Categories Give Blogs Structure and Direction
Categories are collections of content that relate to a designated topic.
A previous post explored how “categories” help readers wade through pages of valuable content. They can also be a valuable tool for you as author.
If you are like most people, you started your blog with just a couple of posts in mind. Categories were the last thing you were thinking about. Now, several months later, you have a blog with a dozen or more posts and your interests are beginning to broaden.
Scroll through your posts. You are probably finding some of your best content buried, requiring a dedicated reader to scroll for seconds to find them. Placing them in a category is the fastest and easiest way to make your older posts more prominent.
Look again through your blog posts. Do you see any recurring themes? Make a list. These are your categories.
You do not want to create a category for only one post. In your mind you are just starting to write on the topic. To readers it looks like you have no passion or authority on that topic. So hold off until you are sure you can offer your readers more than a fleeting opinion.
Creating categories becomes a useful planning tool. You will begin to understand your blog and its structure. This may give you insights about your blogs future and help you plan future posts.
Here are the steps to take when creating categories and developing your blog into a useful resource.
- Review your content.
- List the topics you are writing about.
- If you see a topic that is of great interest to you, but you’ve posted only one article, pull out your editorial calendar and brainstorm more topics for that category. Hold off on creating a category until you have at least five posts to add.
- Your review of categories might identify a dominant topic. This could lead you to create a separate page for that topic or even to create a separate blog.
- Once you’ve identified a few categories, plan for how you will continue to address each topic. You might want to address each topic every week. Soon you may find a structure. Write about topic A on Mondays and Topic B on Wednesdays, for example. You might want to add a special feature such as a poll on Fridays. Soon you will have a PLAN!
- Review your editorial calendar and make sure each category is regularly represented.
- While you are at it, brainstorm new content ideas for each category you’ve identified.
As you develop your blog, you will want to start publishing newsletters, white papers and perhaps even ebooks. If you’ve carefully maintained your blog categories, you’ll be able to easily identify content to adapt to other purposes. A good bit of the organizational work for larger ventures will be done!