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Wordpress Pages vs Posts

by busoppreviews
15 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I searched previous threads thinking that someone MUST have asked this already but couldn't find anything so my apologies if I am repeating a question.

I want to know the reasoning behind using posts over pages in a WP blog.

For something like the 100buckschallenge where we are following chronologically someone's journey I can see where posts would be better. However for a regular website where you want to have easily navigatable pages posts wouldn't really work, right ? You need to scroll through page after page of post to go through the archives.

I want to create a site about language learning. There is nothing chronological about it, so I would think pages are the way to go. But maybe there are SEO reasons as to why people use posts over pages and if so I would like to know this info

Thank you all in advance
#pages #posts #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author GazD
    Yeah I would say pages will work better in your case. Pages are good because the link and anchor text will always be on every page passing some of your PR to the internal pages. For posts, ifs its an often updated blog then they get moved further and further back from the link juice.
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  • Profile picture of the author Harvey Affcash
    Anyone with a modicum of design sense will use pages over posts for creating a website.
    The only people that don't are bloggers and fools who are far too used to thinking that a page that takes 18 minutes to scroll through is a good sales page.
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    • Profile picture of the author clickbump
      Originally Posted by Harvey Affcash View Post

      Anyone with a modicum of design sense will use pages over posts for creating a website.
      The only people that don't are bloggers and fools who are far too used to thinking that a page that takes 18 minutes to scroll through is a good sales page.
      I'm apparently one of the "fools" you speak of :-) And I can assure you I've got more than a "modicum" of design sense...

      I use "Posts" for product pages and "Pages" for static pages (about, contact, privacy, etc). As best I can tell, this was the original intent when WordPress was created.

      Here are two facts you might want to consider (or not...depending on how much broader your brush strokes can be)

      1) Pages are not included in your default rss feed

      2) Pages have no excerpt field
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      • Profile picture of the author nettech
        A second 'fool' here as well. Im with Clickbump on this.

        3) Also, you can't add tags on pages which is incredibly important for SEO. A lot of my WP sites rank for the tag pages.


        Originally Posted by clickbump View Post

        I'm apparently one of the "fools" you speak of :-) And I can assure you I've got more than a "modicum" of design sense...

        I use "Posts" for product pages and "Pages" for static pages (about, contact, privacy, etc). As best I can tell, this was the original intent when WordPress was created.

        Here are two facts you might want to consider (or not...depending on how much broader your brush strokes can be)

        1) Pages are not included in your default rss feed

        2) Pages have no excerpt field
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        Thanks
        Zaheer

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        • Profile picture of the author Kezz
          Originally Posted by nettech View Post

          A second 'fool' here as well. Im with Clickbump on this.

          3) Also, you can't add tags on pages which is incredibly important for SEO. A lot of my WP sites rank for the tag pages.
          On that note categories are also a big plus of using posts, as the category name ends up in the permalink for your post, which is a great way to get those keywords in.

          For me personally, I use categories to organize my high level structure, and tags to organize my low level structure. A loose analogy would be that my categories are the branches, and my tags are the leaves.

          Another vote here says if you want to take advantage of proper content organization, and proper keyword optimization, you really want to make use of the post function.

          By the way, there is nothing to stop you from creating a post, and then manually adding an HTML link to it to your navigation menu, where your page links would normally be. Then you get to have your cake and eat it too.
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      • Profile picture of the author debra
        Originally Posted by clickbump View Post

        I'm apparently one of the "fools" you speak of :-) And I can assure you I've got more than a "modicum" of design sense...

        I use "Posts" for product pages and "Pages" for static pages (about, contact, privacy, etc). As best I can tell, this was the original intent when WordPress was created.

        Here are two facts you might want to consider (or not...depending on how much broader your brush strokes can be)

        1) Pages are not included in your default rss feed

        2) Pages have no excerpt field
        I'm with you on this one 100%!

        I use pages for commercial intent and the posts for non-commercial intent.

        Actually...that keeps both Google and Bing very happy.
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      • Profile picture of the author busoppreviews
        This is exactly the kind of stuff I was wondering about.

        It seems there are pros and cons to using pages or posts.

        I find a blog that uses posts hard to navigate. There aren't links to every post on the homepage (usually).

        So how do I cash in on the advantages that each brings ?

        You make a great point about the RSS and posts thing (by the way I still don't really know what RSS is or how to use it, but I see it mentioned all the time so it must be useful).

        I don't like posts as they are usually in chronological order backwards on the home page. I think the homepage should be static, a sort of a welcome explaining what the page is about and entice people to stay and look around.

        With posts your homepage will constantly be changing and I don't think that's good.

        I had an idea of how to use both posts and pages. I could make static pages for most of the site and use posts to present new words and idioms. I was thinking of having an "idiom category" whereby I "post" new idioms on a daily basis or something. This would keep people coming back in order to learn new useful idioms. However, I don't want the idiom posts showing up on the home page.

        Is this idea any good ? If so how can I execute it ? Keep the home page static but still use posts ?

        Can I have an "idiom page" where the text is static ie "this is the idiom page -enjoy" - and then below the intro the idioms begin as posts in chronological order backwards.

