How to Use Categories and Tags Correctly for Your Blog
Many bloggers and website owners misuse categories and tags, which can clutter their site and hurt SEO. Let’s break down how to use them the right way.
Categories: The Big Picture
Think of categories like folders that group similar content together. If you have a food blog, your categories might be:
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Desserts
For a wedding photographer, categories could be:
Wedding Tips
Featured Sessions
Engagements
Weddings
Every blog post should have only one primary category to keep things organized.
Tags: Fine-Tuning Your Content
Tags help users find specific content within a category. Unlike categories, tags should not be broad or stuffed with keywords. Instead, they should be relevant and help visitors filter content effectively.
For example, in a food blog, tags might be:
Gluten-Free
Vegetarian
Quick & Easy
One-Pan Meals
For a photographer, useful tags could include:
Barn Venues
Downtown Weddings
Spring Engagements
Beach Elopements
What not to do: Avoid using tags like “Dallas Wedding Photographer” or “California Wedding Photography”. If you shoot in a bunch of cities and you feel people want to filter by location then just use the location without keywords. “Atlanta, Iceland, etc”
Should You Index Category & Tag Pages?
No, in most cases, you should not index category and tag pages. Here’s why:
They don’t solve search intent. If someone Googles “barn wedding venue,” they’re looking for actual venue options—not a tag page with random blog posts.
They can hurt SEO. Google might waste time crawling unnecessary pages instead of important ones, leading to index bloat.
They can cause ranking conflicts. If your category or tag pages compete with your actual blog posts, it can weaken your rankings.
When to index: Only if the page has real value and acts like a well-structured hub page with useful content.
Final Thoughts
Use categories to organize and tags to refine your content. Keep them simple, relevant, and don’t index them unless they provide real value. By doing this, your site stays clean, user-friendly, and optimized for SEO!