It’s an important part of coming to grips with the platform to create a new page in WordPress. In this Quick Guide we’ll explain how to create pages in WordPress, why you’ll want to do that, and what it means to have done so.
For the unfamiliar, “pages” are one of WordPress’s two core “post types” or more usefully “types of content.” The other is called “posts;” people often think of those as being “blog posts.” In general, WordPress pages will be things you’d want to link to in your main navigation menu, where things called “posts” are more day-to-day. But I’m getting ahead of myself. In general, you’ll create a WordPress page a few times per year, and make posts almost weekly. But again, I may be jumping the gun.
What’s the Difference Between Posts and Pages?
The reasons you build, and how you use, a WordPress site will differ a lot. Some people get a WordPress site for their dental practice. Other do it share their thinking with the world. WordPress decided ages ago that all of those people had two needs common-enough that they’d be included with WordPress by default. They are making a “post” and making a “page.”
The difference between posts and pages in WordPress is something I already started to explain. But there are few questions that I ask that steer how I think about the “post vs page” choice in WordPress:
- Is this information an “update” about an ongoing situation? It should be a WordPress post.
- Is this information that will be relevant for a long time? (Think of a dental practice’s location, philosophy of care, and billing practices.) It should be a WordPress page.
- Is this information a one-time event you’re looking to mark? “We’re going to the Santa Clara farmer’s market on Tuesday” should always be a WordPress post.
With WordPress, you’ll create new pages using the same basic editor and process as a post. (Under the hood, they’re even stored in the same storage system called a database table.) But that doesn’t really matter for most of us. What’s more important is understanding what goes in each. I hope the above questions help you answer when you’ll want to make a WordPress post vs making a WordPress page.
