Add Tags to WordPress Pages

When running a website, you want to make your life as easy as possible by eliminating duplication of work. Adding WordPress tags for pages, together with the GeneratePress theme will help you achieve this.

This is one of the reasons why I recommend using GeneratePress in my WordPress tutorials. More specifically because of the Template Elements feature. This feature allows you to create different Elements on your website that can be easily re-used in various Posts and Pages.

Good, so where do Tags come in, and why do we need to add WordPress Tags for Pages?

I’ll cover all these questions in this tutorial. More specifically we will be going through:

• Why we need WordPress Tags for Pages
• What are Tags
• Which WordPress Tag Plugin to Use
• How to Add Tags to WordPress Pages
• Applying Tags to Pre-Built Elements or Features

WordPress Tags for Pages?

The WordPress tags are needed to identify and categorize the different Pages we have on our website.

Remember unlike Posts, Pages cannot be linked to different categories. This is one of the main differences of a WordPress Post vs Page.

Furthermore, while Posts are always used for content articles in your Blog section, Pages can have different functions within a website.  

As an example, here is a list of the different types of Pages I intend to set up on my site:

• Home Page: This will be the main Page of my site. It’s a bit fancier then other pages and is intended as an introduction to my website for visitors. So it will have banners, paragraphs, pictures, ‘Call to Actions’ etc.
• Hub Page: These are sub-pages for each section of my website (if you remember we explained these in the Silo structure section). Think of them as mini Home pages for each section. So one sub-page will be for WordPress Tutorials. Here I will have a brief intro and various links to the different tutorials I write about WordPress. Another Hub-page will be for Content Writing, and so on.
• Legal Pages: These are simple pages with some standard Legal Jargon, such as the Privacy Policy Page.
• Contact Us Page: This will include a short code for a contact form with input fields where visitors can send me queries or get in touch with me;
• About Me Page: This will give some information about me and why I decided to create my site. I’ll also include a picture of myself here.
• Content Pages: These are the main lessons pages with detailed guides containing how-to articles. Just like the one you’re reading right now. These pages will have long content with various paragraphs, Summary boxes, Tips and hints boxes and plenty of pictures. These pages make up the bulk of my website content.

So, when it comes to pages, I cannot use a one-size-fits-all template.

Also, the features (Template Elements) I need to include in every content Page, would not be needed in the Homepage, or the Contact Page, for example.

What happens when you use tags?

We will need to use Tags to be able to identify the different Pages.

This will help us categorize the pages so as to set-up rules for WordPress to understand which features to display in the different categories of Pages.

WordPress Tags will also be used to identify a particular condition, or situation where we want to include a feature. This means that tags will not only be associated with Pages, but can also be used to identify Posts.

What are tags?

OK, for those of you who are interested in the technical features behind Tags. Let me try and explain this as easily as possible.

Tags are basically keywords, inserted into a website, and assigned to specific data or content, that help describe and categorize that data or content.

While a tag does not hold any information itself, its use in association with web content can be used for web bookmarks, files, digital images and videos.

Website tagging is used for various reasons, including;

• Page Classification
• Marking ownership
• Describing content type for search facility.

WP Tag plugin

Unfortunately, the WordPress CMS does not come with a pre-built feature that allows us to create tags for Pages. So, the first step we need to do is install a WP Tag Plugin.

To get this, go to you WordPress dashboard; click on Plugins > Add New

Search for the Tag Pages Plugin and when you find the plugin outlined in the pic below, click on INSTALL and then ACTIVATE (it’s a free plugin).

Once it’s activated you will notice a new Tags option in your editor for Pages.

Let’s take a look.

Go to one of your existing Pages from the WP dashboard and click on EDIT page. This will take you to the editor screen.

Now on the right-hand sidebar (under the ‘Page’ tab) you should see a new section called ‘Tags’.

In this Tags section you will be able to add tags to WordPress pages.

Adding WordPress Tags to our Pages

Let’s start creating and adding our first Tag.

To do this, I will go to one of my Pages from the WordPress dashboard.

I will start with one of my Hub pages, in this case, I’ll choose the ‘WordPress Tutorials’ Page, and click EDIT.

Now that I am in the Page editor screen, I will click on the TAGS option on the right-hand sidebar.

Here I will insert a name for the Tag. Since this tag will be associated with my Hub pages, I will call it hub.

After you type in the name of the tag always press comma (,) so that the tag is registered.

Also, remember to click on UPDATE to save changes to the page.

Another way to add tags to WordPress Pages, is to go to your WP dashboard and click on Pages > Tags.

From here you can see a list of your tags which are associated to Pages. In this area, you can also create new tags.

I actually prefer creating Tags from here because it allows you to give them a description, which will help you remember what the tag does.

For example, I can now go into the ‘hub’ tag I previously created and include a description here.

Once you create the Tag, remember to publish/update the page.

