What is wrong with you? (I don’t really mean that, I promise!)

Everyone out there who has a wordpress blog (with comicpress, inkblot or slideshow), you need to realize something right now: WP is SET-UP to get you search referrals, to have multiple types of archives, and to easily navigate your posts/pages.  It does this through the use of things called “categories” and things called “tags.”

A category is exactly what it sounds like. With wordpress/comicpress, everyone has a “blog” category and a “comic” category. Are you aware that you can have many MORE categories? How about “storyline” or “arc” categories? (this is a function of CP 2.7, by the way, but you don’t need it for what I’m saying here.) You can select multiple categories when publishing posts and comics.  For example, here at Winged Wolf I have my categories set up on the side there *points right*  When I publish this article, I’m going to select the “tutorial” category, the “tips and tricks” category, and the “Webcomic SEO” category. If you clicked any of those links, posts in those categories show up.  This is archiving by category. If you are publishing comics from, ex, Chapter 1, you could select the “comic” category AND a “chapter 1″ category. Clicking the “chapter 1″ category would take you to all the comics you also put in that category.

A “tag” is a keyword listed (usually) at the bottom of a post. When you choose tags, pretend as if you are a person SEARCHING for your post on Google.  What keywords or phrases would you search for? Which keywords are popular enough that someone will actually USE it, but not so popular that your post would end up on the 71st page of the search listings?

You can ALSO archive by tags the same way you archive by categories.  Each time you choose a tag, WP automatically creates an archive for it.  When someone clicks on that tag, all of those posts you’ve tagged WITH that word appear. For example, if you clicked “Project Wonderful” in my tag-cloud at the bottom of my side-bar, you’d go to this page.  This isn’t important enough that I would make a CATEGORY for Project Wonderful, so I use tags. I don’t want to over-organize, so I don’t make a category for every tag I use.

When you are modding your WP sites, remember that these functions are there for you (to increase SEO) and for your readers, so don’t just not use them (or erase the functions in your sidebars) because you don’t see other people using them.  Requiem for example, categorizes each comic post with the characters in it, so people searching for specific characters can easily find them. You can find this function on Requiem’s right sidebar, in the categories dropdown.

You can add categories in your WP admin panel (posts–>categories in 2.7, settings–>categories in 2.5, if I remember right).  You should also be able to add categories whenever you make a post too.  You add tags when you make a post as well.

Another thing to consider is using perma-links with your categories and tags. For example, would I want my “webcomic website reviews” category to appear at http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/?page_id=34 or at http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/webcomic-website-reviews? The latter, of course!

Long story short, use categories and tags to archive your work and to increase your webcomic website’s SEO.