Categories
How to add site categories to your stories to help visitors find relevant content.
Note: Site categories are available only in Standard and Enterprise plans
Classifying your stories in categories can help visitors easily find content that they are interested in. If this feature is not turned on for your account and you want to learn more about it, please check our Plans & Pricing page or start a chat with us.
If you have more than one active site, please note that categories are not shared across sites and must be added in each individual site's settings.
What are site categories?
Categories are great for grouping together stories by theme so that they're easier for your site visitors to find.
Every published story belonging to a category will also have the category name displayed on the story card. These category tags on story cards are clickable.
Every category page has a dedicated URL – for example, www.ventyour-site.com/category/category name – so you can link directly to them when pitching contacts.
Creating site categories
1) Go to the Site settings of the site you want to add categories for, Access the site's dashboard and click on Categories
2) Set up your categories in different languages (not mandatory)
3) Next to each category, you can see which language(s) the category is available in
4) Drag and rearrange your categories in the order you wish for them to be displayed
The reordering site categories features is only available for sites using the Bea theme. Sites on legacy themes will not be able to reorder their categories.
5) Edit your categories any time by clicking the ••• button then Edit category
Formatting your categories menu
When you have categories enabled for your site, these will appear either as a dropdown menu at the top of the page, or a navigation strip, depending on what you choose in your Site layout settings.
To change how the category menu displays, navigate to your site in Prezly and click the Site settings tab, then select Site layout:
This is where you can control how your entire site looks. The live preview on the right-hand side of the page allows you to see how your changes will look before you take them live.
You can control how your categories menu appears in the Layout tab, under the section Category navigation format:
Adding categories to your stories
When creating a story, you'll see your categories listed on the right sidebar. Simply click on the categories section and you'll open a new panel. The categories panel will list all categories you created for this site, you can select one or more.
Once the story is published, it can be found under that selected category on your public site.
Featured categories
The category dropdown on your site shows all categories by default. Featured categories allow you to highlight specific categories in your category dropdown, displaying them more prominently and alongside an image you specify.
The layout of the dropdown adapts depending on how many categories you feature.
Featured categories also appear on your homepage as a filter under the heading Latest stories, allowing viewers to quickly filter your stories by the categories they're interested in.
How to feature a category
- Go to Site settings > Categories
- Click on the category you want to feature
- Check the Featured category field
- Optional: add a supporting category Image to your featured category (Note: category images are used by all category translations)
- Click Save
Featured categories appear starred ⭐️ in the category overview.
You can feature as many categories as you want (and they will all show on the homepage filter). Categories can be ordered in the category drop down menu, so you can prioritise what readers see first.
Featured category homepage block
You can also choose to display your featured categories at the foot of your homepage to further promote them with your readers.
If you don't want the featured category block to appear at the bottom of your homepage, you can disable it by going to your site in Prezly and clicking the Site settings tab, then selecting Site layout:
Select the Layout tab. At the bottom you will see a section titled Homepage content. Uncheck the box next to Show a featured categories block to remove the featured category block from your homepage.
FAQs
Why can't I see my categories on my site?
A category will only appear on your site if at least one of the stories published to it is set to public visibility. So for example, if you create a category and fill it with private stories, it will appear empty when you view the category on your site.
If it's a new site, it's likely the categories aren't showing because there are no stories published to them. Once you publish a story, the category it's attributed to should appear.