So, you’ve finally got your WordPress site up and running, and you’re ready to start dumping content and products into the CMS. But do you really know how best to categorise your content?

One of the quickest ways to ruin a perfectly good website is to treat your organisation like a “junk drawer.” We see it all the time: tags that no one clicks, product categories so messy that even Google can’t figure out what you’re selling. It’s enough to make this developer cry…

Before you click “Add New,” it’s essential to understand the differences between categories, tags, and attributes. They might seem the same, but there are nuances between them, and applying them incorrectly will come back to bite you later.

Post categories: The chapters of your book

Think of post categories as the high-level sections of a library or genres of a book. If your blog were a book, its category would be its genre. You can determine this by asking yourself: What is this post fundamentally about? 

You’re unlikely to categorise your post as a romance or horror (though writing it might have been terrifying); instead, the answer to this will be specific to your industry.   

If you find yourself putting a single post into five different categories, stop. You’re probably doing it wrong. A post should generally live in one primary category. There are exceptions to this rule, but let’s keep things simple for now.

Why does this matter?

• The Problem: Overloading categories creates “duplicate content” issues and confuses your readers. If they can’t find a clear path, they’ll have a higher chance of bouncing.
• The Payoff: A clean, stable structure helps search engines crawl your site more effectively and ensures your navigation menus actually make sense.

Stick to broad, high-level topics that describe the main pillars of your content. Keep it simple.

Post tags: The index in the back

If categories are genres or sections of a library, the post tags are the index at the back of the book. They don’t define where a post lives; they describe what is mentioned inside.

Quick test: Is it a category or a tag?

Think about your main subject. If you write exclusively about one specific topic, that topic is your category. However, if you write about a broad range of subjects and that specific topic only pops up occasionally as a sub-theme within those articles, it’s a tag.

Don’t create a new tag for every single word you write. Having 5,000 tags with only one post assigned to each is a great way to slow down your database and provide zero value to your users.

Product categories vs. product tags

When it comes to product categories and tags, the stakes are higher because we’re talking about conversions.

• Product Categories are the backbone of your shop. (e.g., t-shirts, shoes, accessories). They define the product’s primary purpose.
• Product Tags are often used for themes. (e.g., summer sale, gift ideas, eco-friendly).

Trust us when we say: Don’t use tags for structural things like “Size” or “Colour.” That is what attributes are for. Which brings me to a personal bugbear of mine…

Product attributes: The power of the filter

An attribute describes a product. It answers questions such as “What is it made from?” and “Who is the manufacturer?”

Now read that again… I wrote this entire blog to emphasise that “an attribute describes a product.”

Unlike tags, attributes are built for filtering. If you use tags for “Blue” or “Large”, your customers won’t be able to easily filter their searches, and your tags will very quickly become complicated and unwieldy!

If you make your customers have to hunt for what they want, they will usually go to Amazon instead.

Properly configured attributes enable “layered navigation.” This lets a user check a box for “Blue,” “Leather,” and “Under £50.” These are high-intent customers – they know what they want, and you need to be in a position to give it to them. 

Custom taxonomies

Sometimes the default options just don’t cut it. Maybe you sell property, and you need to group by “Property Type,” or a movie site that needs “Director.”

A custom taxonomy is a bespoke way of grouping things. It’s powerful, it’s clean, and it makes you look like a pro. However, a word of warning – these often require a bit more technical know-how to set up correctly.

Don’t create a custom taxonomy just because you think it looks cool. Use them only when a concept is a “first-class citizen” on your site that needs its own dedicated archive pages.

The “Rule of Thumb” checklist

Before you hit “publish,” run through this quick reality check:

• Category: What section does this live in? (Structure)
• Tag: What is this about? (Search/Discovery)
• Attribute: How can I narrow this down? (Filtering)
• Custom Taxonomy: Does this need its own special logic? (Bespoke)

A final thought

Your website structure is a living thing. If you leave it to grow wild, it will eventually become a tangled mess that kills your SEO and frustrates your customers.

Do yourself a favour: Audit your categories and tags today. You’ll need to ensure you’re not deleting anything that’s currently driving traffic to your site, but if you can do that, delete the ones you don’t use and merge the ones that overlap. Your database (and your customers) will thank you for it.

If you’re looking at your WordPress backend and feeling a sense of existential dread, don’t panic. At Marketing Labs, we specialise in cleaning up digital messes and building structures that actually rank.

Talk to our team today about a site audit, and let’s get your website’s architecture working for you, not against you.

And remember… It’s not just about the size of your site, it’s how you organise it!“