Everyone knows it’s easy to publish content to your WordPress website. Just login to the WordPress Admin and add a new Post… or should that be a Page? This is one of the most common questions that baffles WordPress beginners. This video explains the differences between the two post types and provides some general guidance on when to use each. Watch this short tutorial and you’ll never again find yourself wondering whether you need a Post or a Page.
[...] an earlier video I taught you the difference between posts and pages. I also taught you how to write a WordPress Post. Today, I’ll teach you how to write a [...]
Thank you for this VERY useful information because I was going to go mad if I didn’t find this out, wordpress is a very complicated, simple thing… =D
[...] If you aren’t following this do not be concerned. If you’ve never blogged before it is difficult to understand the distinction until you post something yourself and see how it works. Here is a short video which explains the topic: Creating Content in WordPress: Posts and Pages. [...]
I’m using WordPress for the first time on a couple of upcoming projects.
This video is a great start, and has confirmed that I have made the right choice by choosing WordPress.
Looking forward to the next ones on the list.
I am new to word press. This video cleared a lot of questions, that I had about post and pages
What a great post. The information is great. This post has really helped me understand the difference between pages and post in wordpress.
Thanks
Jason Berkes
[...] an earlier video I taught you the difference between posts and pages. I also taught you how to write a WordPress Post. Today, I’ll teach you how to write a [...]
Hi I started using pages for a wordpress site I help run. I haven’t used posts before but I’m coming round to the idea that it might be best to create 301 redirects for article pages linking them to posts instead.
In part this is due to being able to do more with posts… do you think this is a good idea – are there any benefits to having posts instead of pages?
thanks
It really depends on the nature of your content and what you’re trying to accomplish. Pages are typically used for static content that doesn’t change much, including pages that are prominently featured on site-wide navigation (contact, about, support, etc.). If you’re using WordPress as a CMS system for a regular website as opposed to a blog, then chances are most of your content will be pages.
If, on the other hand, your content is more blog-like — you need the most current article displayed first, or you want to organize by categories and tags — then posts are the way to go.
First class – so much to learn!
Thanks
Deiric
gooood post, it is very useful
Thank you for this video, I found it very useful and in particular I learned that Pages don’t show on your RSS feed. I still have to learn how RSS feeds operate but I am a way from there yet. Does that mean that if I want a page to show up in my RSS feed I should create a post using a link to point to the article/page?
Do pages have less SEO value than posts? I didn’t think so but now I am wondering…
thanks again!
Gayle,
It’s important to keep in mind that Posts and Pages are designed to meet very different needs. Posts are timely updates, Pages are perennial content. If you’re running a blog, then most of your content will be published as Posts and you’ll have just a few Pages. If you’re using WordPress as a CMS, then the entire structure of your site will be defined in Pages (and child pages) and Posts will be reserved for news updates and blog posts.
With this in mind, it makes sense that Pages wouldn’t be included in an RSS feed. Since Pages usually serve as perennial content, they would quickly vanish from the feed as new Posts were published.
Having said this, you should know that there are plugins that will allow you to add Pages to your RSS feed — but, before you consider using one of those, it’s likely best that you think a bit about what you’re trying to achieve and use the most appropriate content type for the information you’re publishing.
Very informative video and clearly presented information, thank you.
Cleared up some confusion for me particularly that pages can be used in a hierarchical fashion and tend to be more static whereas posts are date and time sensitive and are organized by categories and tags.
Rob
thank you for this information! I’m new at this whole wordpress thing and your video was VERY helpful.
I have just started using wordpress and although it is an efficience blog software, there is a maze of things to learn. I am glad this video has clarified one of the first few things i got stuck on!
Very efficient video and great tips! Just started using wordpress, figuring out best how to use posts vs pages and this helped!
Great video… I also wasn’t sure of the difference between posts & pages, but this video explains it perfectly. I had to pause the video multiple times so that I’d have time to write down notes. Appreciated that you also mentioned how each type (post or page) is used… posts for blog posts and pages for traditional web content/static pages. Thanks!
Found this video very helpfull indeed and it answered all the questions I had on Posts and Pages.
Many thanks!
Thank you so much for this video! I had been slowly figuring out the difference between posts and pages and you made it crystal clear!
Thanks for explaining this in such a concise, easy-to-follow fashion. I’m now off to check your blog on menu creation.
Hey Kirk, Thanks for this, very helpful.
Maybe you or one of your followers could help me. I made a post on the WP forum but it slipped down to about 8 pages deep within a few hours.
