As a WordPress user managing a photography portfolio, ecommerce store, or site with a media-heavy content strategy, organizing your images is critical. Manually browsing through hundreds of images to find what you need is extremely inefficient.
By leveraging categories and tags, you can filter image search results in seconds. This saves vast amounts of time and effort while allowing you to showcase images to website visitors more effectively.
According to Hubspot research, articles with relevant images receive 94% more views. So properly organizing your media library directly impacts your website traffic and revenue.
This definitive guide will teach WordPress users how to:
- Add categories to images using the Media Library Categories plugin
- Assign tags to images with the Envira Gallery plugin
- Protect images from theft using watermarks
- Compare the pros and cons of each solution
Let‘s get started.
Why Use Categories and Tags in WordPress Media Library?
Before showing you step-by-step how to add categories and tags to images, let‘s discuss why this matters:
Benefits of Categories
- Find images faster – Filter by category in backend
- Showcase images – Display certain categories on the frontend
- Boost SEO – Descriptive categories improve image SEO
- Save time – Avoid manually browsing all images
- Stay organized – Group similar images logically
According to statistics from DownloadWPThemes:
- 78% of WordPress users struggle to organize media library
- 63% say it‘s faster to recreate images than locate existing ones
- 55% are unsure what media is unused on their site
Benefits of Tags
In addition to categories that group similar images together, tags allow labeling images based on specific elements they contain.
- Fine-grained filtering – Users can combine category and tag filters to find precisely what they need
- Surface relevant images – Visitors can filter images displayed on your site
- Enhanced SEO – Relevant tags improve on-page SEO more than categories
- Avoid duplicated images – See what tags already exist before uploading new images
Now that you know the immense benefits of adding categories and tags to your WordPress media library, let‘s explore how to implement this easily using one of two methods:
Method 1: Media Library Categories Plugin
The Media Library Categories Plugin instantly adds the ability to categorize all images upon install. Follow these steps:
- Install and activate the Media Library Categories plugin
- Navigate to Media > Categories
- View existing post categories on the right
- To make a new category, enter Name and Slug
- Click Add New Category
- Edit any image and select your category
The main pros of this method are:
- Quick and easy setup
- Intuitive interface inside media library
- Tags not supported
Cons to consider:
- Basic functionality
- Limited options and controls
- Plugin could be discontinued
Now let‘s cover a more robust solution…
Method 2: Envira Gallery Plugin
The premium Envira Gallery plugin enables powerful galleries and includes tag support in its add-ons. Here‘s how it works:
- Install and activate Envira Gallery
- Enter your license key on the settings page
- Navigate to Addons and install Tags
- Edit images in your gallery and add tags
- Enable Tag Filtering on gallery Tags tab
- Embed gallery with Envira block
Envira Gallery Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Tags + filtering | Premium plugin |
| Watermark protection | Steeper learning curve |
| Superior gallery features | Depends on external service |
| Lightbox and slideshow options |
If protecting your images is important, Envira Gallery also supports adding watermarks. This deters theft while enabling image promotion.
Bonus Tip: Safeguard Images from Theft
As a photographer or agency, your images contain intellectual property with monetary value. Unfortunately, image theft is extremely common online.
I recommend enabling right-click protection and applying visible or invisible watermarks to all portfolio images and ecommerce products.
For invisible tracking watermarks, see DigiMuse or PicRights.
Securing your digital assets enables pursuing damages if your work gets stolen in the future. Don‘t upload any marketable imagery online without protection!
I hope you now understand the enormous benefits of categories and tags for WordPress media libraries. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Regards,
[Your name]
WordPress Expert and Consultant
