How to Add Product Tags, Attributes, and Categories to WooCommerce

Just like categorizing blog posts helps readers find your content, online stores need a smart system to organize their products. In WooCommerce, this comes down to mastering tags, attributes, and categories.

When done right, these product organization tools do more than just tidy up your store. They guide shoppers to exactly what they’re looking for, boost your visibility in search results, and can significantly impact your sales.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to properly set up product tags, attributes, and categories in WooCommerce.

You’ll learn exactly how to organize your store like the top eCommerce sites, making it both shopper-friendly and search engine-optimized.

What’s the Difference Between Categories, Tags, and Attributes in WooCommerce?

WooCommerce categories, tags, and attributes aren’t just for organization. They can be great tools for driving sales and improving your online store‘s user experience.

Let’s break down what each one does:

Feature	Categories	Tags	Attributes
Purpose	Broad product groupings, main store structure.	Specific keywords for products, improved searchability.	Product characteristics (e.g., color, size, material).
Hierarchy	Hierarchical (can have parent/child relationships).	Non-hierarchical (flat structure).	Non-hierarchical, but terms are grouped under an attribute.
Example	Clothing > Men’s > Shirts.	“Summer,” “Discount,” “Casual.”	“Color: Red,” “Size: Large,” “Material: Cotton.”
User Function	Primary navigation, broad browsing.	Discover related products, refined searching.	filtering products on shop/category pages.

Here’s an example of a WooCommerce product with the category ‘Accessories’ and an attribute for the color red-listed on the product page.

Now that you understand categories, tags, and attributes, we’ll show you how to create product attributes, tags, and categories to your WooCommerce products in the following sections.

Ready? Let’s get started. You can use the quick links below to skip to a section you prefer:

How to Add and Edit Product Categories in WooCommerce

WooCommerce has built-in settings for adding product categories, tags, and attributes right out of the box.

To add categories, you’ll want to navigate to Products » Categories from your WordPress admin panel. Then, you can give your category a name, add a slug, and choose whether or not it has a parent category.

From here, you can optionally give your category a description.

Then, you might want to expand the ‘Display type’ dropdown and choose the display option to adjust what your category landing page will look like.

You can choose to display your ‘Default’ theme options, ‘Products,’ ‘Subcategories,’ or ‘Both.’

The ‘Default’ option uses the standard design from your WordPress theme for the category page. For most stores, this is the best option to choose.

‘Products’ would display all the products assigned to that category on the main category page, for example, wpbeginner.com/shop/jackets.

Meanwhile, ‘Subcategories’ would simply display the subcategories, and the visitor would have to click on one of the subcategories to view those products.

If you want to add a category thumbnail, then simply click the ‘Upload/Add image’ button.

Let’s make sure you click the ‘Add new category’ button to save your changes.

To add more categories or subcategories, simply repeat the steps above. 

Once done, you can assign a product to a category by going to your product page and then checking the category box in the ‘Product categories’ section.

You can also click the ‘Add new category’ link.

This will open a section where you can quickly create new categories on the fly.

When you’ve finished assigning categories, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button.

How to Add and Edit Product Tags in WooCommerce

A WooCommerce product tag is similar to a tag in your blog posts. You can use product tags to make it easier for your visitors to find the exact products they’re looking for.

To add new WooCommerce tags, you’ll need to go to Products » Tags and enter the name of your tag, the slug, and the description. Then, simply click the ‘Add new tag’ button.

To add more tags, simply follow the steps above.

Then, you can add individual tags to your product pages.

To do this, you’ll want to open the product page you want to edit. The next step is to enter your tags into the ‘Product tags’ box. 

You can type tags separated by commas, or enter one tag and press Enter/Return. Then, click the ‘Add’ button.

Once you’re finished, make sure to click ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to save your changes.

How to Add and Edit Product Attributes in WooCommerce

Once your categories and tags are set up, you can start adding product attributes. These help customers filter and find exactly what they’re looking for.

First, let’s go to Products » Attributes and then give your attribute a name and choose its URL slug.

Then, you might want to enable archives by checking the ‘Enable Archives’ box. This creates a dedicated page for each attribute term, like a page for all ‘red’ products.

These pages are great for both your site’s navigation and for SEO, as they can rank in search results.

After that, let’s choose the ‘Default sort order,’ which is the order of your products that will appear on the shop page for that attribute.

We’ll choose the ‘Custom ordering’ option. This gives you more control, letting you arrange sizes in a logical order like Small, Medium, and Large, instead of alphabetically.

You can also order by name and term ID.

Then, you’ll want to click the ‘Add attribute’ button to add it to the attribute table.

