories, reducing confusion and maintaining a coherent structure.
2. Improved User Experience
Custom taxonomies enhance the user experience by making it easier for visitors to find content relevant to their interests. These benefits website owners with a much-decreased audience bounce rate and higher user engagement.
3. High Ranking SEO
Search engines appreciate well-structured websites. Custom taxonomies can improve your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) by providing search engines a clear roadmap about the web pages, blog posts, and associations.
This can lead to better rankings in numerous search engine results, driving more organic traffic to your site.
4. Filtering and Sorting
With custom WordPress taxonomies, you can create advanced filtering and sorting options for the content. For example, if you are running an e-commerce site.
In that case, you can create a custom taxonomy to allow users to filter products by dimensions, color, brand, or other attributes, providing a more convenient shopping experience.
5. Consistency and Standardization
Custom taxonomies enforce consistency and standardization in content classification. This ensures that all content creators on your site use the same set of terms and categories, reducing confusion and maintaining a coherent structure.
As a Verdict, WordPress custom taxonomy is a robust feature that enables website owners and developers to fine-tune content categorization and overall WordPress website presentation.
Custom WordPress taxonomies provide flexibility, improve user experience, and can have a positive impact on SEO, maintain related content, and user engagement.
How to Create Custom WordPress Taxonomy?
Tighten your belts because we are about to create a Custom WordPress taxonomy. By simply using a plugin, there will be no coding tactics you’ll need to handle, blunders, or risks to get a single error on the WordPress site. So, let’s move further
Steps to Create Custom WordPress Taxonomy Using Plugin:
Here, we’ll use the Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields plugin to create Custom WordPress Taxonomy.
Step 1: Install and Activate Pods Plugin
- Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard.
- In the left sidebar, go to ‘Plugins‘.
- Click on ‘Add New.’
- In the search bar, type ‘Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields.’
- Once you find the ‘Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields‘ plugin by ‘Pods.io,’ you can begin the standard WordPress plugin installation process.
- After installation, click the ‘Activate‘ button.
Step 2: Create a New Pod
- Once the Pods plugin is activated, you will see a new ‘Pods Admin‘ menu tab in the WordPress dashboard.
- Click on the ‘Pods Admin‘ tab.
- In the Pods Admin interface, you can create a new custom content type (pod) by clicking on ‘Create New.’
- From the dropdown next to the content type, select ‘Custom Taxonomy Type (like Posts or Pages).’
- After selecting, type out a new taxonomy name you want to add.
- Assure to fill out both boxes next to ‘Singular Label‘ and ‘Plural Label.’ For example, you can name it ‘Tech Language‘ and ‘Tech Languages.’
- Once it’s all done, tap on ‘Next Step‘.
Step 3: Manage Fields
- You can add a custom field to your taxonomy if necessary.
- These fields can store additional data associated with your taxonomy, such as ‘Label,’ ‘Name,’ and ‘Field Types‘.
- To add fields, click the ‘Add Field” button.
- By following the prompts to configure the field type and options.
- Click the ‘Save Pod‘ button to create your custom taxonomy.
Step 4: Define Taxonomy Advanced Options
- In this step, you can specify the advanced options for your custom taxonomy.
- These options include choosing multiple options, such as whether the taxonomy will be hierarchical (like category) or non hierarchical (like tags), custom rewrites slug and user capability.
- You can configure the rest of the options according to your requirements.
- Besides that, remember to checkmark ‘Associated Post Types‘ to ensure the correct display configuration.
Step 5: Configure REST API
- THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT! You need to first navigate to the ‘REST API‘ tab.
- Checkmark the box, next to ‘Enable‘.
- By enabling this only, you’ll be able to add the custom WordPress taxonomy to a page or post using Gutenberg.
By following these steps, you can create a custom WordPress taxonomy category using the Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields plugin. This procedure also helps you to manage custom taxonomy and its taxonomy term on your website as needed.
How to Display Custom Taxonomy in WordPress Website?
You can display custom taxonomies on a WordPress website created using the Pods plugin using Gutenberg and within the child theme you are currently using only. Here are the steps to follow:
Step 1: Add Custom WordPress Taxonomy in Page/Post
- Login to your WordPress admin dashboard.
- Navigate to the Page/Post you want to add custom WordPress taxonomy.
- Scroll down and pick the section for displaying custom WordPress taxonomy.
- Click on the ‘+‘, and add the ‘Post Grid.’
- Once added, look for the ‘General‘ tab on the right-side menu.
- Under that, you’ll get to see a tab labeled ‘Taxonomy‘. From its dropdown, you can choose the custom taxonomy you recently created.
- Based on the custom taxonomy details you’ve created, you’ll also get to pick the category.
- Below that, you can also customize the number of articles categorized in that custom taxonomy.
Step 2: Preview Draft & Publish on Live Web
- Once you are satisfied with the results, as Gutenberg displays real-time results, you can only review the draft from the editing panel and make the required changes before publishing it on the live site.
- After achieving the final draft, you can view it on the live website by clicking on the ‘Update‘ button present on the top-right of the panel.
FAQs About WordPress Taxonomy
Conclusion
So, now you are all set while having the core knowledge starting from ‘What WordPress taxonomy is?’ and the ‘default WordPress taxonomies it offers’.
Hopping on its advanced version, we also covered the ‘importance of custom WordPress taxonomy’ and step-by-step procedure to achieve so while adding your WordPress site using Gutenberg.
Not to forget, Custom WordPress taxonomies also offer greater specificity and granular classification options, providing overall web benefits such as consistency, improved user experience, high-ranking SEO, filtering and sorting, and more.
Moreover, if you are seeking any other information you can check our other WordPress tech blogs or get direct assistance from dedicated developers – all you’ll need to do is drop your query and we’ll get back to you shortly.
