Wordpress - Categories vs Tags

Hi All

I know what tags and categories are in the context of wordpress sites. However i was thinking what is the advantage of using categories vs tags or should both be used ?

I would also like to ask, does using categories AND tags increase the seo of that site ?

Kind Regards
mrhrk01 ~

 

To answer your first question, both should be used. From what I understand catagories is adding to the page content which is on way search engines use to help rate a site. The tags are incorporated much like meta tags in html which is another method search engines use to rate a site.

So by increasing the strength of both you are increasing the effectiveness of your overall seo.

Hope this helps.

CapitalGains

 

I use both. Although, I do not usually have tags and categories with the same name.

 

I also think it is a good idea to use both, there is no reason for them to be mutually exclusive. I'd also suggest adding a tag cloud widget which would make it easier for users to navigate between and find posts around a particular subject.

 

there's no harm in using both... Categories help your readers find their preferred article in yoru blog while tags is like meta tags, one which helps your SERP

 

Use both.

An example of a category would be Manchester United, and the corresponding tag could be Dimitar Berbatov, if you are looking at a football blog.

Ultimately it is to help for easier navigation and classification.

 

Thanks for everyone's useful info. Currently i am only using categories and wanted to know the advantages of also using tags and it seems using tags should help as well - So Thanks all

 

I would use categories and tags too. The number of categories I have is much fewer than the number of tags. I also use wordpress plugins that can suggest tags for you, or show you your previously used tags to make things a little quicker and easier.

 

It would be great if you could suggest some tag plugins which automates this process. This is the main reason I haven't used tags. I find it ime consuming creating a whole bunch of them for each new blog post.

 

So far, for some reason ive resisted using tags on my wordpress blogs, i may start using tags on my latest blog.

 

Yeah, I find it time consuming as well. The plugin Simple Tags adds a lot of options to make tagging your posts easier, including automatically generating suggested tags - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-tags/

 

Thanks for the plugin suggestion mspennylane

 

Categories = broad "buckets" that your articles go into

Tags = 'subcategories' that tie articles together.

I try to create as few categories as possible by making them be very broad. I then create narrow-term tags to tie them together. For instance, 5 articles go into the category "cars". Two of them get tags "sports cars", one gets "sedan" and the other two get "luxury." Four of them get an additional tag, "domestic" and the 5th one gets a tag "import".

It's foolish to ignore tags as they help define the internal linking structure of your site.

 

It is best to use both. Categories should be less in number and more general - tags should be more in number and more specific.

 

You are just being lazy. How hard is it to pull a few keywords from your post and type them in as tags? It's not like you need a "whole bunch" for each post. I just use 2-4 for each post.

Thanks. That sounds interesting. I'll check into it.