Once you do that, you can click the ‘Configure terms’ link to add terms to the attribute.

For example, if you created an attribute called ‘Color,’ then you can add the individual colors as terms.

This brings up a screen similar to the main attribute screen, where you need to enter the name, slug, and optional description.

Remember to click the ‘Add New [Attribute Name] Term’ button (e.g., ‘Add New Color’) to save your attribute terms. You can repeat the process to add as many attribute terms as you want.

Once you’ve done that, you can add your attributes to individual products.

Simply open up the product page you want to edit, then click the ‘Attributes’ option in the ‘Product data’ section under the text editor.

Next, let’s select your attribute in the ‘Custom product attribute’ dropdown (it will list the global attributes you created earlier).

Then, simply click the ‘Add’ button.

This will add the attribute to your product.

Now, you can select your attribute terms from the ‘Value(s)’ box.

Once you add your attributes, click the ‘Save attributes’ button. Also, make sure to click ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to save your product.

How to Optimize Product Listings for WooCommerce SEO

Now that you have created tags, attributes, and categories, you can improve your product pages even more with the help of an SEO plugin.

We recommend using All in One SEO since it’s the best WordPress SEO plugin in the market and is used by over 3 million website owners. It’s also what we use to optimize our blog posts at WPBeginner and our WordPress business websites.

It’s very easy to use and lets you optimize your website for SEO without any technical skills.

This means more traffic from search engines and social media, and more eyes on your products. 

The first thing you need to do is install, activate, and set up the plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress correctly.

After that, you can optimize your product titles by opening the page for a product and scrolling down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ box below the product editor.

Here, you can change the product’s SEO title and description. You can use the smart tags to automatically generate descriptions based on your product details or enter a custom title and description instead.

Make sure that you use your main product keyword in both the ‘Title’ and ‘Meta Description’ fields.

After that, click on the ‘Social’ tab to optimize how your product will display across social media.

You have complete control over the product image you want to use, which will help you get more engagement from your followers.

Next, you’ll want to click the ‘Schema’ tab. Schema markup lets the search engines better display your content in the search results. 

If you’ve seen product listings with prices, star ratings, and more, then you’ve seen product schema in action.

All in One SEO will automatically choose the right schema type for your products and fill in the pricing, availability, and more.

You can also add additional schema markup, including the brand, identifier type, and identifier fields. Identifiers can be any unique ID, such as GTIN codes (like UPC, EAN, ISBN), MPN, or SKU.

Once you’re done customizing your product listing for SEO, make sure to click the ‘Update’ button to save your changes.

Beyond using a powerful SEO plugin like AIOSEO, remember these general WooCommerce SEO best practices for your product listings, categories, and tags:

• Unique Descriptions: Ensure all product, category, and tag archive pages have unique, keyword-rich descriptions to avoid duplicate content issues and provide value to users and search engines.
• SEO-Friendly URLs: Use short, descriptive slugs for your categories, tags, and products. WooCommerce typically handles this well, but always double-check.
• Internal Linking: Use categories and tags to create a strong internal linking structure. This helps search engines discover all your content and passes link equity throughout your site.
• Image Optimization: Use descriptive alt text for all product images and ensure they are properly compressed for fast loading times.
• User Experience (UX): A well-organized store with easy navigation (thanks to proper categories and attributes) naturally leads to better SEO, as search engines favor sites that offer a good user experience.

For more details, see our ultimate WooCommerce SEO guide for ranking higher in Google searches.

Frequently Asked Questions About WooCommerce Tags, Attributes, and Categories

Here are some questions that our readers frequently ask about adding product tags, attributes, and categories to WooCommerce.

What’s the simplest way to remember the difference between categories, tags, and attributes?

Think of categories as the main aisles in a store, like ‘Clothing.’ Tags are descriptive labels that can apply to items in any aisle, like ‘On Sale.’ Attributes, on the other hand, are the specific options for a single product, like ‘Color’ or ‘Size.’

How many categories or tags should I use for one product?

It’s best practice to place a product in only one main category. You might also add it to a relevant subcategory if needed.

For tags, there is no hard limit, but aim for 5 to 10 highly relevant tags. Too many can look cluttered and confuse both users and search engines.

Do product categories and tags really help with SEO?

Yes, absolutely. They automatically create new archive pages on your site that group related products together. Search engines can crawl and index these pages, which helps them better understand your site’s structure and can improve your overall rankings.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add product tags, attributes, and categories to WooCommerce. You may also want to see our expert picks of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store and our guide on how to set up WooCommerce conversion tracking.

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