How Many Blog Categories Should You Have?

I like the rule that says “Keep it simple”. You don’t need a hundred categories unless you have a blog that is built for a specific purpose and that’s your shtick. But by and large, fewer categories is best. I don’t mean be an extreme minimalist. Two categories probably isn’t enough. I would say you should have around 10-15 categories for your blog and no more.

Why 10-15?

Good question. You want at least 10 categories to show that you have a variety of topics you blog about. You want to keep your limit to 15, however, so you can focus your blog on specific keywords within your niche. It’s better for optimization purposes.

As you blog, you’ll find yourself blogging on specific topics more often. Try to even it out some if you can. Keep your categories as broad as you can without making them too broad and anything you blog about that fits into the broad spectrum of your categories should go into just one category. Use the tags to add additional flavor to your blog posts and to add keyword-specific organization to each blog post that is a bit more narrow than the categories allow. This gives your blog readers two ways to find information they are looking for. But don’t make your tags and categories the same; that will kill your organizational structure.