WordPress for beginners training – Lesson 4.

Writing posts and pages

Table of contents
Learning objectives

1. The difference between posts and pages

2. How to write a post

3. How to write a page

Key takeaways

Learning objectives
In this lesson, you’ll learn:
● the difference between posts and pages;
● how to write a post;
● how to write a page.

1. The difference between posts and pages

In WordPress, there are two primary content types: posts and pages. Depending on
the type of content you want to have and how you plan to use that content, choosing
between posts and pages can make a difference. Four main things set posts and
pages apart:

1. Time of publication
For posts, the publication time is relevant. Posts are basically blog content, and blogs
are meant to be published regularly and cover current topics. When you write a blog,
you share your opinion and experience. For example, you may want to write a blog
post about your time at a summer music festival. That topic is fresh for a brief time.
Once the festival hype is over, and especially a few years after the festival, that post
will be outdated. Not only because the festival happened a long time ago, but also
because as time goes by, your opinions and tastes may change as well. So, a post
shows how something was at a certain point in time. Therefore, the publishing date
of a post is usually clearly displayed for visitors to see.

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Pages, on the other hand, show static content that does not change over time. The
classic example is the About page, where you share a personal or a corporate story.
These are facts that let the visitor of the site get to know you. They are timeless, and
their publication time is irrelevant. Of course, as time goes by, you can add and edit
the content of the About page to reflect your most current developments. But, in
their essence, pages show less fleeting content.

2. Archives
Since posts are time-dependent, and their chronology can be significant, posts are
archived in WordPress. The chronology in the archives is usually reversed, and the
latest post appears first. WordPress automatically generates archive pages based on
taxonomies, categories, tags, and even dates. Archives also make it possible for
visitors to access, search, and filter older posts. For example, you can add a widget to
your site that shows the latest posts you have published.

Unlike posts, pages are not archived in WordPress.

3. Author
When expressing an opinion, or sharing expert advice, visitors would probably want
to know who wrote the content. Those posts usually feature an author. For example,
you may be reading a post about how to make the perfect Pavlova cake. If the author
of that post is a world-renowned food writer, like Mary Berry, you are more likely to
trust its content.

For pages, on the other hand, the author is less relevant. Would you want to know
who wrote the Privacy Policy page on a site? Or the Subscriptions, or the FAQ page?
Probably not, since for that type of content, the author is not relevant.

4. Comments
Comments are almost an integral part of posts. Authors are often willing to discuss
with readers, and the same is true the other way around. Let’s take, for example, the
Pavlova cake post we mentioned earlier. An author of a post like this may enable
comments and exchange experiences over the cake preparation with the readers.

For pages, comments are disabled in WordPress by default. That makes sense if you
take into consideration the type of content that goes into pages. It does not make
sense to have comments on a FAQ page, for example.

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Example: Posts vs. pages
Let’s explore the different types of content you can find in posts and pages.

Types of content Types of content

that are usually that are usually
posts pages

Blog posts Product

information

News articles FAQ pages

Announcements Terms of use

Think pieces Privacy policy

Essays Partner page

Tutorials Support page

Interviews About us page

Table 1: Types of content in posts vs. pages

2. How to write a post

Writing a post is one of the most exciting and creative things you can do in
WordPress. And luckily, it is relatively easy too. Let’s dive into how it works.

Writing a post
To start writing a post, you should follow these steps:
1. Click on the Posts menu item (1 in Image 1) in the admin menu. This will open
the Posts screen.
2. In the Posts screen, click the Add New button (2 in Image 1). The Post editing
screen will open. Note: the post-editing screen may appear slightly different,
depending on the theme you are using.
3. Add a title in the Add title field (1 in Image 2).
4. Start typing your content in the field below the Add title field (2 in Image 2).

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Image 1: Add New Post through the Posts Menu Item

Image 2: The post editing screen with the Add Title and Add Block options

Additional options
What we told you so far is not the whole story. There are many more things you can
do. Firstly, everything you do in the post editor is divided up into blocks. In its
simplest form, a block can be a paragraph. But, it can also be an image with a
caption, a video, or a heading. If you already started typing your content, you used a
block, i.e., the paragraph block. Let’s say you want to add a subheading in your text.
That’s going to be another block.

So let’s explore a few functionalities of the post editor: (1) how to add a new heading,
(2) how to change the position of the toolbar, and (3) how to rearrange blocks.

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1. How to add a new heading

To add a new heading, follow these steps:

1. Click the plus icon in the top left corner of the editor (1 in Image 3). A flyout menu
will appear.
2. Select the Heading block from the flyout menu (2 in Image 3). The block will be
added to your post, and the flyout menu will close.

