Guide to Structuring Your WordPress Site: Posts to Pages and Categories

Guide to Structuring Your WordPress Site: Posts to Pages and Categories

Effectively organizing content is critical for both user experience and search engine optimization (SEO) in WordPress. Instead of just letting all your blog posts appear on a single, messy homepage, you can leverage Categories to create dedicated sections on your website and display specific posts on custom pages or menus.

This guide details how to assign blog posts to different categories and then use those categories to build a structured custom navigation menu.

1. Preparation: Creating Content and Structure

Before linking posts to pages, you need the foundational elements:

A. Creating Posts

Create and write your content pieces (posts). When you initially publish them, they will typically appear on the default homepage or blog page, and often in the “Uncategorized” section [01:18].

B. Creating Categories

Categories are the organizational backbone of your blog. They serve as broad grouping themes for your content (e.g., Deals, Discounts, Offers) [05:25].

1. In your WordPress Admin Portal, navigate to Posts > Categories.
2. Create descriptive categories for the sections you want to appear on your site’s main menu.

C. Creating Pages (Optional)

While you can select a static page to be your homepage, for this method, you will be linking the main menu items directly to your categories, which function as archival pages that dynamically collect all related posts [04:33].

---

2. Assigning Posts to Categories

The crucial step is to ensure each post is assigned to the correct category so it appears in the right section of your website.

1. Go to Posts > All Posts.
2. Edit each post you want to categorize.
3. On the right-hand side of the post editor, locate the Categories panel.
4. Check the box next to the specific category you want the post to belong to (e.g., check “Discounts” for a post about a discount code) [09:38].
5. Update the post.

When a post is created, it should only be assigned to the category that best represents its topic.

---

3. Creating a Custom Menu from Categories

The final step is to build your main navigation menu using the categories you just assigned posts to.

1. In the WordPress Admin Portal, navigate to Appearance > Editor (or Menus depending on your theme) [07:06].
2. Locate your site’s Navigation menu.
3. Add Menu Items: Instead of linking to static Pages (like “About Us”), add your Categories as menu items [07:39].
4. Custom Links (Alternative Method): If your theme editor doesn’t easily show categories, you can use Custom Links by copying the URL of the category archive (e.g., yourwebsite.com/category/deals) and using that URL to create a link in the menu [07:29].
5. Save the Menu: Once the menu is saved, these category links will appear in your site’s header [10:05].

When a user clicks on the “Deals” menu item, they will see an archive page displaying only the posts you tagged with the “Deals” category [10:12]. This ensures a clean, organized, and SEO-friendly structure for your content.

---