WordPress pages and posts have specific purposes, so it’s important to choose the correct one when adding content to your website. The best way to understand which to use is to define them, so…
What is a WordPress Page?
Pages contain static content, which is to say content that is always pertinent to the website. Pages can include About, Contact, Events, FAQ, etc., and they usually appear in the menu. Three of my pages are Home, Services, and Projects. Every few months I read these over and may make a tweak here and there. I’ll add or subtract content from my Projects page, or update my prices, but for the most part, these pages don’t change.
What is a WordPress Post?
Posts, at their root, are serial creatures; you publish one at a time and they build up into a digest. Their topics relate to the overall theme of the business, but their contents can vary more significantly than a website page’s will. My blog is my library, where I post short articles about WordPress websites and Mailchimp (hey – you’re reading one now!). I post weekly, and as technology changes or my knowledge grows, I update the content.
Posts can include podcast episodes, Instagram, or YouTube feeds, as well as blogs. They may announce specials, new hires, or other company news. They’re timely and topical.
Publication Dates
Posts have dates of publication the same way newspapers and magazines do, and WP lists them on your site in order of postdate. Technically, pages also have publication dates, but they’re not relevant to their content.
Publication date is important! Say you’ve searched WordPress Posts vs Pages, for example. Some of your search results will include dates of publication. I don’t know about you, but I’ll pick the article with the most recent date. When post content becomes outdated or irrelevant, it can be edited, deleted, or archived.
Post Archives
If you want to offer your readers an index of your posts, you can do that in a page called an archive. See my library post on archives here.
Post Categories
One difference between posts and pages is that posts can be categorized and pages aren’t. Say you write about science like my client Sally James does in her site, Seattle Science Writer. She is a published author who also writes posts that are not published elsewhere. Her posts and articles both appear on her website as posts, but she needs to differentiate between them. We created a categorization system so visitors can easily see which posts are which.
When posts and articles appear in the same listing after a search, they are differentiated via their categories, which appear in the upper right-hand corner of the card.
So... WordPress Page vs Post...
Hopefully now you understand the difference, and can choose which one you want for any given situation. Still not sure? Drop me a line and I can help!
