WordPress has proved to be an amazing blogging tool used by millions of people every day. As a CMS, it has its power in its simplicity, and you will probably not find a more user-friendly platform.
WordPress is used to build not just blogs, but websites as well. As a blogger, you might not need to feel the difference between posts and pages. As a website owner, you need this information to be figured out, as your site structure matters to your SEO.
Both posts and pages are informative, but the kinds of information that they contain are not the same, that is to say, are better not to be the same. In other words, posts are preferred for one purposes while pages for others. Let us clear it out by giving the main differences and explaining them.
Timely vs Timeless
It is convenient when static information like Contacts, About page or any other constant topicality, is easy to find so that people do not have to dig into archives of blog posts. For instance, if you run a company, you want each service to have a separate page, for that way a customer can click and instantly be provided with the details needed. Your service list does not change every day or week. That is why such kind of information is considered to be static, always appreciated to the same extent.
If you want to share a piece of news, you are more likely to do this via a post. This information is interesting now, but it won’t arise so much curiosity in a month or a year. Such content is marked by tags and date, and put in reversed chronological order so that latest news come first.
Category vs Hierarchy
As it has been mentioned above, posts are automatically marked with date and can be tagged. This makes it easy to group them according to certain topics. However, it will not work for pages, as they have their own way of grouping, that is, hierarchy. It works on the tree or parent and child principle and means creating subpages, which builds a logical thematic structure. For example, “Hairdresser’s”>”Haircuts”>”Bob”. Note that WordPress tags are not keywords, so they do not help with search engine optimization. If you need to organize your pages according to certain categories you can use Post Tags and Categories for Page plugin.
Social vs Limited
By default, posts appear in the newsfeed and sometimes emailed (services like Aweber or MailChimp are useful here) so that followers are always up to date. People can comment them if they want to. Sometimes this is not what you need. Comment section below contacts is obviously unnecessary. Plus, a public discussion forum on a product or service might not be the best way to win clients. In this case, creating a page is a better option. Pages are not meant to be social and, thus, do not include comments, sharing buttons and do not appear in the feed.
Creativity vs Standard
Posts are always of the same pattern, as they belong to one pile, which grows up with every blog update. They all have to be of ‘the same blood’. Pages are more individual and are not bound to each other that much. You can create a green striped page with apples on it even if all the other pages are polka-dotted.
Conclusion
- Posts are blog-like and organized in a reversed chronological order which is perfect for news and other timely information. Pages work best for timed info.
- Posts do not have hierarchy. They are arranged in a growing pile and marked with date, tags, and categories. Pages are arranged according to the tree principle, and make it possible to create a completely static website. They do not have tags or categories.
- Posts show up on the newsfeed and in your blog archives. Pages don’t.
- Posts have comment sections and pages do not.
- Posts do not have custom template feature while pages do.
To sum it all up, there is no strict rule for when to choose pages and when to choose posts. Being familiar with what is written above would just make your WordPress site more organized for users.
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