Displaying category pages is a great benefit of using categories and tags to organize your content. A category page lists all of the posts assigned to a specific category. This is a nice assist to users who are interested in a particular topic, thus improving their overall experience on the site. In addition, category pages enhance the site SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
View Posts from a Single Category
When logged into the WordPress site, go to Posts > All Posts to view a list of all the posts.
This list can be filtered by title, author, category, tag, and date (and other taxonomies, like SEO score, depending on the installed plugins). There are 2 ways to filter the list by category:
- Click on the All Categories dropdown sub-menu at the top of the list, select the category you want, then click the Filter button on the right side of the sub-menu area.
OR - Click on a label in the Categories column (WordPress, for example). This technique also works for the Tags labels.
The screen refreshes with a filtered view of the chosen category.
Display Posts from a Single Category
Adding Categories to a Menu
For users to see a single category displaying on the front-end, you can create a new menu item. This will provide easy access to the posts in a specific category.
- Go to Appearance > Menus.
- Edit Menus: At the top of the screen, select the menu you want to edit (or create a new menu).
- Add menu items: Click on the Categories drop-down sub-menu and the View All tab.
- Select the category you want.
- Click the Add to Menu button.
The new menu item will automatically be placed at the bottom of the menu list. You can move it to any position you want. Be sure you click the Save Menu button at the bottom of the screen.
On my blog, I have 3 categories in my navigation menu:
- Web Design – https://www.askdesign.biz/blog/category/web-design/
- Graphic Design – https://www.askdesign.biz/blog/category/graphic-design/
- Art – https://www.askdesign.biz/blog/category/art/
If necessary, you could add a new menu item manually. Here’s one way to do it:
- Figure out the URL for a category by going to the Categories list:
Posts > All Posts > Categories - Click on the View hyperlink underneath the category you want. This will open up a new page that displays that category. Copy the URL address in the browser’s address bar. If you hover over the View hyperlink, you’ll see the URL address pop up at the bottom of your browser window. But, it’s much easier to just click on the hyperlink.
- Go to Appearance > Menus.
- Edit Menus: At the top of the screen, select the menu you want to edit (or create a new menu).
- Add menu items: Click on the Custom Links drop-down sub-menu and paste the URL address into the URL field. Type the navigation label inside the Link Text field.
- Click the Add to Menu button.
Adding Categories to a Widget
You can also paste the URL address into any page, post, or widget. The active theme may have widgets in certain areas that you may want to use. Let’s explore placing the Categories widget inside the Primary Sidebar.
- Go to Appearance > Widgets.
- Select the Categories widget.
- Scroll down to Primary Sidebar (or whatever sidebar area you’d like to display it in).
- Click Add Widget.
- Give your widget a Title and choose how you want it to be displayed (dropdown, post counts, hierarchy).
Video Tutorial
If you prefer learning by watching, check out my video tutorial about the benefits of categories and tags.
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Beginner’s Guide to Gutenberg Blocks
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