How Do You Organize Your Website?
When we consult with a new client, we talk about the content for their site. How will the content on your website be organized? We begin by planning out a site map that will help us plan the menu and be a roadmap for the developers as they assemble the various parts of the website. In WordPress, your content is either put on a page or a post.
What is a Page?
Pages are static, permanent parts of your website. They aren’t affected by the date, and while they can be edited, their overall structure doesn’t change. Pages are listed in your site’s menu and include your home page, about page, and contact page, among others.
What is a Post?
Posts are more like newspaper articles. You frequently update them with new content to keep your readers coming back. They can be displayed in chronological order or reverse chronological order. You can also customize the way they are displayed. For example, some people like to keep one post pinned to the front of their blogs. This is called a sticky post.
When people think of posts, they usually think of blog posts. But there are other kinds of posts. For example, many businesses share press releases on their website using a custom post type.
On e-commerce sites, products’ sales pages (which are actually a custom post type) are organized into categories, just like they would be in a brick-and-mortar store.
Organizing Your Posts
Recently we met with a client who is a prolific writer—and a good one! He has been adding content to his blog for years and now has hundreds of posts. In planning his new website, we discussed ways to make it easier for readers to access the specific content they search for on his site. We came up with several solutions that would create an appealing, well-organized website. But the first job was to put the content into categories.
Organize Your Website With Categories
If you put the posts from your website into a book, you would want to do it in a way that makes sense. You would organize it in whatever way works for your business, and the names of those categories would be the table of contents, showing readers the main topics you would be covering. If they prefer to get right to the matter, they are interested in, and they can bypass the chapters that don’t pertain to them and read the one that does. That’s what categories do.
Don’t Let Your Website Be “Uncategorized.”
All WordPress posts must be categorized. If you don’t organize your posts, WordPress will do it for you, placing them under the heading “uncategorized.” By the way, it is a good idea to change that to something else like “other.” “Uncategorized” looks like you didn’t finish the details of the post.
If you have a health and nutrition site, your categories might be:
- News
- Nutrition
- Mindfulness
These are Pretty Broad Topics
That’s why you can also use subcategories to organize your website posts.
News
COVID-19
Nutrition
Vegan
Keto
Gluten-Free
Diabetic
Weight Loss
Mindfulness
Mindfulness Apps
Mindfulness Techniques
Even the subcategories are broad, but at least they will get your readers pointed in the right direction (of course, you don’t have to use subcategories).
Limit Your Categories
Try to limit your posts to one category (occasionally two). At the same time, limit the overall number of categories to no more than ten. Keep the number of subcategories to a minimum, as well. This is better for SEO and the overall organization of your website.
There are, of course, exceptions. For example, large e-commerce sites often have many more categories.
Leave it to the Experts
At Iceberg Web Design, we create unique custom websites. We also offer hosting and maintenance packages that will give you security and peace of mind. Contact us today!