WordPress newcomers frequently get confused between posts and pages. WordPress comes with two content by default: posts and pages.
As a beginner, you’re probably wondering what the distinction between posts and pages is. They appear to be the same in the WordPress dashboard and on the website.
Readers frequently ask, “Why do I need both?” When should I make use of posts? When should I make use of pages?
In this article, we will discuss the distinction between posts and pages in WordPress.
What are WordPress Posts?
Posts are blog entries that are listed in reverse chronological order (newest content on top). On your blog page, you will see a list of posts.
If you use WordPress as a blog, the majority of your website’s content will be in the form of posts.
You can add and edit WordPress posts in your dashboard by going to the ‘Posts’ menu. This is how the Add New Post screen appears.
Your posts are meant to be timely due to their reverse chronological order. Posts from the past are archived by month and year.
As the posts become older, the user must search deeper to find them. You have the option of categorizing and categorizing your posts.
WordPress posts are syndicated via RSS feeds because they are published with a time and date in mind. This enables your readers to receive notifications about the most recent post update via RSS feeds.
Bloggers can use RSS feeds to send email newsletters using services such as Constant Contact, Aweber, or MailChimp.
Posts are extremely social due to their timely nature. You can use one of the many social sharing plugins to enable your users to share your posts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and Pinterest.
Posts promote discussion. They have a built-in comment feature that allows users to leave feedback on a specific topic. Comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks are enabled.
If you prefer, you can disable comments on older posts by going to Settings » Discussion.
WordPress posts typically include the author’s name and the date they were published/updated.
This article, which you are currently reading, is an excellent example of a WordPress post. If you scroll to the top, you’ll notice the post category ‘Beginner’s Guide’ above the article title. The title is followed by the last updated date, the author’s name, and social share buttons.
The comments section follows the main article content. These are rarely found on a page.
Now that you understand what posts are, let’s look at pages and how they differ.
What exactly are Pages in WordPress?
Pages contain static “one-time” content such as your about page, privacy policy, contact page, and so on. While the WordPress database stores the page’s published date, pages are eternal entities.
Your about page, for example, is not supposed to expire. Sure, you can go back and make changes, but chances are you won’t have about page 2012, about page 2013, and so on. Pages are not included in your RSS feeds by default because they do not have a time and date associated with them.
In WordPress, you can add and edit pages from the ‘Pages’ menu in your dashboard. This is how the Add New Page screen looks:
In most cases, pages are not intended to be social and thus do not include social sharing buttons. In most cases, you probably don’t want others to tweet your privacy policy page.
Pages, similarly, do not include comments. You don’t want users to leave comments on your contact or legal disclaimer pages. There is a setting to enable comments, but it is disabled by default for WordPress pages.
Pages, unlike posts, are naturally hierarchical. Within a page, for example, you can have subpages or child pages. When editing a page, you can easily convert it to a subpage by selecting a parent page from Page Attributes.
Our Blueprint page is a great example of this in action. This feature allows you to group your pages together and even assign them a custom template.
WordPress includes a feature that allows you to create custom page templates using your theme. This enables developers to change the appearance of each page as needed.
Posts and pages in most themes look the same. However, if you’re using your page to create a landing page or a gallery page, the custom page templates feature comes in handy.
Pages also have an antiquated feature called ‘Order,’ which allows you to change the order of pages by assigning a number value to them. However, plugins such as Simple Page Ordering extend this feature by allowing you to drag and drop the order of pages.
Pages vs. Posts in WordPress (Key Differences)
To summarise, the following are the primary distinctions between posts and pages in WordPress.
Pages are timeless, whereas posts are current.
Pages are not social, whereas posts are.
Categories and tags are used to organize posts vs. Pages are organized hierarchically and can be divided into child and parent pages.
Pages are not included in the RSS feed, whereas posts are.
Pages do not have an author or a published date, whereas posts do.
There may be exceptions to the above-mentioned distinctions. Plugins can be used to extend the functionality of both types of content.
Despite these distinctions, there are some similarities between WordPress pages and posts.
For starters, they are both used to publish content. Text, images, forms, and other elements can be added to both posts and pages. Both pages and posts have a featured image meta-field.
You can create a website without ever using WordPress’s posts or blogging features. You can also create a business website with pages and a blog section for news, announcements, and other articles.
Questions and Answers
The following are some of the most frequently asked questions we’ve received from our users regarding posts vs. pages and how to use them properly in WordPress.
1. How many posts and/or pages am I allowed to have?
You may have an unlimited number of posts and/or pages. There is no limit to how many posts or pages can be created.
2. Is there any SEO benefit to using one over the other?
Search engines prefer well-organized content. Timeless content is regarded as more important; however, there is a high priority placed on the most recent timely content.
In short, there may be a distinction, but as a beginner, you should not be concerned. Concentrate on organizing your site for the user.
3. What pages should I include on my website or blog?
It all depends on the type of blog or website you’re creating. However, you might be interested in our list of important pages for all websites.
4. Is it possible to convert posts to pages and vice versa?
Many beginners inadvertently add content to posts when they intended to create pages. Similarly, some inexperienced bloggers may save blog posts as pages.
If you’re just getting started, you can easily fix this by using the post-type switcher plugin.
5. Are there other types of content in WordPress other than posts and pages?
There are, indeed. Attachments, revisions, and navigation menus, on the other hand, are not normally used in the same way that posts and pages are.
WordPress developers can also create their own custom post types. Plugins use this feature to create new content types in WordPress. If you have a WooCommerce store, for example, you will see a ‘Products’ post type in your WordPress admin area.
We hope this article helped you understand the distinction between pages and posts in WordPress, as well as how to use them.
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