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How to Add Categories and Tags for WordPress Pages

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Do you want to set up categories and tags for your WordPress pages but don’t know how to get started?

Categories and tags help you sort your blog posts and make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. However, they are only available for posts by default, not for pages.

In this article, we will show you how to add categories and tags for WordPress pages, step by step.

How to add categories and tags for WordPress pages

Why Add Categories and Tags to WordPress Pages?

Adding categories and tags to your WordPress pages helps keep them organized and makes it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.

For example, if you have multiple sales pages for different products in your WooCommerce store, then you can group them under broad category and even child category pages.

You can do the same for different feature pages for your apps and software. For example, OptinMonster groups multiple feature pages under the ‘Features’ category.

OptinMonster feature pages example

Page categories and tags can also be helpful for search engine optimization (SEO). You’ll be helping search engines navigate through your content and understand your website structure, making it easier for them to index and rank your pages.

By default, categories and tags are WordPress taxonomies limited to your blog posts. So, normally, you can only use them for WordPress posts. But with a few steps, you can also apply them to your pages.

No categories or tags for pages

In this tutorial, we will show you how to add categories to pages to your WordPress site. We will also explain how to add tags to WordPress pages.

How to Easily Add Categories and Tags to WordPress Pages

The most beginner-friendly way of setting up WordPress categories and tags for your pages is by using the Pages with category and tag plugin. It’s a free WordPress plugin that works out of the box without additional configurations.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once activated, go to Pages » Add New in the WordPress admin area. You will find that WordPress tags and post categories are now available for your WordPress pages.

Categories and tags for pages

Next, you can create categories and tags for your pages.

To add a category, head over to the Pages » Categories section from your WordPress dashboard and then enter a category ‘Name’ and ‘Slug‘.

Add name and slug for new page category

After that, you can scroll down and select a ‘Parent Category‘ for your category.

Once you’ve entered these details, simply click the ‘Add New Category’ button.

Choose parent category and add new category

You can then view your newly added category for your pages.

If you want to delete a specific category, then simply click the checkbox next to it and select ‘Delete’ from the Bulk Action dropdown. Then, click the ‘Apply’ button.

View your page category

Next, you can categorize your WordPress pages to the categories you just created.

To start, simply edit or create a new page. From the WordPress content editor, you can now select the relevant category name from the sidebar on your right.

For instance, we created a feature page and marked it under the ‘Features’ category in the right-hand side panel.

Select your category and enter tags

Similarly, you can use tags for your WordPress page under the ‘Tags’ field. If you want to add multiple tags, then simply separate them using a comma.

For example, you can add keywords and phrases that help describe your content. In our case, we added the terms ‘exit intent’ and ‘OptinMonster’ as tags.

After selecting your category and adding tags, simply update or publish your WordPress page. That’s it!

For more guides on how to make the most of categories and tags for your WordPress website, check out the following tutorials:

We hope this article helped you add post categories and tags to your WordPress pages. You may also want to look at our article on how to create custom archive pages and our list of the best WordPress SEO plugins to optimize your website.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

84 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
    You can get more details about the contest from here.
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  2. Waran says

    I used the Pages with category and tag plug in to create categories and assigned to my pages. Then updated my permalinks to /%category%/%postname%/ but the url still showing the page slug only, category slug not showing.
    I read the comments by others, mostly talk about permalink to posts.
    is it possible to show the category in the permalink of a page? that is the only reason for me to categorise the pages.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      By default pages do not have the option to add categories so it sounds like you have a plugin or tool that is adding categories to your pages.

      Admin

  3. Johan says

    Hi, and thanks for valuable information. Does the use of this plugin mean that pages can have the same function as posts? For instance, can I make a portfolio grid containing pages instead of posts, or show several pages on a map instead of posts?

    If the answer is no, is there a way to create hierarchical structure in posts? Because that what I am aiming for, a website with posts or pages in a hierarchical structure (e.g. homepage/page-a/page-a1, homepage/page-b/page-b4 etc.) where all the pages can be displayed and filtered via tags or categories in both listings and maps.

    Much thankful for a reply!
    Kind regards

  4. Paul Wright says

    Hi, I am very grateful for this information, however unfortunately when I installed and activated the plugin it completley disfigured my “all pages” view on the dashboard , the letters identifying the page titles ran vertically down the page

    thanks anyway

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It sounds like you may have all possible fields showing on your all pages screen. If you use the screen options in the top-right of the screen you should be able to hide some information to prevent the letter scrolling on the page.

