Why I Use Landing Pages on My Blog and How Categories Help

One of the best things I’ve done for my blog is setting up landing pages—simple, focused pages that act like “hubs” for different topics. I have one for Travel in India, another for Home Baking, one for Desserts, and so on.

They make your blog easier to explore, especially if you have lots of posts. Visitors can find exactly what they’re looking for with just one click from the menu.

On my site, I’ve chosen to use both landing pages and a regular blog page that shows all posts in a scrapbook-style feed. I’m not sure if that’s the “correct” setup, but I really like how it works: the landing pages keep things organised by theme, while the blog page feels more like a journal or visual archive.

Let me show you how I set this up (and why you might want to try it too).

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What’s a Landing Page?

A landing page is just a regular page, but instead of writing a lot of content on it, I use it to display a group of blog posts from the same category.

So for example:

• My Travel India page shows every post I’ve written in the India category.
• My Home Baking page shows posts in the Home Baking category.
• And my Dessert Recipes page shows all my Desserts posts.

That way, people who are only interested in one topic can go straight there.

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What Are Categories?

Categories in WordPress help you organise your blog posts by topic. Think of them like folders—each one contains related content.

Every time you publish a blog post, you can assign it to one or more categories. WordPress automatically creates a page for each category, like:

janetblog.wordpress.com/category/desserts/

That page will show all the posts in that category, with the most recent at the top.

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How to Add a Category to Your Blog Post

Here’s how to assign a post to a category:

1. Open the post in the WordPress editor.
2. On the right-hand sidebar, click the Post tab (not Block).
3. Scroll down to the Categories section.
4. You can:
   • ✅ Check an existing category, or
   • ➕ Click “Add New Category”, type a name (e.g. Desserts), and click Add.
5. Make sure the correct category is selected before publishing or updating the post.

Once saved, your post will automatically appear on that category’s archive page and on any landing page or block filtered by that category.

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Bonus Tip: Tidy Up Your Categories

To keep things organised:

1. Go to your Dashboard → Posts → Categories
2. Here you can:
   • Rename categories
   • Delete unused ones
   • Add a helpful description (some themes display this)
3. Make sure category names are clear and consistent.

It’s a great way to keep your blog tidy and make sure your landing pages and menus work smoothly!

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How I Turn a Category into a Landing Page

Here’s how I create landing pages using categories:

1. Go to Pages > Add New and create a new page. Call it something like Travel India or Dessert Recipes.
2. Add a heading and a short intro—just a sentence or two to explain what the page is about.
3. Insert the Blog Posts block:
4. Click the + icon and search for “Blog Posts”.
5. Once you’ve added the block, click on it and look to the right-hand settings panel.
6. Under Categories, choose the one you want to display (e.g. Desserts or Travel India). Click in the box first and start typing your category and it will appear.
7. In the Layout section, choose either list or grid view. I prefer grid view with 3 columns—it looks neat and is easy to scan.
8. Adjust the settings to your liking. Here’s what I usually do:
   • ✅ Grid view or sometimes list view
   • ✅ 3 columns, looks tidy
   • ✅ Show “Load more posts” button
   • ✅ Show excerpt (sometimes) – I set the excerpt length to 50 words max
   • ✅ Show “Read more” link
   • ✅ Show featured image
   • ❌ I usually leave these off: caption, credit, category, author, avatar, date — but it’s totally up to you!
9. When you’re happy with it, hit Publish.

You now have a landing page that updates itself every time you add a new post in that category.

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Add Landing Pages to Your Menu

Once you’ve made the landing pages, go to Appearance > Customize (or Customize>Menus, depending on your theme) and add them to your site menu.

I like to keep things really simple and easy to find—especially for readers who may not be too techy.

In my menu, I create broad topics as headings, like Recipes or Travel. These aren’t clickable pages themselves—they’re just there to hold the dropdown items underneath.

To do that, I:

• Add a custom link to the menu.
• For the URL, I just type # (this means it won’t go anywhere when clicked).
• For the link text, I put something like Recipes or Travel.
• Then underneath that heading, I add the real landing pages for specific categories.
• Here’s what that looks like in practice:
  • 🧁 Under Recipes, I have landing pages for:
    • Dessert Recipes
    • Home Baking
    • Savoury Dishes
    • etc
  • ✈️ Under Travel, I have landing pages for:
    • Travel India
    • Travel New Zealand
    • etc

It keeps everything tidy, but still gives people quick access to whatever they’re looking for.

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🧡 Why I Love This Method

• It keeps your blog organised as it grows.
• You don’t have to manually update anything—it updates every time you post.
• It looks tidy and makes a great impression when someone visits your site.

It’s also perfect if you post about different topics, like I do. Not everyone wants to scroll through all your posts just to find the baking ones!

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Final Tip

Make sure to categorise every blog post as you publish it. Even if you don’t use tags or subcategories, just using one main category per post will help your landing pages work beautifully.

Happy blogging! – ♡ Janet.