Lets say my site is about tutorials and the tutorials fall into three distinct categories. Over time I write a dozen or so tutorials for each category.
The way I see it is I have three options for managing my content.
1. every lesson is a post
2. every lesson is a page on a submenu, the parent menu is the lesson category
3. the same as 2 but I also make a news type post about the lesson on the blog page each time I add a lesson
Option 3 is what I’ve been doing. I’m really not sure if this is the best way to do it. From my research the consensus seems to be that you should make posts when ever possible.
I getting myself confused. Part of me thinks all the lessons should just be posts but another part of me thinks they should be in a more traditional hierarchical menu structure and static pages.
Thanks.
BT
it was great . i had a confusion between post and pages. but now it is solved.
Thank you . Now I am hoping to find out how to keep a post off a page so that the opening pages do not look like blogs.
Thanks for a really informative video. I have wanted to try a few different options on my Autism site and your video answered my questions on pages and posts. Many Thanks.
Pages are better for hierarchical content, but they don’t scale well if you’re going to be adding a lot of content as time goes on. If your lessons are easily grouped into categories, then I would go with a post for each lesson and use categories to organize the lessons by type. Then use wp menus to create navigation in your sidebar (using the menu widget).
@pat – go to Settings -> Reading. You have the option to set a page as your home page. Be sure to set another page as your blog page. Your lists of posts will show up on that page.
Thanks for the video . now I used wordpress design my website.
This post helped crystalize the difference–excellent explanation. However, I can’t seem to find an answer to my problem of how to create pages without every one showing up on the top navigation bar. I want to use pages only as part of a widget menu on the side. Surely every page doesn’t have to be a tab on top, right? Please direct me to the video explaining this, as I have been unable to find one. Thanks!
@Tracey It really depends on the theme. Some themes automatically include all pages on the nav bar. Check Appearance -> Menu. If your theme supports menus it might just be displaying a list of pages because you haven’t yet created a custom menu. If that’s the case you can create a new menu and include only the pages that you want on the nav bar.
Take a look at the tutorial on menus: http://wpapprentice.com/videos/customize/how-to-create-menus-in-wordpress/
Very nice – cleared up confusion for me.
However, can you please suggest how to do this:
I’d like various kinds of pages, eg.: products, services, rants & raves.
Then, I’d like to write posts in each page (and each page would have its own categories; for example, products page would have categories such as home, health, finance, etc. and services page might have categories such as insurance, debt, etc.)
Right now, I just have a blog page. I’d like to be able to target blogs to go into these pages instead. So, I wouldn’t like a reader who came to my “products” blog to click on the calendar and see my blog post on maid service.
Is it even possible to do this? Or do I have to just create different WP installs into each subfolder on my site (like root/products/blog, root/services/blog)? If the latter, then it is going to be terrible because then I have to recreate all my plug in settings and services, right? (eg., my onlywire plugin has around 50 services!)
Please advice.
Thanks,
Gary
@Gary Without knowing more about your site or your content, I suggest that you consider using Categories and child Categories for your posts. Using your example, your Home category would have child categories of Health and Finance. Posts from all three categories (the parent category and two child categories) will be displayed on the parent category’s archive page. If you want more control over formatting you can create custom templates for each parent category.
[...] and watch the video: [...]
[...] covered in a separate video. If you aren’t clear on the difference between posts and pages, this brief video explains posts types in more detail and provides guidance on when to use each [...]
Thanks so much for clarifying!
Hi Kirk.
I’m still just beginning to understand the difference with these two. What I’m wondering is whether it is common practice to use pages like a category and then have posts for that page exist only on that page?
I’m guessing that if I wanted to do that i would need to use categories as page tabs then posts for that category would be displayed on that page tab which is actually a category archive?
Does that make sense? Is there a better way?
Basically i want to create a blog for a team of people to use for communicating and collaborating on a project which involves a new website. So I want discussions to be split into the categories of “website ID (including layout/logo/name of site)” with another category for “marketing” and another for general discussion. I thought it would be possible to create pages for these categories then each page would have a blog that is specific to that page. I’m finding this a little tricky to say the least.
Can you suggest anything that would help me get something close to what I’ve described?
Cheers,
Danny.
Hi Danny,
What you’re describing is a category archive page. WordPress creates those automatically for each category.
You can add categories to your site menu (take a look at the lesson on custom menus). I’m pretty sure that will accomplish what you’re trying to achieve.
Thank you!