Hindsight is always 20/20. If I had know what I know now, I woudn’t have gone nuts over categoires.
The other day I read that in SEO terms, less categories are better than too many. I’ve got way too many. The secret is to use less categories and let tags better describe the actual content. I was talking to Human3rror and I suggested I try to get down ot 8 containers. Human3rror then suggested that I go for 6 even. So, we’ll see where I get. Bellow are all my categories. After looking at all of these categories, what 6-8 categories should I keep (or add)?
Administration
Design
Early Childhood
Elementary
Events
Family
Fresh Ideas
High School
Humor
Leadership
Middle School
Missions
Multi-site
Orange
Parents
Personal
Philosophy
Random
Resources
Reviews
Technology
Training
Un-categorized
Which ones should I get rid of first… or better yet, which ones should I keep?
Ummm….definitely keep Orange 🙂
I’m not sure that the argument that “less categories are better” is a global rule. Yes, it helps to find pinpointed content, but I think that has to do more with what your categories actually are. Due to the nature of the coverage I write about over on bevreview.com, we’ve got a LOT of categories, most of which are pretty heavily indexed from an SEO perspective. But it’s probably easier to do that for soft drinks instead of CM 🙂
Steve Tanner’s last blog post..Bottle designs revealed for Pepsi Throwback, Mountain Dew Throwback
First of all… it would help to know how many posts are in each category. If there are 5 times more post in one category than another… that’s likely a big time keeper.
So I suppose my advise would be to look at the content of posts in the past… and consider the content of posts in the future. Base the categories around that….
So anyways… my 6 would be: Technology, Children’s Ministry (with tags going to nursery, elementary, tweens…ect), Family Ministry (or possibly just Parent Partnering… leaving it a little more open than just family ministry), Leadership, Resources, and Reviews… with Random or Un-categorized thrown in.
Thanks for the thoughts everyone. When I first started blogging a few years ago, I didn’t really understand tags and it hasn’t been until the last 8-12 months that I’ve started using them. So I figured 6-8 categories with tags to take it smaller might help. I guess I’ve created so many dang categories, I sit there and try to figure out which categories it best fits into… or if I need to create a new category. I assume that left to this pattern, I’d have 100 categories in a few years and I just don’t think that would be very helpful.
Matt, I like your suggestions… I’ll have to continue to give it thought.
good for you! especially since you’re using wordpress you can maximize your tag usage…!
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Yeah maybe you combine student ministry and children ministry and fam ministry into a total ministry cat, tech, resources, funny stuff, and leadership
J.C.’s last blog post..Theology in Children’s Ministry