Categories play a key role in organizing content and improving both reader experience and search engine optimization (SEO). When set up thoughtfully, they help visitors easily navigate your indie news site and allow you to structure your content for long-term growth.

Here are some best practices and tips to help you build a solid category structure:

Think of categories as the main sections of a newspaper or magazine. They should represent the broad topics you regularly cover. Examples might include:

💡 Tip: Keep the number of top-level categories manageable—between 5 and 10 is a good rule of thumb.

If you publish a lot of content under one category, consider breaking it down into subcategories. For example:

Politics

This keeps your content well-organized and helps readers find exactly what they’re looking for.

Review your past content and editorial plans. Ask yourself:

Only create categories for topics you write about regularly, not just once in a while.

Category names should be:

Avoid vague names like “Miscellaneous” or “Stuff We Like.” Clarity improves UX and SEO.

While categories define your site's broad structure, tags are optional and better used to highlight specific topics, people, or themes within articles. For example:

Use tags sparingly and strategically. Too many tags can bloat your site and confuse search engines.

Your category structure isn’t set in stone. Revisit it every few months and ask:

Just be careful when changing category URLs as it may affect SEO. If needed, set up redirects.