Categories Wordpress – How To Add Categories In Wordpress

Editing and adding new Categories in Wordpress is a relatively basic task, but should only be done after you have spent some time in mapping out your site in the planning stages.

The first thing to do after logging into your Wordpress Dashboard is to click on the Categories link under the Posts tab.

When the category page loads in your web browser you will notice the page is in two sections…

Add Category and…
The Existing Categories.

After a brand new installation of Wordpress the first thing we need to do is edit the existing Uncategorized Category.

Hover your mouse over the category and click on the Edit link to continue.

On the Edit Category page there are text areas with the existing category names inserted, Simply change the text to your preferred category titles, I have included a more detailed description of each of the fields below the image.

Category Name – As it suggests, this is basically what the name of the Category is and the text you see displayed on the website menu bar.
Category Slug- The category slug is how your category is displayed in the URL, IMPORTANT – don’t leave any spaces or use Capital Letters in your slugs, lower case only and No Spaces.
Category Parent – As this is our default category leave this set as is, only choose the option for Category Parent when adding a Sub Category. (More on this below)
Description – The description is not prominent by default, however some themes may show it.. I like to keep the description as short as possible using the category title in the description.
Update Category – Click this button to save your changes.

That’s basically all there is to editing your categories, to add new categories and sub categories read on.

On the Category page follow the same steps outlined above in editing the category, but make sure you decide on whether or not your new category will be a top level category or a sub level or child category of the top level category.(Sound Confusing?)

In the example below I am adding a Sub category with the title Sub Category.

Category Name – Add Your Category name.
Category Slug – Enter the Category name using lower case letters only and no spaces.
Category Parent – Choose the parent category of your sub category. (My Parent category is called Top Category)
Description – Add the Description of your category.
Add Category – Click To Save Your Changes.

And that’s all there is to adding a new category to your Wordpress site, very simple and extremely user friendly, the hardest part is coming up with the structure of your categories and what to call them.

One More Thing… You won’t see the categories on your blog unless you they have at least one post inside of them.

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