        I am also thinking of allowing comments so users can give their input on the idiom and it's usage

        What do you think ? Will I cash in on the benefits of both posts and pages ? If so how to I execute what I want ?

        Thanks again - especially for the very fast replies
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    • Profile picture of the author jazbo
      Lot of us fools out ther it appears. We must all be doing very badly in the SERP's....

      Originally Posted by Harvey Affcash View Post

      Anyone with a modicum of design sense will use pages over posts for creating a website.
      The only people that don't are bloggers and fools who are far too used to thinking that a page that takes 18 minutes to scroll through is a good sales page.
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      CONTENT WRITER. Reliable, UK-Based, 6 Years Experience - ANY NICHE
      Click Here For Writing Samples & Online Ordering
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      • Profile picture of the author busoppreviews
        I'm still trying to wrap my head around this but thank you for the advice

        I saw that I can change my front page to be static and NOT displaying posts. So that's good.

        I fully understand how to make a blog using only pages, but it seems the use of posts creates advantages.

        I think I have figured out how to make an entire site using only posts. First I change the setting in "reading" like nettech said (thanks). Then I just create navigation to the posts by creating TEXT widgets ? That would be a lot of work I think making a text widget entry for every single post.

        Another easier way I guess would be to use the CATEGORY widget and just make a unique category for each post so a link to each post would be created automatically, but that seems like an improper use for the category.

        Further, if I am going to use posts, is their any advantage to using pages at all ? I can essentially make posts do the exact same thing as pages so then the question begs itself do I abandon pages all together ? Do pages have any advantages over posts ?

        Thanks
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        • Profile picture of the author clickbump
          Originally Posted by busoppreviews View Post

          Further, if I am going to use posts, is their any advantage to using pages at all ? I can essentially make posts do the exact same thing as pages so then the question begs itself do I abandon pages all together ? Do pages have any advantages over posts ?

          Thanks
          My recommendation (or at least the way I use pages) is to use pages for static, unchanging content. They are perfect for static content such as "about us", "contact us", "privacy policy", etc.

          This also allows pages to be grouped separately from posts in link lists in your template. For example, I've grouped my pages to appear on the top right sidebar as a group and I list my top 5 posts across the top of my template as a separate list, then I'm able to show "overflow" posts (anything I haven't flagged as a top-menu item) under the static pages and grouped beneath their own heading in the right sidebar.

          The appropriate use of posts and pages gives you quite a bit of flexibility of presentation and helps to set your site up for maximum SEO and enhances overall usability.
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  • Profile picture of the author nettech
    You can have a post as a 'sticky' which stays on the frontpage. Also, you can limit the number of posts that appear on the frontpage to give it a 'static' page look and feel. I think its Settings > Writing or Reading.
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    Thanks
    Zaheer

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  • Profile picture of the author clickbump
    Hi busoppreviews, I can appreciate your questions on the merits of posts vs pages. They are valid and they get asked a lot.

    There are a few things in your last post that perhaps miss the true power you have available to you in a WordPress site. For example, there are more than a few ways to manage WordPress to do just about anything you want it to do, including using posts for single pages, where every post has a corresponding link to it, and a whole host of other things that are pretty incredible considering the functionality is either a slight configuration option or a full featured, and in most cases, freely available, plug-in.

    The "Sticky" post option is one way to gain a bit of control over presentation. There are numerous others. The beauty of WordPress is that its maleable to a variety of needs. It can used for everything from a chronologically ordered blog, to a full featured CMS that you wouldn't be able to tell apart from any static website that doesn't look or function like a blog at all.

    If you want a place to start your journey to find out how much further you can take WordPress (from a simple chronological blog listing app), the folks over at woothemes have some pretty incredible examples...
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    • Profile picture of the author WareTime
      If you are using wp and make use of tags or categories to organize content, a blog based cms can do alright, but in my opinion is not optimal. Make a menu out of your tags or cats to simulate the traditional site structure you'll be ok.

      You are 100% correct that for an info site you don't want the traditional blog chronological bs.

      I don't like fighting with a blog cms to get shaped into a traditional site, so I'd prefer to just build a traditional site with another CMS more suited to building a traditional info site than WP or use static pages made with your favorite wysiwyg editor.

      Some reading for you that may raise and or answer some questions you should be thinking about:
      1. Explains why not to use the trad blog format. Touches on your concerns and maybe a few more
      SBI! - Blog or Build?

      2. Great reads on organizing a site from people that know what they are doing
      Information Architecture for the Small Site - part 1
      Information Architecture for the Small Site - part 2
      Putting information architecture into practice

      Hope those help.
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  • Profile picture of the author busoppreviews
    OK I just wanted to say I found the widget I wanted. It's called "Category Posts" and also another one called "List Category Posts".

    Category Posts allows multiple widgets, whereas List Category Posts only has 1. However the nice thing about List Category Posts is that it allows you to select ascending or descending order for posts on the list whereas Category Posts only displays post in date order backwards. I need wanted features from both but I guess I can't have my cake and eat it. At least not for free anyways

    I hope others find this widget as useful as I will
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    • Profile picture of the author RobinInTexas
      For anybody who wants to play with various post<->page configuration there's a good plugin that can do a quick swap p2pConverter | Life of Brian
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      Robin



      ...Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just set there.
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