Each “News” post on your website is filed under one or more Categories. This aids in navigation and allows news articles to be grouped with others of similar content. For example, a sports website might have categories for their “News” posts filed under sports, parents, managers, or news. Categories, unlike tags, can have a hierarchy. You might have a “Sports” category, and under that have children categories for “Basketball”, “Soccer”, and “Baseball”. Totally optional.
Categories help visitors quickly know what topics your website is about and allows them to navigate your site faster.
By default, published “News” posts are ‘Uncategorized’. If you don’t pick a category for a post, then the post is automatically placed into the default category.
How to Add Categories via Metabox
When editing a “News” post, you can add it to a category by checking the box next to the category name. The ‘Category‘ meta-box is located in the right column
If you need to add a new category while you’re editing a post:
- Click the Add New Category link below the list of your existing categories
- Type in the category name
- Be default, each new category is added as a stand alone category or “Parent Category”. Categories can have a hierarchy. If you want your new category to be a child, simply select the category in the drop-down box labeled ‘-Parent Category-‘ and locate the category you want its parent to be. If you want it to be a parent or stand alone category leave this box as “-Parent Category-“
- Once done, Select Add New Category.
How to Add Categories via Dashboard
From the ‘News‘ menu on the left-hand side of the Dashboard, select the ‘Categories‘ option to bring up the Categories Editor.
This Screen is divided into the Add New Category and Category Table sections.
Section: Add New Category
This part of the Screen allows you to create a new Category. There are four pieces of information associated with each new Category: the name, slug, category parent, and description.
Name: To reiterate, the Category Name must be unique.
Slug: The Category slug must be unique. The Category Slug is used in the URL. For example, setting a Category Name of “Sports” and a Category Slug of “soccer” would show all “Sports” posts with a URL like example.com/blog/soccer/.
Parent: Use this drop-down if you want to make this Category a Child (sub-category); you will select the Child’s Parent here. For example, you may have a Category called “Sports” but want to add further clarification about the subject of a particular “Sports” post. You could add “Soccer” and “Baseball” as sub-Categories to the “Sports” Category; “Sports” would be the Parent of these two new sub-Categories.
Child Categories (sub-category) show up on your blog’s page just like Categories, except they will typically be nested under their Parent Categories. When someone visits your site and clicks the “Sports” Category link, all posts in “Sports” and all its sub-Categories will be displayed. Clicking the “Soccer” Category link only displays those post in that sub-Category.
Description: Category Descriptions are optional. Some themes take advantage of Category Descriptions, others do not, so having Descriptions may or may not modify the way Categories are displayed for your site. Even if they are not used by your site’s theme, you may still find them useful from an administration point of view.
Add New Category: The most important part of the Add New Category box. Once you’ve entered in all the information about your new Category, use this button to save it.
Section: Category Table
This table lists all of your categories by row. Categories are displayed hierarchically and alphabetically; subcategories are displayed beneath their parents and are prefaced by long dashes. These dashed are not part of a Category’s name; they are there only to show hierarchy.
The table of categories contains the following columns:
- [ ] – A checkbox that when clicked (checked), ‘selects’ that particular Category to be deleted when the Delete Action is Applied.
- Name – The name of the Category. (Each name must be unique)
- Description – Categories may have an optional description. By default, the description is shown to viewers when they hover over the category’s link.
- Slug – The slug of a Category. (Usually in lower case letters) – See above for a more detailed explanation.
- Posts – The number of posts which are members of the Category. Click on the number in the Posts column to be directed to the All Posts Screen associated with this category to manage the posts.
