Using WordPress categories is a good way to structure and organize your website’s content by topics. You might want to add descriptions to those categories for different purposes.
While it’s a simple process, it’s not that obvious in WordPress. Additionally, some WordPress themes won’t show the category description on the category page.
How to add a category description
Login to your WordPress admin and go to Posts – Categories. Then, click on Edit on any category and add your content in the Description field. Click on Update to save.
Now open the category page and see if the description is there (click on View for any category).
You can add descriptions to subcategories as well, following the same process.
How to display a category description on your website
Classic themes
Classic themes like Kadence, Astra, Blocksy, GeneratePress and many more, will display the category description by default.
If that’s not the case, you might need to modify the code of your theme in the functions.php file. Only proceed if you know what you’re doing. Here is more info about category_description function and how to use it.
Block themes
If you’re using a WordPress block theme like Twenty Twenty-Four, which is compatible with full site editing, you need to add the Term Description block on Archive pages.
Note: the Term Description block only works on archive pages (for example: categories or subcategories).
Here is how add this block to display category descriptions:
Login to your WordPress admin and go to Appearance – Editor. Then, open Templates – All Archives and click on edit icon or on the actual page.
Now add the Term Description block wherever you want the category description to be displayed on the archive web page. Customize the appearance of this section if you wish. Click on Save.
Open any category page to see if the description is displayed.
Tips & tricks for WordPress categories
View your most popular categories in Posts – Categories – Count (sort ascending or descending to see the number of posts by categories).
You can change the post categories in bulk using the Edit option. Just go to Posts – All Posts, select the posts you want and choose Edit from the dropdown, then click on Apply. Select the new categories and click on Update.
There are a few dedicated category blocks in the WordPress editor. You can use them to display categories on different pages or posts. Here they are:
- Categories – displays the current category
- Categories List – displays all the categories
- Term Description – displays the category description on archive pages
That’s it, I hope you found this guide useful. Please let me know if you have any question or suggestions in the comments below.
