Maximizing Wordpress Category Pages

Do you know what most bloggers and web designersBy customizing the category page, we can remove
do with their WordPress Category pages?  If youthe potential duplicate content penalty, set our
answered nothing, you are correct.category pages to be followed, and create a host of
In fact, it might be fair to say that they do less thanrich content pages that our visitors will love.
nothing with their WordPress Category Pages sinceWordPress category pages have the potential to be
the All In One SEO Plugin, which most tend to use,of high-interest to your visitors because they are filled
 will by default  add the "no-index", "no-follow" towith articles similar in nature.
your category pages.  This means that you are tellingFor example, suppose someone is going through a
the search engines:  Don't look at this page!  Don'tdivorce due to infidelity.  They may want to know
index this page!  This page is not important!about divorce, infidelity, and any applicable divorce laws
Nothing could be further from the truth.  Yourthat may apply to infidelity.  One article will usually not
WordPress Category pages may be the among thesuffice in this case.
most interesting pages on your site.However, a category page with all articles on all of
In this article, I'll explore the duplicate content penaltythese topics is just what this person wants.
with WordPress Category pages, why we should takeWordPress provides a great explanation on their
our WordPress category pages off auto-pilot andCategory Templates article. Essentially, you will find out
customize them, and how to make WordPressthe hierarchy of your WordPress files and then
Category pages one of the first stops for our visitorsrename the appropriate file to Category-X.php.
instead of a "no-indexed" afterthought.The first thing that is often missing in a category page
One of the principal reasons that the All In One SEOis the proper keywords. When you customize a
Plugin sets the "NOINDEX" and "NOFOLLOW" tag oncategory page, you are then permitted to add text
your WordPress category pages is to address theabove and below the list of posts which will give more
duplicate content issue.definition, and keywords, to the page.
WordPress Category pages are often set to showWordPress Category pages can be heavily trafficked,
the entire content of articles within that category. valuable pages or NOINDEXED, duplicate content
Thus, a WordPress category page will have the exactthrow-a-ways.
same content as a post that you have written.  ThisWhich would you prefer?
may incur a duplicate content penalty within google onDon't miss out on the opportunity to turn your
either the category page or the post page.WordPress Category pages into an SEO gem.