WordPress beginners often become confused when it comes to pages and posts. These are the two types of content found within the WordPress content management system. Understanding the difference between the two, will help you move forward with your project.
For most websites, both pages and posts are very important. Pages and posts give you different, yet important benefits for search engine optimization and the overall user experience. Below, you will discover the difference between pages and posts in WordPress.
What are Pages?
Pages are “static” content used for product reviews, company information, contact information, policies and other types of content you need displayed on your website. Typically, pages are used for what is known as “one-off” content.
This type of content only needs to be written and published one. For example, you only need one “About Us” page, instead of one for each year. You will only need to create your legal disclaimers once, as well.
The most common uses for pages include:
- Privacy Policy
- Legal Disclaimer
- Contact
- About
- Home
- Top Product Reviews
It does depend on your type of website, but pages are used as “static” content, which is the type of content websites have been using since the beginning.
What are Posts?
Most content comes in the form of posts, especially if you have a blog attached to your website. This type of content is listed in reverse chronological order and the most recent posts will be displayed on your blog’s home page. This means, the content is meant to be timely, such as recent news, updated strategies, new products and other types of announcements.
Posts can be syndicated with an RSS feed. This allows your readers to receive a notification when a new post has been published. RSS Feeds can be broadcasts through programs, such as MailChimp or Aweber. They will come in a newsletter format, which can be sent daily or weekly.
When you use posts on your WordPress website, they encourage conversation. Visitors can leave comments and can ask questions. This provides a social aspect to your blog, which can be very powerful when it comes to SEO.
Major Differences Between Pages vs. Posts
The major difference between the two comes in the way the content is used. You could create all pages on your WordPress site or all posts, but they work best together. Here are a few of the major differences.
- Posts are Social, while Pages are Not
- Posts are syndicated in an RSS Feed, Pages are Not
- Pages can use a Custom Template, while Posts don’t
- Posts are timely, while Pages are timeless
- Pages have a hierarchical structure, while Posts can be Categorized
Understanding how to use pages and posts together will give you the largest amount of power when it comes to a WordPress website. If you plant to start a website with a blog, you will be using both of these types of content.
