Why You Want Your Categories To Be Keyword Driven

You know you should have categories in your blog’s sidebar. But did you know those categories should be a list of your important keywords? There are multiple reasons why, but the long and the short of it is that they help you optimize your blog. Every instance of keyword usage on your blog is one step closer to high rankings. Plus, those category names are not just keywords, they are also links, which makes them even more valuable.

Here’s a case study of how a category name can assist you with search engine benefits. Type “blog content ghostwriting” into Google’s search box (without the quotation marks). Now click on the link at the top of the page, just above the search results, that says “Show options”. Select Recent Results and sort by date. Now scroll down to position No. 8 in the results. Here’s what you should see.

At the time of my writing this blog post, this post on quality content was in the position No. 8 position 58 minutes after posting.

Examining the contents of that blog post, there is nothing in that post that discusses blogging or ghostwriting. Those words are not even mentioned in the post anywhere. So how did the post rank on Page 1 of the SERPs for the parameters we gave it? By the blog’s categories.

Take a look at those categories and you’ll see that there is one called “Blog Marketing”, another one called “Content/Website Development” and one titled “Copywriting & Ghostwriting”. All three of the search phrases used are category names on this blog, giving the latest blog post – serendepitously all about content – an added boost.

This is just one example out of millions. Keyword-focused categories are an optimization essential and can often help individual blog posts rank for key terms they might not otherwise rank for.