Whether you are new to WordPress as the content management platform for your website, or have become a WordPress veteran, you may have found yourself wondering if there is a difference between WordPress Pages and WordPress Posts. It seems in everyday social media language, these terms are used interchangeably, but these two words mean very different things when you are talking about WordPress. Both of these pieces are not only important, but they are also essential in driving traffic to your site, while serving very different functions.
WordPress Posts:
- timely and appear with the most recent entry first
- can be categorized and tagged
- ability to appear in RSS feeds
- when archived, the older a post is, the further a user has to dig to find it
- drive conversation and interaction with you and your site
- can have different authors
Posts are entries that are listed in reverse chronological order–what most people think of as blog posts. They are created with date and time in mind, which allows them to be syndicated through RSS feeds. Posts allow you to interact with and develop an online relationship with site visitors because visitors are able to communicate with you and comment on your posts. In other words blog posts are your current content that allows people to interact with you and be social. This is how you self-publish instead of waiting for someone else to publish it for you.
WordPress Pages:
- timeless: they serve as static information hubs for your visitors
- do not allow for conversation
- do not contain tags or categories
- only accessible from where you link to it
- can serve as the home page
Pages serve a timeless purpose on your website. They are the landing strips that people expect to see when they visit your site, but they do not allow people who visit your site to communicate with you. They house more permanent content that users tend to access frequently. Common pages on websites are the “About” or “Contact Us.”
Pages or Posts? What matters more with SEO:
Now that you are aware of the key differences between pages and posts, you may be wondering if one of these has a better advantage to your SEO than the other. The short answer is search engines pick up on organized content regardless of whether it is contained on a post or a page. SEO tends to prioritize the latest, timely content, which makes SEO targeting an important component of posts. But Pages are also included in SEO and it’s important that you optimize them and continue to watch their effectiveness in search. The more you optimize your content for both pages and posts, the greater your chance of driving higher rankings and traffic. You should now understand the difference between Pages and Posts in WordPress and how each impacts your SEO. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and ask!
