Adding multiple results

Hello I have a spreadsheet that has 306 votes in column a... I would like to know if theres a forumula that can count them all for me... instead of doing it myself.

Ex.

there were 10 votes for A
there wree 30 votes for B....

if you list the categories in say column B..

eg. A
    B
    C

Then in column C, using Countif

e.g. =COUNTIF(A:A,B1) where B1 contains A

and copy down the formula.