Categories are a type of taxonomy that WordPress uses to help users organize posts or organize media. By default WordPress assigns new posts to the category “Uncategorized”, but you can also manually select another category before you publish anything new. It’s a small extra step that can easily lead to a majorly disorganized site if you frequently forget it. In this quick guide, we’ll show you how to change your WordPress default category from uncategorized to something custom! It’s pretty simple, so let’s get started:
Change the default category in WordPress in 5 steps
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
- In the WordPress admin select “Posts” >”Categories” from your left side bar menu.
- Add a new category that you would like to make your default category, for example ” Genereal”.
- Select “Writing” > “Settings” from the left hand side bar menu.
- Change the Default Post Category from “Uncategorized” to “General” using the drop down menu. (General is the new category you created in step 3.)
- Click “Save Changes”! Your new posts will automatically be set to publish under your new category “General”.
Changing Your Default Category in WordPress Isn’t Too Hard
When you follow the above steps that we outlined, you’ll be able to set your default category to a much broader, customized selection instead of the standard “Uncategorized” in WordPress. Why does this matter? Having a tight, strategic plan for moving users through your WordPress website—even through page tags—can only improve user satisfaction and it’s crawl-ability. These are both essential elements to succeeding as a website today!