WordPress Tags linked to conditions

We are going to create a tag that we will apply as a condition, meaning a Tag we will use whenever we do not want one of our pre-built Elements (features) to show in a particular Page.

We will call this Tag ‘Nometa’.

To create this Tag, since it won’t be associated to any particular type of Page, we are going to create it from our Posts section.

So, go to Posts > Tags

Under the Name field type nometa.

Click on ADD NEW TAG button at the bottom of the screen.

Applying Tags to GeneratePress Elements

In the next section, I will show you how to apply these Tags to the GeneratePress elements we created in previous tutorials, such as the Page Hero and the Author Box.

We will include these pre-built Elements to all out Content Pages.

The content pages are articles we regularly write that make the bulk of our website content.

In the Content Pages it makes sense to have the Page Hero element showing the Title of the article, the Author name and the publish date.

It also makes sense to have the Author Box at the end of the article.

So, instead of re-creating the Page Hero and the Author Box for every article I publish, we will use the display rules function of GeneratePress, in combination with the Tags we just created.

In more technical terms, we will apply conditional tag logic to instruct WordPress on which Pages to include the pre-built Elements (Page Hero and Author Box) within our website.

The conditional Tag logic will need to be included directly in our Elements.

So, let’s go to our Elements section and adjust for this.

Click on Appearance > Elements.

Click on the EDIT under the Page Hero for Posts element we created previously for Posts.

This will now be used also for pages. You might want to adjust the Header title therefore to just Page Hero, or Page Hero for Posts and Pages. I will add ‘..and Pages’ to mine.

Now scroll down to the Display Rules section and we will do the following changes:

In the Location section:

• Click on ADD LOCATION RULE button. 
  • Choose PAGE from drop-down list

This new rule will add the Page Hero section to all our pages. However, we don’t want this feature in our Home Page, Hub Pages, Legal Pages, Contact Pages etc.

To exclude these Pages, we now have to exclude from the Display Rules section.

Let’s do this.

In the Exclude section:

• Choose FRONT PAGE from drop-down list
• Click on ADD EXCLUSION RULE and choose also BLOG

• Click on ADD EXCLUSION RULE again and add PAGE TAG. This will create another input box on the right. Here you need to choose HUB from the page tag drop-down list.
• (As an explanation, here we are excluding those pages that we have identified as Hub pages with the tag rules).

• Click on the ADD EXCLUSION RULE one more time and add PAGE TAG and this time in the right box we will choose the NOMETA tag from the drop-down list. Remember the NOMETA tag is the Tag we created in the previous section, and we will use it as a conditional tag that is applied to Pages where we do not want certain features/elements to show up.
• Click on the UPDATE button (top right of screen)

We will apply the same rules as above for our Author box Element also.

Click on Appearance > Elements.

Click on the edit under the ‘Author Box’ element we created previously. Now scroll down to the Display Rules section and we will do the following changes:

In the Location section:

• Click on ADD LOCATION RULE button. 
• Choose PAGE from drop-down list

In the Exclude section:

• Choose FRONT PAGE from drop-down list
• Click on ADD EXCLUSION RULE and choose also Blog
• Click on ADD EXCLUSION RULE again and add PAGE TAG. On the right-side box choose HUB from the page tag drop-down list.
• Click on the ADD EXCLUSION RULE  again and add PAGE TAG and this time in the right box we will choose the NOMETA tag from the drop-down list.
• Click on the UPDATE button (top right of screen)

So for both the Author Box and the Header Hero we included the Nometa tag as a Tag which signifies exclusion.

Now on every Page where we do not want the Page Hero and Author Box elements to show up, we need to make sure that we include the Nometa Tag in the options on the right of the Page Editor screen.

The fastest way to do this, is from the Pages section in WordPress. Now instead of going into each page to edit it, you can click on the QUICK EDIT option for each page. Here choose the Taxonomies tab at the top of the box and insert Nometa, or Hub, in the Tags box and click UPDATE.

Make sure you do this for your Legal pages, contact me pages and so on.

Remember the Nometa Tag, and in the future if you create any new pages where you do not want the Page Hero and Author Box elements to show up you will need to choose the Nometa tag from the right-side options of the page before you publish it.

WordPress Tags for Pages done. What Next?

Now that we installed the Tags for Pages function in our WordPress system and got an understanding of what Tags are, we can create as many tags as we need going forward.

Having said this, if you follow my tutorials, I will be showing you exactly where, and how to insert any additional Tags you might need for your website.

One of the places we will need Tags is when we build a Call-to-Action banner or button Element, for example. If this is something you think you’ll want then follow the tutorial for creating CTA Banners before going onto the next step.

For those of you who want to proceed directly to the next step, I will show you how to build and design your site’s Homepage. This is usually the most important Page of your website.

For a full list of WordPress Tutorials please click here.