Image 3: Adding a heading to a post

3. Type in the heading in the empty space in the block.

4. Choose a heading level from the toolbar by clicking the H2 button (Image 4).
H1 is reserved for the title. For subheadings, you can choose between H2 - H6. You
can read more about headings in this Yoast article - How to use headings on your
site.
Note: what your headings will look like on your site depends on the theme you are
using.

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 Image 4: Choosing a heading level

Once you have your title, paragraphs, and headings added, you may wish to make
some changes to the text. You can do that with the toolbar. The toolbar is typically
located above each block (Image 4). But, you can also choose to have the toolbar
appear at the top of the screen (Image 5).

Image 5: The top toolbar

2. How to change the location of the toolbar

To change the location of the toolbar, you should follow these steps:

1. Click on the three dots in the far-right corner of the editing screen ( Image 6).
A flyout menu appears.
2. Click the Top Toolbar option (Image 6) to select or deselect it. If the Top
toolbar is selected, it will appear at the top of the screen, as shown in Image
6. If you deselect it, it will appear above each individual block, when you have
that block selected (Image 7).

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Image 6: The toolbar above the block

The buttons that are available in the toolbar vary per block. For example, in the
paragraph block, you can transform your block, move it, align your text, make bold
or italic text, and add a hyperlink to the text. If you click on the three vertical dots in
the toolbar, you can also access more options (Image 7). These include duplicating
the block; inserting another block before or after the one you are using, add the
block to reusable blocks; and remove the block. We will see how you can create
reusable blocks in the Exploring blocks lesson.

Image 7: More options in the toolbar

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Some additional settings
Besides changing the position of the toolbar, there are some other settings in the
menu at the far right corner of the editing screen. First, there is the Spotlight Mode
setting. If selected, all the blocks, except the one you are editing, will turn gray (see
Image 8).

Image 8: Grayed out blocks with Spotlight Mode on

The Fullscreen Mode setting allows you to minimize distractions and focus only on
the post-editing part of the screen. When you have this option selected, the admin
menu will no longer be visible. You can, of course, quickly return to the default mode
by turning the Fullscreen Mode off.

Most users work on their posts with the Visual Editor setting turned on. When
working on a post with this setting turned on, you can clearly see what your text,
images, and other media look like, so “what you see is what you get.”

For those who are skilled in HTML, the Code Editor may seem more appealing (see
Image 9). With the code editor, you can manipulate the appearance of your post by
adding your own code. Note that if you type code in the Visual Editor, it will be
displayed as plain text. For the code you write to be executed, you have to switch to
the Code Editor and insert your code there.

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Image 9: The Post editing screen with the Code Editor setting enabled

If, for whatever reason, you think that your post will be improved if you move some
blocks around (change the order of paragraphs, for example), that is also possible.

4. How to move blocks

For this example, we’re going to look at how to move an image block up. But you can move
any block if you follow these steps:

1. Select the (image) block.

You will see two arrows in the toolbar. Note: if you have enabled the top toolbar,
you will see the arrows there (in the top toolbar) when you select the block.

Image 10: The move option for the Image block

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 2. Click the upward pointing arrow.
The image block will move up by one block.

3. Continue clicking the upward-pointing arrow until you get the block where
you want it to be.

Once you finish writing your post, you can save it as a draft or publish it. If you
decide to publish, it is always advisable to first preview the post and make sure that
everything is in its right place. The Save, Preview, and Publish options are all in the
top right corner of the post editing screen. Note that an Update button will replace
the Publish button once you publish your post. We will see how to publish a post in
the last lesson of this module.

3. How to write a page

Now that you know how to write posts, writing a page will be very easy. To start
writing a page, you will need to follow the steps below:

1. Click on the Pages menu item in the admin menu (1 in Image 11).
2. Click the Add New button in the Pages screen (2 in Image 11).

Image 11: Adding a new page

Once you access the page editor, writing a page works exactly like writing a post. Just
like posts, you also use blocks to create pages. We will explore different blocks, and
all the possibilities they offer, in the following lessons. So, there are plenty of more
options left to make your posts engaging and exciting!

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 Key takeaways
● There are four main differences between posts and pages:
○ The time of publication is relevant for posts, but not for pages.
○ Posts feature an author and pages do not.
○ Posts are archived in WordPress, and pages are not.
○ You can leave comments on posts. Comments on pages are disabled
by default.
● Writing posts and pages works in the same way.
● To write posts and pages, you use blocks. Blocks can be any content element
that you add to your post (images, videos, paragraphs, headings, etc.).

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