So you have content, but you are not sure you want to go with pages or posts. Well, it really is not that difficult. A lot of people put together a site completely in posts without few pages. Or they make a page and enable comments, depending if their theme has that coded into the page template.
Even you can customize individual pages, since WordPress 3.0, you can customize individual posts. You also have the ability to adjust your menu from your WordPress admin panel to whatever you like if you have the wp_nav_menu php call into the theme itself.
Posts are normally considered an area of your website that will be updated frequently, while pages are more considered to be static. The difference- while both pages and posts are included in a sitemap (if you have a sitemap plugin installed… and you should), only posts are included in your RSS feeds (RSS- really simple syndication.) With the RSS, you can feed it into social network aggregation tools that will publish your posts to your social network handles.
However, you have to ask yourself – do you want comments on a page you will rarely update? What type of content are you putting up and how much of it? Remember for those internet marketers who like to use landing pages, enabling comments on a squeeze page might not be ideal.
If you like to put up mass quantities of items, for example, pixel images where you have a lot of images, you may want to use a page. Or you could release a few at a time in posts.
This is really something you have to decide on how you want to organize your site. If you make a page, you will have to announce the page somehow, especially if you want to drive attention to it.
Navigation is a big part to most sites. It is often the source of a visitor’s problem if your site is confusing to go from one area to the next, and back again with ease. Both posts and pages allow you to implement elements like breadcrumb navigation (a navigation you put at the top that tells you the path from that page you are on, and gives you a way to go back to the home page), links for next and previous post, navigation with numeral navigation (instead of older or newer post links), WP 3.0+ navigation menus, subpage navigation (you can have whole sections as a parent page and then children pages related to that section) and more.
It boils down how you want to organize your site. In fact, your sites organization has pull on your SEO. If search engines see that you have sections of your site that are grouped, they will list those under you
I usually put posts for what I am going to talk about and pages for things I may not update a lot.
Here is a good example of what I was talking about:
How have you organized your site by using pages and posts in WordPress?
Thank you for the tips for wordpress. They are really helpful for start-up bloggers.
Thanks for all the ideas. As a new blogger myself,I can really really to the post and use it to my advantage.
Nice Write Up. I agree that pages should be added less frequently and should be reserved for timeless, static content; posts should be the go to for updates, news, blog posts, etc.
You touched on it bit but I like the fact we can now easily mix pages and categories in the menus section of our dashboard. I don’t see an option to add an individual blog posts to the nav menu (through the dashboard) so that’s another reason separate pages and posts.
Like you said, it’s about organization. Links you want permanently displayed for everyone might be better suited as pages and included in the main navigation. That’s not to say pages have to be included in the menus, we can pick and choose now with WordPress without altering code e.g. [wp_list_pages(‘exclude=285,355].
I just reorganized my blog categories to simplify navigation so this topic is pretty interesting to me.
You can add a post to your navigation by adding a custom link in your Menu section in your WordPress backend.
Great tips that I will have to give a try on my wordpress site. Thanks for sharing.
Really interesting Niles. I’ve wondered about the logic behind a page only site … of course I’ve seen many, but never understood what would bring someone back to a site with fixed content unless there was some sort of registration or service involved. Thanks for the information!
I am with you Marquita! I too didn’t understand this concept. Thank you Niles for making it clear. This is great information in which I can understand. (I’m not good at these things) Learning from your blog posts have been great. Please Keep it up.
Blessings,
Donna
hello nile
thnx for this nice tips and post really helpful for me to blog better in future thnx
In my opinion it would all depend on what you want to promote. If its a landing page, I am good with the post, else, I would stay with pages.
I agree, I’ve observed this method and I also feel that it depends on what we actually want to promote. Its really interesting to think about the logic behind a page only site.
Agree with you. I usually use page only for static content like “About us” page…. and Post for regular updated content.
I generally use pages for static pages about the site itself, whereas the posts are means for regular topics covered on the site for which the site is meant.
I have never heard of a page site until this post. Interesting. But I prefer to have both. There is some content that I want to stay up all the time and I love posting everyday to share with my readers.
One of my pages is a static wordpress page that I do allow comments on. But it is run as a review site with associate links so it works. I can see however if it were simply an informative page, comments would not work.
Again, as you pointed out, its all about the content and purpose.
I use pages for more informational static pages, whereas posts are used for things that should be added to some sort of list.
Very informative article you posted, it will help a lot of newbie WordPress owners to learn the true difference.
I am in LOVE with wordpress 3+. I have often wondered what the real difference is between pages and posts. I tend to look at this in terms of pages being the equivalent to static content and treat posts as dynamic content for news and rss feeds. Thanks for sharing, Nile !
I think that pages should be kept to static only content, more informational and “resource-like”. Posts are obviously for regularly updated info, and the option to add comments to have interaction with visitors. I think that it is better for SEO purposes to have your site set up this way.
I use both and pretty much like you stated. Except I never really thought of that image issue. I am not a photo site or have large images on my blog but if I choose to “show off” some images it seems like such a better idea to place them in a page.
Thanks for the tip!
~Allie
Thanks for this innovative ideas, it is really applicable to improve our wordpress site.
I like the ideas that you mentioned in this post. In reality, navigation is one of the things that can make or break your blog. Thanks for your thoughts!