      Admin

  5. Dinesh Kumar Takyar says

    Your suggested Post Tags and Categories for Pages plugin is excellent. Thank you!

  6. Liesbeth says

    Hello,

    On your recommendation we’ve been using this plugin. We love the features, but one thing is still bothering us. In the search results there are no categories showing. We use the Avada theme and would love to see categories in the results. Do you know how to fix it?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to reach out to the support for your specific theme for including the categories in the display

      Admin

  7. Dee Torre says

    Hi,
    The plugin you suggested has not been reviewed for over 1 year. Could you suggest a newer one.
    Tnks,
    Dee

  8. Tarun soni says

    I like to read your blogs because I found the solution for my query but I noticed that you suggest installing a plugin for the solution. is it possible for you to show the solution by sharing custom code, not by a plugin.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It depends on the issue, we do our best to add a method for using code instead of a plugin for those looking for that but not all issues are solved with a small amount of code. Plugins are also a collection of code so there’s not always a difference in the code we would show and the plugin we’re recommending.

      Admin

  9. Joe Youngblood says

    Unfortunately you can no longer install this plugin from the repository as it hasn’t been updated in 2 years. Any other options?

  10. Evan Blass says

    Hello,

    I’m interested to know if there’s a way to make pages act as categories for SEO purposes. For example, if I create a new category ABC on my domain.com it will have this link, domain.com/categories/ABC. However, if I create a page with the slug ABC, it will have this link, domain.com/ABC. However, since it is not a category, search engines might treat it as a static page.

    Is there a way I can convert the domain.com/ABC page to a category?

  11. Vale says

    Thank you for your post, so the pages still considered as static pages?
    If I create an “About” page and if I did not assign a category will continue to be static? And in the other hand make pages as post with content?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It should keep your pages as the static pages even if you add them to a category

      Admin

  12. Ismail Siraje Ittembe says

    Wow nice post boss keep it up
    But This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Thank you for letting us know, we’ll be sure to take a look at alternatives should this plugin no longer work.

      Admin

  13. Carolyn says

    Hi. I am having a problem with assigning a new category that (for reasons over which I have no control) was given the same category name but with a different slug, and I am supposed to ‘pull’ these objects to the new category. But because it has the same name, although a different slug, WP doesnt seem to differentiate and keeps slinging the files into the old category. It defaults to the original. If there were a global function, other than the categories plugin, so that I could select the files and reassign from one category to another, bcause when I try to do so, only the old one shows up (even though the new one clearly exists).

  14. Viswanathan says

    Hi, i am using the events manager plugin which creates individual pages for each event created. The plugin settings give an option of showing events as pages or posts. However in both the cases, while creating the event it only gives an option of adding or selecting an ‘event category’ and not the ‘categories that i create for my blog posts or pages.

    Is there a plugin available so i can add my default post category to my events as well, so the events also show up in blog category archives?

  15. Ghislain Poirier says

    And how do we add the categories to the pages?

    I have the category functions showing in the wordpress backend menu, but it is only a shortcut to the create new category section…

    It is still not allowing me to tell what page is in what category or am I missing something?

  16. Pranav Mohan says

    This seems to assign pages to various categories, however, i am interested in finding out how to assign a category to a page so that when I search for the page, all the posts linked to the category show up.

  17. Susan Taunton says

    Hi WPBeginner!

    Post Tags and Categories is flagged by WordPress now as not having been updated for 12 months and is only tested for up to WordPress version 4.5.13. I just wonder if there not a child theme functions.php addition that could accomplish making pages taggable? Or is there a more up to date plugin that accomplishes this?
    Thank you so much for your many, many excellent tutorials.
    Susan

    • Xavier says

      Same question than Suzan.

      I might use the php code for this feature in you have it by any chance.

      BTW Suzan,
      I found this plugin that might do the trick but I didnt test it myself and I would like WPBeginner opinion on that :
      Category to Pages WUD

      Hope this help

  18. mohit yadav says

    Hi Thanks For This Great Article & the New Way of Website Structuring .

    LOVE YOU

    for this article.

    Now What i m Looking is ?

    i have a real estates website, while user submit property in this then he saw additional 3 drop down menu

    1. by pages
    2. by location
    3. by type
    and at last these automatically make a link with relevant pages.

    THanks in Advance
    Please help me .

  19. Norma says

    Hi, was super excited for this plugin but it didn’t work. It installed the categories but didn’t link them… I am so sad! Is there and up to date version?!

