Q. What is the function of Categories and Tags within WordPress and how have you utilised these?

Both categories and tags are known as taxonomies (a scheme of classification – dictionary.com), they exist to sort your content into groups and therefore improve the usability of your site. Users can easily browse through your content by topic, finding the correct content by viewing the listed categories and tags. A users experience can be vastly improved by these well-constructed navigational elements (categories and tags).

Basically categories are meant for broad grouping of your posts. Categories are hierarchical, so you can add sub-categories. Categories are relateable to a book’s table of contents. It is important to choose specific relateable categories not being too vague so that all posts are relevant under one category.

Tags are meant to describe specific details of your posts. Tags are relateable to a book’s index page. Tags are not hierarchical.

Categories and Tags are becoming more important with SEO as Google is now looking at keywords in Categories and Tags as well as Meta keywords. Categories and Tags are still not keywords and should be generated with end users in mind and usability and not Google.

I have broken my work in my portfolio into categories based on the type of service that was created. For example Print Design, Branding, Digital Design. The blog uses a different set of categories and tags separate to the portfolio.