When you implement a hosted WordPress blog for your nonprofit, one of the first questions you might have is about Pages vs. Posts. When would you use one over the other, and why.
Social Versus Static
The biggest difference between Posts and Pages is this: Posts are social media instruments, Pages aren’t.
The WordPress Post is the tool you’ll be using within your blog to engage readers. Posts are what everyone on Twitter and Facebook are sharing. They enhance sharing and engagement with:
- Comments – Although Pages and Posts have commenting features, it’s generally a good idea to deactivate the comments on Pages. You want your readers to comment on your latest post, not your legal disclaimer.
- Sharing – There are hundreds of WordPress plugins that enable your readers to share content – quickly and easily. Most of these plugins give you an option to deactivate sharing on Pages, as shown below:
I use a few on this blog: AddThis (below each post), Simple Facebook Share Button (above each post), Tweetmeme (above each post) and WP Google Buzz (above each post). Comment systems, like DISQUS, Intense Debate and Echo embed sharing into the commenting process.
Pages are static web-pages within your blog for permenent content, like an About Page, a Donation Page or a Services Page. The website for Inbound Zombie is built with WordPress, sans posts.
Time Versus Timeless
Posts are published in reverse chronological order on your Home Page or Blog Index Page, depending upon how you’ve configured your blog (Sticky posts will remain above your latest posts). This allows visitors to see your most recent content first, and digg for related posts within the archives.
Pages have no date and time associated with them.
Posts can also be scheduled for future publication at a specific date and time, as shown below:
RSS and Email Subscriptions
Because Pages aren’t published with respect to a time and date, they aren’t syndicated through RSS feeds or email blog broadcast services such as Aweber or Constant Contact.
The Journey Versus The Pitstop
Posts are short, bite-sized pieces of content intended to bring your readers with you on a journey over time. For example, in January, I wrote a series over 31 days about optimizing your blog with social media (now an ebook!). This series gave me and my readers an opportunity to get to know each other – to go on a journey together. Pages, on the other hand, are pitstops my readers can visit along the way if they want to learn more about me or my services.
Children Versus Orphans
Pages allow users to create a hierarchy structure within your site, often referred to as a parent/child structure. Posts do allow for a parent / child structure, although you can do that with the Headway WordPress Theme (see “How To Create A Bootylicious WordPress Nav Bar” for more info).
Traffic Cop Versus GPS
The hierarchy feature of Pages turn site owners into traffic cops where visiters are pointed towards specific pages in relation to each other (a hierarchy. Posts, on the other hand, enable visitors to decide where they want to go via tags and categories.
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[...] WordPress posts vs. pages – everything you need to know – Ever wonder have trouble figuring out if a page would be better than a post in your blog? John Haydon’s got your back. [...]
Her's a question maybe someone can answer. We have a blog that has post and pages. We want to publish a number of different types of list (which will be updated from time to time) There will be a menu item, called LISTS with sub items for different lists.
I thought this should be set up using pages, but now that I read the article I am not so sure… Any help out there? jim1975@me.com
Thanks
It all depends upon if you want people to receive the lists via RSS.
Great post! I'm interested in seeing what WordPress 3.0 will look like. I have become a huge fan of ExpressionEngine as a CMS, but I see that WordPress is really trying to become a full-featured, flexible CMS as opposed to just a blogging engine. Looking forward to seeing what that looks like.
WordPress won a CMS award last week. Killer CMS – especially with Headway!
This is such a well written and easy to understand post. Tell me
John, what are your insights regarding WordPress.com platforms? The plugin options of course are very limited. But what are your views or experience with SEO?
Thanks, Rosie!
There are no plugins with respect to WordPress.com, only widgets. In terms
of SEO, check out this post by Michael Martin:
http://remarkablogger.com/2009/11/19/wordpress-…
I've always found WordPress to be great for SEO. There's the All in One SEO plugin, but even without that if you are producing good content, mindful of keyword rich titles and topics, then you are setting the stage for great rankings. Depending on your niche of course! But that is all based on hosting WordPress on your own server, not using the hosted WP.com
Although this is very simple to understand, there are still many people out there who simply don't understand the differences when they first used WordPress. I would think this might be a good idea to keep their curiosity at ease…
Everytime I post it goes to my home page on the blog, despite that I have a couple pages. How do you post to other pages than the home?
I have pages and posts and am apparently having some trouble. I am a medical information website. I use my PAGES for my information and my POST for my blogs about recent medical changes, problems, or other conversations. Comments occur on both but primarily on my POSTs. Is this correct??
Sure! You can leave comments open on Pages – especially if you're looking
for feedback on the information pages.
You can also remove the comments function from pages. If it is static information that doesn't warrant comments. This can be done by modifying the page.php file… there are other ways to doing this but it just depends on what theme you are using.
The easiest way is how I mentioned in the post.
I can't see any reason that makes me hide comments on pages. Of course, usually most comments will take place on posts, but why not give your readers the chance to write down on your pages if they want to do it? I always feel quite strange when I realize I can't comment on a page. In fact, pages display information that usually remains static through the time, so the author believes it's IMPORTANT info, which can be subject to discussion or whatever else as comments are.
I wouldn't be interested in having a discussion about a legal disclaimer
Page, for example.
[...] use a few on my JohnHaydon blog: AddThis (below each post), Simple Facebook Share Button (above each post), Tweetmeme (above each [...]
(In response to John's response to my previous response LOL)
I'm not totally sure there could not be a discussion about a legal disclaimer (nonprofits usually don't really know how to manage these legal questions and simply copy and paste some sentences from other websites, bla, bla… but this is not the point
).
There are plenty more things you can find in pages. For example, I used to have a couple of pages explaining the technical architecture of my blog and how to manage a multilanguage blog (as mine was), which were of interest of new visitors, who used to ask or comment. Author's CV can be also an interesting page to comment. In NPO blogs you can find pages like “who we are” and things like this that can actually lead to quite interesting discussions about missions, goals and so on.
So my conclusion is: leave commenting tools available in pages and let the users decide whenever they want to comment or not. Of course, you may agree or not.
Btw, thank's John for your always useful content.
Sounds like you've found some good reasons for allowing comments on Pages.
If it works for you, keep doing it!
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I appreciate your comparative perspective on posts and pages in WordPress. Mony of my clients that are just getting into managing their website can benefit from this information. Thanks for the article.
Anytime.