How to Add “Search by Categories” Feature in WordPress

Allowing users to search your posts by category one of the proven ways to improve the user experience of your websiteas users start navigating your website faster and easier. This type of search is especially useful on larger websites with a wide variety of content. because it allows users to search in a specific category instead of the entire website and get more precise results.

Again, The “search by categories” feature can also be quite effective on smaller websites. as long as the content is nicely divided into appropriate categories. The primary purpose of categories, which are part of the default WordPress taxonomies, is to make it easy for your users to find out why they came to your website. Any website, regardless of size, scope and nature, can benefit from this feature.

In this article we will show you how to add “search by category” feature to your website with a free plugin and without any additional investment, in just a few steps. However, keep in mind that your website will only benefit from this feature if your content is well organized into categories.

About WordPress Categories and Subcategories

Before explaining how to add the search by category feature to your site, let me briefly remind you. Why is it useful to divide content into categories and subcategories? and how many categories is best to have.

Besides the obvious benefits of having a well-structured website, such as improved user experience, better bounce rates and the like – Another possible benefit of adding categories to your posts and pages is improved SEO.. This is especially true when you succeed. use the right keywords to name the categories.

The number of categories you can have on your website is not limited, but practice shows that it is best to stick to a few. Too many categories give the impression of being as messy and cluttered as a website with no categories. Five to ten categories have proven to be optimal numbers, and if you’re just starting out, you’ll probably be fine with three categories to begin with. Also important avoid categories with only a few posts as a category, it usually consists of a large number of posts covering related topics. And If you want to categorize your posts better, you can also add subcategories. For example, a fashion website might have a swimwear category, where one-piece and two-piece swimsuits would be two subcategories.

Once you’re sure you’ve organized your website well and categorized your content correctly, you’re ready to add the “search by categories” feature to your website.

How to Add “Search by Categories” Feature Using Plugin

Ivory Dial It is an excellent free plugin with star ratings and over 70,000 active installs. User-friendliness, simplicity and efficiency are key features This has made it popular with a large number of users. With this advanced plugin you can: easily add unlimited search forms anywhere on your website. allows you configure each form separately so your users can perform various different types of searches on your website.

To install, follow the routine installation procedure specific to all other WordPress plugins. If you need help, you can always check out our detailed guide on WordPress plugin installation.

After installing the plugin, you will see a new menu item in the left menu – Ivory Dial. Click Search Forms option to go to the plugin’s options page and then Add New Search Form button.

The next step is to create your new search form. The first thing you need to do here is to come up with a name for your search form and enter it in the specified field. This name will not appear anywhere but in the admin panel and its purpose is purely administrative.

Before saving the new search form, you need to make some settings. First, go to: Fonts option, click on it to expand the menu and then choose what type of content you want to include in the search. You can choose posts, media, products, pages, and templates.

Once you have made your selection go to the Posts option, click on it to expand the menu and Search only posts from selected taxonomies change. This is necessary as it allows you to choose WordPress categories that you can include in the search.

After selecting one or more categories, the queue is Save Form button.

A new custom shortcode is automatically generated for the new search form and the next thing you have to do is copy and paste it into a text file.

This shortcode allows you to add a category search anywhere on your website – page, post or widget area. For example, we attached it to a post and the result looks like this:

Now, it is important to understand that you can use this newly created shortcode in any area of ​​your website as many times as you deem necessary. If you don’t have experience with shortcodes or don’t feel comfortable using them for any reason, this might be a good time to learn a little about shortcodes in WordPress.

Every user using this search form on your site will have access to view only posts in the selected category.

This plugin allows you to create multiple category searches. To add more category searches, simply repeat the procedure described above to create new search forms and create new shortcodes that you then embed on your WordPress website.

As a result

Searching by categories not only makes the user experience better, it also shows that you put effort into managing your content and making your website user-friendly. Application shows that This feature is particularly useful for certain types of sites, such as e-commerce websites and websites that offer lots of download materials.

Perhaps you should too, as WordPress is generally known for not having a particularly good internal search functionality. Consider adding the global search feature to your WordPress site – easily done with the help of excellent WordPress search plugins.