Posts vs Pages

To some, this may seem like a no-brainer but if you're like me then you have

had a bit of confusion when you first started messing around with WordPress or other blogging platforms. Just looking at WordPress for the first time can be an overwhelming experience for some users. I’ll admit that I am not a fan of WordPress at all but it is the most widely used platform for blogging, so I bit the bullet and am slowly learning the tricks and trades of WordPress.

Show me the page!

First off, when we look at a typical website, we will generally see a navigation bar at the top somewhere, right? My website can be used as a perfect example here. If you look at the top of this page you can see my different pages of the website. The main pages of the website are: build a website, content writing, traffic types, and about me. There is also a home page but we will get to that in a later next section.

These pages are stuck!

Yep, these pages stay in place and are called static pages. Then, if you click one it will take you to that page to show you the content. At the same time, the text on the navigation bar will turn gold to indicate that you are on that page in which you clicked. Sounds pretty straight forward, right?

Pages on the interface.

At the time of this post, I was using WordPress version 4.6.1. So the location of the new page creation may be different when you read this. In version 4.6.1 of

WordPress, you can make a new page by clicking the pages icon and then click add new.

Show me the post!

Now that you are aware of what a page is, let’s take a look at posts in WordPress. Posts in WordPress is what we call a blogroll. An example of a blogroll is my home page. Some bloggers change the name from home to

blogroll but I prefer to name mine home.

What’s a blogroll do?

The most common function of a blogroll is that the most recent post shows up at the top of the page when it is published. Then the older posts move down one as new posts are published.

Do I have to use the blogroll function on my homepage?

You can set the function to work on another page if you wish and make your homepage a static page by clicking the settings icon then click reading and then click a static page then choose which page you want to display as the home page. You will also be able to choose which page is the posts page.

What if I don’t want a blogroll at all?

The easiest way I found to get rid of the posts page is to create a page that you will delete within the pages menu.

Then select a static page for your homepage within settings and reading menu. Select the page you created for deletion as the posts page.

Finally go back to pages menu and trash the posts page.

You can’t just delete the initial posts page without doing the steps above because the posts page doesn't show up in the list of pages in the all pages menu within pages.

Common features of a blogroll.

There are a few things worth mentioning when it comes to a blogroll or posts page. Generally, there is a thumbnail or picture that relates to what the post is about that acts as a link to read the full post. Readers can also see a small section of the text with a read more button. This can also be changed to the full article within the settings icon and then click reading finally check the Full-text box.

Other common things found on a blog roll are categories links, recent posts links, recent comments, archives, the date of the post and the author.

In a nutshell, the posts button in WordPress, also known as a blogroll is just a list of links to posts in which an author has written in chronological order by date. While a page is just a regular web page that has been linked from the navigation bar or some other link.

Have a nice day!