@afun604 I’ve seen blogs with anywhere from 5 to 50 categories listed in their sidebar.  The way I like to think about categories is (1) will you have a sizable amount of posts under a category?  If not, then you might want to see if the post would fit under an already established category.  (2) Do the categories represent your main blog theme / keyword focus?  

In your case, categories like Buying a Home, Condos, Finances, First Time Home Buyers, Green Real Estate, Mortgages, Open Houses, Realtors, Rental Properties, etc. fit your main site theme for real estate.  

Snowbirds, storm, winter, holidays, etc. seem like they don’t necessarily fit and the one post under those categories could fall under home maintenance or home owner tips.  Also, the post under Shopping is really about Mortgages, so it could go under the mortgages category.  And the post under Holidays could go under Business Tips. 

So maybe go through your posts and narrow down which ones could easily fit under categories that are established, that way when someone clicks on a category, they will see lots of posts on that theme and not just one or two.  Also, check out blogs by competitors to see what categories they are using.  That may help you in your category choices!  :)

@afung604 and @kristi-hines

Thanks for this exchange. I’ve been wondering about this.

I’ve also wondered if you can create segmented distribution lists so that people only receive emails about categories they are interested in?

I’m thinking about segmenting my audience into at least three groups. Some are interested in everything. Some just care about leadership issues. Others just want a weekly inspirational word.

Can that all happen in the same blog or do I need to create a 2nd blog for those who get overwhelmed by even 2 posts per week?

That’s very helpful, @kristi-hines. You rock!

@afung604  I build categories on blogs based on keyword research. I started a student productivity blog a while ago, and now have 35 categories of topics all focused on education at StudentHacks.org.

It took time to build up content for 35 categories, but that’s where I’m at right now.  I think that if you’re trying to be an expert in a certain field, than you should be writing about all aspects of that area (and use categories or tags to organize information for your readers).  I have some blogs with just 5 categories, but in time that will probably grow. 

I recommend starting with keyword research about your blog topic and finding out all the topics and areas that people are interested about and start creating content to help answer the need.  Let categories form naturally from there — and focus on becoming the wikipedia for your niche. Hope that helps.  Let me know if you more questions.  Be glad to try my best to answer.

Thanks for the tips @mikedelgadodigitalmarketer & @eugenoprea. Are there other keyword research tools that you recommend?

@aprylparcher That’s a great article. Thanks for sharing.

@afung604  I have a few favorite keyword tools depending on what I’m working on.  When I’m researching keywords for business and want to know what types of keywords might convert better than other keywords in pay-per-click, I like using iSpionage.com to find out what my competitors are targeting.  I pay a lot of attention to keywords used by competitors for over 1 or 2 years because those keywords are sometimes driving quality leads or awareness.  And those are often good keywords to use for SEO purposes as well.  @eugenoprea is right that Google’s keyword tool for starting out — and could be the only tool you’ll ever need. I use that and sometimes will dig deeper using Google Insights and Google Trends.

So many great ideas and so much I should do, a bit overwhelmed at the moment, I have a business blog site, with a few posts…now I am wondering about feeds, which totally confuse me…I noticed a feed format on the pages while messing around one day, it looked very neat, but don’t know how to find it again and if others can see it?  http://ms321silver.blogspot.com/ …would very much appreciate any feedback!

I  didn’t realize I could do this…will have to check into it! Have had it for awhile, do you think it best to add a Wordpress blog or redirect to it only?

Thanks very much, Mac

Sincerely, Georgi

@mssilvr

Mac’s right. Definitely put your domain on your own hosted site (I use WordPress installed on Hostgator) so you build your own asset and not Blogger’s.

As far as categories go, since the recent Google fallout over blog networks and backlinking scams, I’ve seen a lot of “experts” advising against using “tags” and recommending using fewer categories. The intel is that Google’s next moves will target excessive seo techniques, including excessive tags and even categories. So Kristi’s advice above to consolidate categories, remove straggling categories with few articles in them, and other advice to make categories more keyword focused is probably a very good goal to have when organizing or reorganizing your site to make Google extra happy.