Many blogging beginners tend to be confused as to what to use when posting their articles and contents. Is it “posts” or “pages”?
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Well, you can use both but that depends on the purpose and design of your blog/website. For beginners though, it is important to know the differences between the two.
Although they’re basically the same in terms of publishing contents (content refers to the articles, video, images, mp3 files etc.), they differ in some functions and uses.
Pages are generally used for static contents such as About page, Contact page, and Privacy pages while posts are used to publish your regular articles, reports, and other dynamic contents.
In a nutshell, the main difference between posts and pages are that posts are blog entries or articles (the one you write) while pages are those static pages.
Posts are usually sorted chronologically with the latest entries at the top. Posts usually appear on your sites homepage (front page) and “latest/recent post” widget on your sidebar.
On the other hand, pages are typically used for static content (content that doesn’t change very often). Pages are usually included in your site’s navigation menu which appears at or near the top of your site.
Pages are excluded from the normal blog chronology and they are displayed individually. This means that every new page you create doesn’t appear on your homepage and “recent posts” list. Instead they are included in the navigation menu of your blog. Pages also don’t have the “categories” and “tag” functions which you will normally see in posts.
Pages can be organized into subpages by selecting a sub-parent. When a sub-page is created, it appears under its page parent in a drop down menu in a navigation bar.
Pages can use different page templates to make a specific page layout for example a contact page, a landing page, a sales page, a gallery page, and so on.
So what should you use?
Personally, I use “posts” when publishing regular contents on my blog.
I use “pages” for creating my “About Us” page, “Contact” page, “Privacy Policy” page, and “Products/Services” page.
For beginners, I recommend using “posts” as the main tool for publishing your contents.
You can venture and experiment on how you can use the page tool when you already get the hang of using WordPress to create your own blogs and websites.