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Thursday, March 19, 2009

Add a Categories Section to a Blogger Blog (Blogspot Blog)

Blogspot blogs at Blogger.com have no categories only labels. This Blogger tutorial will show you how to manually create categories in Blogger from your existing labels so that all the articles listed under a particular label will be displayed.

While this way to add categories to Blogger is not an ideal solution it will mean that you can display a logical grouping of your most popular articles under the one heading.

This article is aimed at new bloggers and beginner bloggers although it is suitable for all Blogger bloggers (Blogspot bloggers). No changes to the template are required to add these categories to your Blogger blog (Blogspot blog).

How to Create Categories from Labels in Blogger
One easy way to create a categories section in Blogger is to simply rename the title of the labels widget as categories. This solution does not work for me because on this blog I have a huge number of labels and I don't want to show this widget at the top of my sidebar.

An easy way round this problem is create a separate categories section. If you look at the sidebar of this blog you will notice that I have several major categories at the top so that a new visitor will find what they are looking for quickly under these broad headings.

Example of Categories Section from Blog Know How sidebar
To add a categories section to a Blogger blog (Blogspot blog) follow these simple steps:

1. Decide how you want to group your articles according to the labels applied and what group heading you want to give to each grouping of articles.

2. For the first category navigate to the individual page of the label you wish to use by clicking on the label in your sidebar. Copy the URL address of this page from the address bar in your browser (right click and select copy). For example the URL address of the label of Blogger Tutorials on this site is:

http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/search/label/Blogger%20Tutorials

3. From the Blogger Dashboard go to Design > Page Elements

4. Click Add a Gadget in the sidebar and select Links List

5. In the Configure Link List dialog box that appears paste the link to your label into the New Site URL box

blogger Configure Link List to Add New Categories Section to Your Blogger Blog

6. Enter the name of your label or some alternative text if you wish into the New Site Name text box.

7. Enter Categories as the title

8. Choose between sort alphabetically, reverse alphabetically or don't sort

9. Click on Add Link to add the link to your new categories list

10. Click on Save

11. For every label you wish to put into the Categories Section copy the link and add it to the Configure Links List. By the end you will end up with two or more categories in your list

12. Use the up and down arrows for each link to shuffle them around until you find the desired order

Blogger Configure Link List - Added Links to Create Categories in Blogger

Limit the Number of Posts Displayed in the Categories Section
To put a limitation on the number of posts displayed in the new categories section you will need to adjust the URL's of each label as follows:

From:

http://yoursite.blogspot.com/search/label/CategoryName

To:

http://yoursite.blogspot.com/search/label/CategoryName?max-results=max number of posts to display

So for the category Blogger Tutorials on this site for example I would enter the following to have only 25 posts displayed:

http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/search/label/blogger%20Tutorials?max-results=25

This Blogger tutorial has shown you how to manually add a categories section to the sidebar of your Blogger Blog (Blogspot blog) using the Link List widget.

Related Articles
List of Blog Know How Tutorials for Blogger Blogs
How to Add CSS Styling to Blockquotes in Blogger
How to Add, Delete or Remove Blogger Image Borders
How to Align and Justify Posts in Blogger
How to Add a Divider Between Blogger Posts
How to Add or Change a Background Image in a Blogger Template

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43 comments:

Ramesh said...

This is what i was lookig for about one month and none of them actually had any clue for beginners. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

see dear how now i've in my blog:

www.google-adsense-beginners.blogspot.com

The Whizz said...

I see you are helping beginners too. Good stuff! Feel free to link to my blog if you would like. Thanks.

Sugarchic said...

Fantastic! Have been trying to do this for ages :) Made my blog look much neater.

The Whizz said...

Sugarchic. Just took a look at your blog. The categories look great!

Make Money Online said...

Thanks for the tips.

The Whizz said...

Hi Make Money Online. Thanks for taking the time to read this blog. I appreciate your interest

mv4men said...

I have been looking all over for such information. Thanks a million. Great article

The Whizz said...

Seems like a lot of people want to add categories to Blogger but the information on how to do it is not so easy to find. Glad to have helped.

Christina Crowe said...

Wow, this is great! Thanks a bunch! I'm definitely going to use this on my blog.

The Whizz said...

