Post or Page? What’s the difference?

On a WordPress website, you have posts and pages.  They both have a lot of the same features but they’re actually very different and learning when to use a page over a post (and vice versa) is an important part of keeping your website looking good and easy to navigate.

Posts:

Posts are like the meat of a sandwich.  You’re going to have a lot of them because they make up the main part of your website.  You tend to use them to post a story or blog, write an informational, or announce upcoming features, etc.

You can tag posts with different categories to sort them easily and they can be archived on your site so they don’t clutter things up.

Posts are going to be made at a much more frequent pace than pages because they’re more dynamic.  In fact, this blog right here is a post.

Pages:

Pages are a much more static part of the website.  It tends to be connected to a menu at the top of pages or a link at the bottom.  These can include anything from Terms and Conditions to About Me, a Contact Us page, or even something cool like a hidden easter egg on your site.

Pages can be used to easily menu items on your homepage through ‘nesting’.  In short, nesting a page under another page will make your menus structured well and with ease.

When should I use posts/pages?

That depends on what you’re looking to do.  Are you wanting something to appear on the front page just for a short while?  Are you looking to post a quick update to something or start compiling some information in a series of blogs?  Use posts.

Do you need to put something on your page permanently?  Are you wanting this information to be in a menu on your main page or through a link somewhere?  Use a page.

Just remember that WordPress is highly versatile, too.  You don’t have to keep pages in menus and plug-ins can change your experiences with posts/pages dramatically.  If there’s something specific you’re trying to do and you just can’t seem to figure it out with posts or pages alone, look online for a plug-in to help!