Even if you are an author who only writes standalone novels in a single genre this lesson is for you. Sure, that’s what you do now but what happens when critics hail the protagonist of your psychological horror as the next big thing in detective thrillers! How are you going to update the books on your website with this new information to make it easy for visitors to find them?
Fear not! Custom Taxonomies have got you covered.
What are taxonomies?
In WordPress, taxonomies are a way to group posts together based on a common characteristic. They are used to organise content. There are two built-in taxonomies in WordPress.
- The first are Categories. These are hierarchical, meaning you can create sub-categories. They are generally used for broad groupings of posts.
- Next we have Tags. These are non-hierarchical, meaning there are no parent-child relationships. Tags are generally used for more specific topics that are discussed in a post.
Why do authors need custom taxonomies?
Custom taxonomies for custom post types are essential because they provide a flexible and organised way to categorise and manage the content specific to your website’s needs. In this course we are going to use custom taxonomies to better organise the Books we publish to the Dirk Volcano website.
We are going to create three custom taxonomies for our Books custom post type.
A Genre taxonomy.
A Series taxonomy.
And a Funnels taxonomy.
These custom taxonomies will better organise the books on Dirk’s website making it easier for readers and search engines to find them.
Create the GENRE Taxonomy.
To create our first Taxonomy we will go from the WordPress admin dashboard to ACPT then Taxonomies.
I’ll click on ‘Register new Taxonomy’ in the top right corner.
The ‘Create new Taxonomy’ screen is similar to when we set up our books custom post type in the previous lesson.
To register a new taxonomy we need to complete these tabbed screens.
Minimum configuration.
Additional labels.
And Other settings.
Minimum Configuration.
In the SLUG field in minimum configuration I’ll add ‘genre’. All lower case.
The singular label is ‘Genre’ in sentence case.
And the Plural label is ‘Genres’.
Click next step.
Additional labels.
Under additional labels I’m going to change the menu name to ‘Genres’ in sentence case.
That’s the only change I’ll make here before clicking Next Step.
Other settings.
I’m not going to make any changes in the advanced ‘Other Settings’ section so I’ll click Save.
ACPT will return us to the Registered Taxonomies screen where we can see GENRE has been added to the table.
Associate GENRE Taxonomy with BOOKS
Now that we have our ‘GENRE’ custom taxonomy we have to tell WordPress to associate it with our BOOKS custom post type.
To the right of GENRE in the Registered Taxonomies table we have a link to ASSOCIATE the taxonomy to a post type.
When I click on that link I get taken to a screen with a list of post types including the BOOKS custom post type.
When I tick the ASSOCIATE box for BOOKS I’ll get a message confirming the taxonomy has been associated with the custom post type.
Check the Association
To check we have correctly associated the taxonomy I’ll go to the WordPress admin sidebar and hover over the BOOKS menu item.
Genres appear under the ADD BOOK menu item.
When I click on GENRES we are taken to the GENRE management screen. From here I can add the two genres with descriptions I need for the Dirk Volcano site.
- Thriller.
- Thriller books are fast-paced and suspenseful. Dylan Danger thrillers feature a fearless detective facing twists, dark secrets, and high-stakes adversaries.
- Cozy Mystery.
- Cozy Mystery books are lighthearted and charming. The Village Detective novels feature an amateur sleuth solving quaint, local mysteries with wit and warmth.
Create the SERIES Taxonomy.
Next, I’m going to add the SERIES Taxonomy. I’ll step through this a bit quicker this time as the steps are the same as for GENRE.
Add Series to Minimum Configuration.
Under Additional Labels change the Menu Name to ‘Series’.
No change to ‘Other Settings’.
I’ll save this taxonomy and then I’ll associate it with the BOOKS custom post type.
Once the taxonomy is associated with BOOKS I’ll add both of Dirk’s series to the website.
- Dylan Danger
- Ex-special-forces Captain, Dylan Danger, wants to be left alone with his family on his mid-west farm but a world full of dangerous people have other ideas.
- Village Detective
- In the Village Detective novels, retired school teacher, Biddy Apple, spends her days tending her garden, helping her neighbours, and solving murders!
Create the FUNNELS taxonomy.
I’m going to use this taxonomy to tag books that are part of specific sales funnels. We will use this Taxonomy for books that are used in ‘Free first in series’ promotions or are available on Kindle Unlimited.
As you’ll see in later lessons tags in the FUNNEL taxonomy will be used for dynamic conditions that manage what elements are shown on book posts.
I’ll name the new Taxonomy in the Minimum Configuration Tab.
Under Additional labels I’ll change the Menu Name to ‘Funnels’.
No change to ‘Other Settings’.
I’ll save this taxonomy and then I’ll associate it with the BOOKS custom post type.
The two items I’m going to add to the FUNNELS taxonomy are FREE and KINDLE UNLIMITED
- Free
- Books tagged as FREE will display a lead magnet form offering a free ebook in exchange for the visitor’s email address.
- Kindle Unlimited.
- Books tagged as Kindle Unlimited will not display the “Other Retailers” heading or buttons.
Check the BOOKS Custom Post Type.
Now we have added and associated all our custom taxonomies let’s see what that does to our BOOKS POST TYPE.
I’ll go back to the WordPress admin sidebar and click on BOOKS then ADD BOOK.
The custom Taxonomy meta boxes are now available over on the right of the ADD BOOK screen.
Under SERIES I can click on ‘Choose from most used SERIES’ and see that both Dylan Danger and Village Detective are available.
I can also manually add series names here as well if I want to.
I’ll click on ALL BOOKS in the admin sidebar to cancel this post.
Summary
In this lesson we created and associated custom taxonomies for, and to, our Books Custom Post Type. These custom taxonomies better organise our books making it easier for readers and search engines to find them.
Custom taxonomies are incredibly flexible, able to adapt to any author regardless of genre, publishing choices or marketing strategy.
In later lessons I’m going to show you how our new custom taxonomies manage dynamic conditions to control what we see on our book posts.
Call to Action.
Our Books post still looks pretty sparse but that’s all going to change in the next lesson when we add our custom fields.
