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Advice needed – Wordpress Categories, Tags, SEO (11 posts)

Nick Rock said
10 months, 3 weeks ago:
Hello dear Blogger!
Today I have a very complex question(s) and hope some of you are able to give me some suggestions.
I’m currently in the progress of setting up a new blog and I’m struggling with some things like categories, tags and navigation in term of SEO.
I’m blogging about news, reviews, howto’s, apps, etc. Let’s take as example different posts about Facebook.
1. Post: What is Facebook
  Category: Facebook
  Tag: Facebook
2. Post: Facebook Page App
  Category: Apps
  Tag: Facebook, App
3. Post: How to create a profile on Facebook
  Category: HowTo
  Tag: Facebook, HowTo
4. Post: Facebook closes it’s doors
  Category: News
  Tag: Facebook
Now, as you see, there are multiple Facebook posts in different categories with different tags. I could easily post all Facebook related posts in the Facebook category but won’t be able to fill those other categories which could help my visitors for a better navigation.
I think, removing the “category” from the URL could help to prevent duplicates for the search engine. But what about tags? I’ve learned that you should avoid using the same name for a tag and a category. But it would be great to use it as the visitor will be able to see all posts belonging to the tag.
Currently I have written 7 posts with the category in the URL so I would be able to change them as the blog is just a few days old.
I hope you see what I’m trying to go.
How did you managed this on your blog?
Thanks for taking the time!
CheersNick
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Kristi Hines said
10 months, 3 weeks ago:
@nickrock I always think about my categories in terms of what people will see if they just went to a category page. So if someone goes to your Facebook category, all of the post you listed should be under it. You can always put posts in two or three categories out of your Facebook, Apps, How To, and News. Then have the tags be Facebook, Facebook Apps, Apps, How To, Facebook How To, and Facebook News.
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Nick Rock said
10 months, 3 weeks ago:
@kristi-hines
Hi Kristi,
this is what I thought as well but what about the SEO things? Using tags with the same name as the category and in different variations, wouldn’t be that called keyword stuffing and penealized by Google?
Currently I have set yoast SEO to index/follow categorie archives, I guess I should switch that to noindex/follow as categories could have multiple identical snippets from posts in more than one category.
Also, do you recommend the “category” within the URL?
Thank you for your help so far!
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Kristi Hines said
10 months, 3 weeks ago:
@nickrock It depends on how you use them. Since you can nofollow your tags / categories, it’s not that big of an issue. I look at them as more for organization. I like to make my tags more descriptive than the categories, so if the category is How To, Facebook, maybe the tag is Create a Profile. Then if you have several posts that specifically relate to profile creation, you can add a link to the tag in the post so people can see all of the posts on creating a profile, vs. adding a link to the category so people see all of the Facebook posts. Tags also help if you use plugins like Related Posts which will list similar articles at the end of a post. It would likely see that your post is in the Create a Profile tag and then list other posts in that tag as well. Hopefully that makes sense. Just think of categories / tags as organization.
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Nick Rock said
10 months, 3 weeks ago:
@kristi-hines Thank you for your suggestions Kristi! I guess if I remove the “categories” slug from the URL to have domain.com/post-name it would be the easiest way. Also a description added to the category page should help.
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Heather Wright-Porto said
10 months, 3 weeks ago:
Hi Nick!I would also suggest your use the free, popular and recommended All In One SEO WordPress plugin. In WP you can go to Plugins on your Dashboard and do a search for it there.@nickrock
@blogsbyheather | # | Top
Nick Rock said
10 months, 3 weeks ago:
Hi @blogsbyheather Thanks for your suggestion! Have used the All in One SEO plugin before but I’m using Yoast SEO since a couple of months for all my websites as my preferred plugin
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Heather Wright-Porto said
10 months, 3 weeks ago:
@nickrock Hmmm. I haven’t heard of that one.Is it a paid for plugin or free?Thanks!Heather
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Don Sturgill said
10 months, 2 weeks ago:
Not long ago, Nick, I would have said Categories are for SEO and tags are for internal searches (a user tool). Recently, though, I’ve noticed sites using do-follow tags for SEO.
I guess it all depends upon your objectives. It sounds as if you are going to be covering a bunch of territory. If you find it difficult separating your content into a handful of definitive categories, perhaps tags are a better separator than categories for you.
@roadturn | # | Top
Nick Rock said
10 months, 2 weeks ago:
@blogsbyheather Uhm, try Google, it’s kinda famous as All In One SEO plugin and it’s also free
@roadturn Hi Don,
Thanks for your message. I’m still unsure how to separate all the content, my main focus is on the user navigation. SEO is also important but only in the second row.Maybe I use both of them and set their links to noindex/follow, I think that should do the trick. Sounds good?
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Don Sturgill said
10 months, 2 weeks ago:
Without an ample stream of readers, Nick (SEO) … it doesn’t matter how well organized you are.
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