As your website grows, organizing content into categories becomes crucial for easy navigation and searchability. Categorizing your content helps visitors easily find what they’re looking for, and it also helps with SEO by making it easier for search engines to understand what your website is about. In this post, we will dive into how to add searchable categories to your WordPress site.
Firstly, let’s get familiar with how WordPress categorizes posts or pages. WordPress comes with built-in taxonomies, which include categories and tags. Categories are used to group content into different topics, while tags are more specific and describe the content in more detail.
To add a category to your site, go to the WordPress dashboard and click on Posts > Categories. From there, you can add, edit, or delete categories as needed. Once you have created your categories, you can assign them to your posts or pages.
While adding categories to your WordPress site is a straightforward process, making them searchable takes a bit more work. By default, WordPress only searches post titles, content, and tags. To make your categories searchable, you will need to use a plugin or custom code.
One way of adding searchable categories to your WordPress site is by using the code below.
PHP Code for Searchable Categories
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'category_search' );
function category_search( $query ) {
if ( !is_admin() && $query->is_search() && $query->is_main_query() ) {
$query->set( 'tax_query', array(
array(
'taxonomy' => 'category',
'field' => 'name',
'terms' => $query->query_vars['s'],
),
) );
}
}
This code creates a custom search query that searches your content based on the category name. When a user performs a search on your site, this code will check if the search term matches a category name and then display the relevant content. Simply paste this code into your functions.php file to add this feature to your site.
Another option is to use a plugin like WPSOLR. WPSOLR is a powerful plugin that can handle complex search queries, including searching by categories. With WPSOLR, you can easily set up custom search fields, including search by category, and customize the search results page to match your website’s design.
Using WPSOLR to add searchable categories
To add searchable categories using WPSOLR, follow these steps:
1. Install and activate WPSOLR on your website.
2. Go to the WPSOLR Search page, click on the “Fields” tab and create a new custom field for your categories.
3. Go to the Query page and add the new field to your search index.
4. Once you have added the new field to your index, go to the Custom Search page and create a custom search form that includes the new category field.
5. Add the custom search form to your website to enable users to search by category.
By following these steps, you can add searchable categories to your WordPress site using WPSOLR.
In conclusion, adding searchable categories to your WordPress site is an important step in organizing your content and making it more accessible to your users. By using custom code or a plugin like WPSOLR, you can easily add this feature to your website and enhance its search functionality.