I had a quick look at your blog Christina and see you have your categories section up and running. Good on you!

Unknown said...

Making side bar in our blog is so helpful to give content to other people.We can show that how much post we had been make n this blog.Int this way by adding category bar we can know people that what category in this our blog and tell people about our idea.

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The Whizz said...

Yes it is always useful to add a categories section to your blog Andrew to help your visitors find your articles more easily

Chris Jerome said...

Easy as it gets.

Earn Blog said...

by adding categories it will make easy for visitor to find its topic of interest in site easily . thanks for sharing i was looking for this information

فوتبول said...

thank you mr

best regards
Kaed

TStowe said...

Thankx.My blog looks cooler now...Thumbs Up

follow me@
http://360degreestech.blogspot.com

anamika said...

Thanks...yur blog is superb


http://www.wiseshe.com

tips for men said...

This really helped me in making categories..thAnKs.
follow me@
http://maultips94.blogspot.com/

ritche said...

Thanks for this! Very easy to follow & execute. :)

sheraz said...

i have created categories, but i am unable to display the data according to the categories. can you guide me how i can do this. :(

The Whizz said...

Sheraz. What exactly is the problem? For this to work you have to use the exact tag name separated by %20

My Greenbrae Cottage said...

Thank you so much for this post and for your blog!!! I now know who to turn to whenever I have questions (and that's a lot!)

Dr. Patrice Smith said...

Hello Wizz, I tried this on my blog but it didn't work. I separated each URL with %20. What am I doing wrong?

The Whizz said...

Patrice you only need to use the %20 separator if your label has two words or more. eg http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/search/label/Gadgets%20for%20Blogger.
If your label is only one word leave out the %20. eg http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/search/label/Sitemaps

erinbonnieshoes said...

this is really useful information for bloggers. thanks!

Unknown said...

Thank you so much!!!!! I have been wanting to do this on my blog for a long long time - I do write about different subjects: Cakes, Cooking, Gardening... And I wanted people to easily find what they needed. Such a good thing to do. See how it looks: I called it "What am I writing about?" section - www.p-art-y.blogspot.com

I would like to follow your blog so I can do some more improvements to mine with your good ideas.

the news of the world said...

awesome tutorials to make a category in blogger. I was really struggling to get hold of it.

Thank you so much for sharing!!

Ikbal said...

Thanks!!! looks really great.
My blogs looks much nicer.
For a quick look:
http://pnhebdo.blogspot.com/

ZMU Digital said...

Really Great

jhianne said...

thanks for this info.. finally, i was able to categorize my blogs...

Prashant said...

Great man....

just visit : twitchtime.in

who2india said...

Thx a lot for the info.

Unknown said...

THANKS FOR THE INFO! GOD BLESS YOU. :)

Geetesh said...

very usful information for bloggers like me.

thanks...i wanna change my blog also like yours

http://frndsworld.blogspot.com/

thanks for suggestions

Dr. Jawwad Saif said...

This blog is going to take me out of many problems. Thanks!

Hassan said...

http://mobilefonepk.blogspot.com/

Andy Grenworth said...

Thank you for the wonderful, wonderful, extremely easy way you have shown how to categorize posts. I write extensively on Mortgage, loans and mobile phones. This practically means I had to have categories for the convenience of visitors. Believe me I have tried many methods on the web on how to 'categorize' resources in my blog - never worked out with them. But with your method, my blog looks so clean and wow now and so professional now :) thank you so much!

If you wish, you may want to view "your handi work" at my blog. Thank you so much again.

TricksTreasure said...

yeah...added it to my blog..!!!

Omosco said...

Thanks i was able to add categories to my blogs here National open university and How to browse free with your phone thanks a lot.

Sarah said...

Thank you so much! Was helpful and extremely easy to do. Exactly how I want my blog to start looking. Cheers!

Unknown said...

thanks yaar

Sokha Chetra said...

With profound thank, I tested it and it works. Nice job

Lisa DeSherlia said...

I visited your BlogSpot to figure out how to arrange my posts into categories. Thank you for the helpful post; I'll try it. I hope you will, when you get a chance, visit one or more of my blogspots!

Thank you,
Lisa DeSherlia

http://ldesherl.blogspot.com
http://lisadesherlia.blogspot.com

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