If you are a blogger and the site is intended for blogging then choosing ‘post’ is a good decision since managing posts are easy and are supported by a lot of themes. Pages are also ‘posts’ as you can see in the URL if you use the default permalink but there are reasons why they are treated as special. There are also plugins that treat pages and posts differently.
Great tips, thanks! On my wordpress site I am going to use static pages for description of my services and posts for articles that may be somehow useful to my potental clients.
Hello Nile
I have not used this feature. Are you saying WordPress can do more than just run a blog?
Thanks
Perry A Davis Jr
Music City
WordPress can do just about anything you want. It has gone from blog to fully functional CMS with the right plugins, and can do almost anything in-between rather well.
Thanks for your tips. Many bloggers uses wordpress and newbies will get a lot from your post. Thanks so much and continue writing great post!
To page or post has been a recurring question for me on my site since it is mostly a business directory site. I have opted to go more for posts because I do update my info in the directory and write posts for each organization. I didn’t have a good plan when I first started the site and did have some major reorganization. This post was great for those starting out and I wish I would have found a similar post before I started mapping out my site as it would have saved me a lot of time.
That was some nice work done above,with examples.
so Page or post depends more upon the update ability of the content i guess in short.
I choose posts!
This seem new to me. I don’t know the difference of post and pages until I read this. On my blog I only have 3 pages and a lot of post.
Thanks! very informative.
Still depends on the purpose.
Hi Nile,
Thanks for considering this subject of pages and posts. It is a key issue for me. I recently put together a content site for a client that has many pages and we are yet to put up many posts. They achieved immediate rankings and I was blown away by the traffic that has converted into sales for them!! Also, Google organized their pages just as you show in the example above.
It has taught me something. I think you want your pages to be very clearly planned out with the different areas of your business.
Now that I am re-organizing my own businesses, I will pay close attention to this area.
regards
Clare
i would go with POSTS . my site is having only 4-5 pages and rest all are posts
neat post must say i agree page should be update less frequently and i ll give it a try on my wordpress blog
Before me and my friends were contemplating about this. When do we use page and post, and here is my opinion on the matter. I use page if the content is very broad and I use post to support that page.
I appreciate your post! I am trying to create a website similar. I have been reading a lot and found WordPress Posts VS. Pages … thanks again!
Hello again, Nile. Your posts are always very informative to us bloggers. Like you, I too use pages as static pools of information and posts for the dynamic content. Even if one is doing the right thing, it helps to know the “why” of it, especially from the SEO standpoint. Keep ’em coming. Cheers!
As what I have heard from fellow bloggers, a post is better that a static page as it will be indexed faster than the page. Now I know.. Thanks Niles
Although this is very simple to understand, there are still many people out there who simply don’t understand the differences when they first used WordPress. I would think this might be a good idea to keep their curiosity at ease…
I can start using your tips right away. Thanks so much, I am a new blogger and your instructions are so easy to follow.
Thanks for the tips ahead. Post is the crucial part of a certain website than to have a static page. This is truly helpful. Thanks!
I use posts for blog updates and random articles. Pages are more for resources that i know will be frequently visited for the life of the site. Posts also keep content fresh!
Your instructions and guidance are easy to follow. Your content is updated and user friendly.
Cool tips
I think it all depends on the site you are building. Some sites, I use more posts, while others I use more pages. That’s one of the great things about WordPress.
I use both pages and posts on my wordpress site. I update it daily with new posts that include new music and such. I use pages for my static stuff like my About Me and stuff I have for sale, so that someone looking at my page can very easily find it by looking in the right hand column.
I’ve recently been using more pages because of the way I want the content to look. I know posts can be customized but I have not figured out how to make posts full-width compared to how easy it is to do that with pages. My needs have changed over the years and not until the past two months or so have I desired full-width pages. Now I use pages more than ever.
This is very helpful information for someone just starting out like myself. I have struggled with understanding when I should use a page vs. a post right from the start. This clears it up for the most part, and I appreciate your effort to do so for us!
Good advice — I would add that on the post vs page debate, for most of my websites I use pages for information that does not become dated, and add posts for news and trends.
Great tips. I’m always looking for good posts on WordPress sites. Thanks for sharing
Nice tips, you have cleared doubts that were in my mind from few days ago. Thanks for posting.
I would use them both on different purposes. Both are equally important for me.
I mostly use pages for content i consider evergreen and post for my daily writings… But does it really matter that much?
Thanks
brian
Very nice points…I Agree with this…They are really helpful for start-up bloggers.a post is better that a static page as it will be indexed faster than the page…..Thank you.
http://www.findghar.com
Nice post and very well written, Thanks for posting this useful post.
Thanks for sharing this informative post Nile, both pages and posts can be used for the same reasons but for some purposes pages work better and for some others posts are better…
Very well explained there Neil.
Also I would like to add that if you want to create a page very different looking from your regular posts for a specific purpose, you can always create a custom template for page and choose that template as per your need.
It gives you an extra edge over the post’s area, where you don’t have a choice to choose a template.
Posts work very well for me , as i get an option to insert tags for them, as far as pages are considered they can be made for about us, privacy and disclaimer of your website.
P.S : Though there is a plugin to add tags in the pages, but that makes the website quite sluggish at times.
Hi,
Thanks for sharing this valuable post ,much appreciated Wonderful writing