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I’ve just received an email from one of my clients asking me for more clarification regarding adding “categories” to her blog, so I thought I’d share part of my response below, as you may find it useful and helpful when setting up your own blog …

Blog Categories

Keeping your site’s content organized is very important, as this makes finding information easier for your visitors. The way to do this, is to work out what kind of broad yet distinct “topics” you will be publishing content about on your site regarding your specific niche (my client is setting up a blog for her marriage celebrant business).

You then convert these broad topics into “categories” (Posts > Categories), so that everytime you add a new article or post to your site, you simply tick the category box before publishing your post and this will immediately organize the content on your site in a logical way that makes the information easier to find.

For example, on a wedding celebrant’s site, I imagine that some of the broad topics (i.e. categories) you would write information about would be things like:

• Celebrant FAQs
• Celebrant Services
• Wedding Vows
• Wedding Locations
• Wedding Tips
• Other Ceremonies
• Etc …

So, if you write an article about “beach weddings”, for example, you may want to post this under the “Wedding Locations” category. This way, people visiting your site can quickly find information on beach weddings by clicking in the “Wedding Locations” category.

Likewise, general questions people have about using a marriage celebrant’s service could go under “Celebrant FAQs”, but information about the types of services you perform, could be found under “Celebrant Services”.

This part of the planning process is important for various reasons, including:

1) It will help to organize your strategic approach when adding new content to your site. For example, you might want to write a series of articles discussing different kinds of commitment ceremonies that can be performed through a marriage celebrant, or tips on how to plan for different types of wedding locations, etc. As you publish more and more content to your site on various topics, you will begin to notice which categories need more information to boost your “authority” on the subject and eventually turn your site into a well-rounded hub for people looking for marriage celebrants.

Remember, too many people use a website as little more than an online business card, but the way to use your site to grow your business is to have a long-term goal of using your online presence to present your expertise and build “authority” on your subject and trust with your visitors. This increases your exposure online and creates new opportunities for your business.

2) The words you choose for your categories can help to bring people to your site and increase your relevance in the search engines. This is because the site I have built for you incorporates a smart system that creates URL addresses for each of your site’s pages that is specifically targetted for your intended audience and that search engines love. If, for example, you write an article entitled “5 questions to ask before choosing a marriage celebrant” and you post this article under the category “Celebrant FAQs”, then visitors searching for information about marriage celebrant services will see a link to your article that looks something like this …

http://www.yourdomain.com/celebrant-faqs/5-questions-to-ask-before-choosing-a-marriage-celebrant

Instead of this …

http://www.yourdomain.com/7/0567325

Which of the above links looks more enticing for someone thinking about using a marriage celebrant’s services to click on?

So … give some serious thought to the topics your site will provide information to visitors about, create a list of distinct categories based on the results of your planning process and you will find that, as your site grows, it will grow in an organized fashion that will make it easier for you to manage and for visitors to find what they are looking for.

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No matter what type of business you have or are thinking of starting, starting a blog can definitely help you grow your business. For “step-by-step” videos and tutorials on how to set up a business blog that will help you grow your business online faster, click here: Start A Blog For Your Business

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