  20. Carol says

    I guess this info is outdated for the latest WP version. Is there an alternative plugin? I need to have this and it should be in WP by default, not requiring a plugin!

    Complaints on the plugin’s site that their latest version does not work. When I do a search by different ways within my own plugin page for ‘new’, “no such plugin”.

  21. Jhasketan Garud says

    Hi,
    Thanks a lot. I just looking for this.
    Now, I can easily affix categories to my new as well as old pages.

  22. Jonathan Hostetler says

    Thanks for this tip! I tried the plugin you recommended “Post Tags and Categories for Pages” and it worked flawlessly. This is super helpful for me because we need to use pages (as opposed to posts) for certain projects because our visual editor plugin is only compatible with pages, but I also need to be able to assign categories to our content.

    So, problem solved. Thanks again!

  23. David says

    This plugin has not been updated in 2+ years. Is there a way to do this without a plugin, so you’re not dependent on an old, outdated plugin?

  24. Kayleen Peretto-Ortega says

    Hello! I don’t have a plugin option, but there is an option for tags. I add tags for my posts, but they don’t appear on each post I make. Would you be able to help me on this?

  25. Tess Bulman says

    Do you have to have the upgraded version of wordpress? I have the free version and it won’t let me do anything with plugins? If this is the case, is there another way to put tags on my pages?

    • Renier says

      @Fabio
      I found some problems in WP4.4. For some reason none of the ‘article posts’ in a category/post shows on archives (2016 theme). By deactivating obviously all ‘article posts’ shows, but not ‘article pages’ (or at least this is what I suspect). In short, archives doesn’t show all the pages.

      Does anyone else experience this problem? I can’t seem to find any literature on the topic. Maybe Post tags and categories for pages plugin needs an update?

  26. Sebastian says

    Hi,

    has anyone managed yet to make these categories for pages appear in the URLs as well?

    I have not found any way to do this. Without it this plugin is only half as useful.
    Thanks for any suggestions!

    Sebastian

  27. Denis says

    I have a question,

    I have a website, and I do have categories pages, and TAG pages too,

    Category pages are shown as 10 posts and they have next button – previous button,

    But TAG pages don’t have NEXT BUTTON – PREVIOUS BUTTON, and they show only 10 posts related with the tag…

    It is really crucial issue for me and I really need to have this TAG pages with next button, previous button

    Do you guys have any idea that why CATEGORY pages do have these buttons but TAG pages don’t have?

    How can I solve this issue?

    Thanks so much in advance.

    Best

  28. Trieu To says

    Hi, i want to add category to page-url example /%category%/%pagename% how can i modify it?
    Can you post a artice about this?
    Thanks

  29. Tanuj Mandale says

    is there a reverse of this,
    I mean while creating a new post, instead of categories I want pages (to choose from). Means as a post is associates to category, it must associate to page.
    Is it Possible, please reply.
    thanks in advance

  30. Leona says

    Hi everyone, How do I take off the parenthesis and number of pages in front of each category. I am using it to categorize product for my online store and these don’t make sense. Thanks.

  31. Shane says

    Hi Guys,

    Thanks for this info. Was wondering if this could be done.

    Has anyone found that by adding categories to pages has increased rankings in Google if they also change permalink to – /%category%/%postname% ?

    Cheers,

    Shane

  32. Mark Breese says

    So, as you say, there’s a plugin for that… So is there a plugin… or shortcode that will let me show the pages with a certain category as a list of links… or maybe a list with excerpts and featured image? And I am using Ninja Page Categories and Tags plugin actually.

    My theme has a short code for showing posts in a category, but it does not pick up the pages in category and show them. (the theme is Weaver II Pro)

  33. Les says

    I have to correct my first post. The categories used to appear on the right-hand side of the page.

    • Les says

      SOLVED: I found out what the problem was. In the “Screen Options” I had categories unchecked. I placed a check in the box and the categories are back.

      Thanks for a great plugin.

  34. Les says

    My categories stopped showing on my add pages screen. They used to appear on the left side of the page. Even if I create a new page category, it won’t show up. Do you have any idea what could be causing this?

    Thanks in advance.

  35. chris says

    Ignore previous comment. This is the correct one.

    Hi. How can I show a listing of pages with their title/featured image/more?
    Actually I only need the query to display a list of pages related to a category (pages I created and assigned them to a category) doesn’t seem to work. Instead, it brings only posts.

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