📖 Managing WordPress Posts
WordPress sites are made up of a blog page that organizes the blog posts. The blog page consists of posts that are displayed in reverse chronological order (newest first) on a page and are generally updated frequently.
Posts
- Topical information posted to a page such as a blog post.
- Posts may contain timely information which can be sent out as an RSS feed.
- Post pages are updated frequently with most current posts on top.
- Posts can have categories and tags assigned to them.
Adding a Post Page
To display those newsworthy articles your site is generating to keep your content fresh and your visitors coming back, use a blog post page. You will need an empty page created to assign the blog posts. Once assigned, WordPress will use that page to aggregate the site posts according to the site settings.
The set up is easy. Create an empty page. Then go to Settings > Reading to set a Home page and Blog page. WordPress will do the rest, keeping your latest content displaying according to your settings. Here are some step by step instructions on how to set up your blog post page and manage your posts.
- Set up your blog post page
- Posts vs. Pages
- The Block Editor
- Common Blocks
- What Is Gutenberg?
- How to Create a New Post
- How to Edit an Existing Post
Content Strategy
Use only what you need.
- Identify business goals and user needs.
- Content specific to one type of user should be on its own page.
- Avoid redundancy.
Design for easy access to information.
- Eliminate anything unnecessary.
- Most important information at the top.
- Headings that are short but meaningful.
- Use bullets in place of paragraphs where appropriate.
- Paragraphs 100 words or less.
- Use plain language.
Create a content governance plan.
- All users should have access to the same information regardless of the device they are using.
- Make content as timeless as possible.
- Include the year in dates.
- Note when information is valid only for a period of time.
- Review content regularly.
- Remove or update obsolete content.
- Verify external links to make sure they are still valid.
Make content adaptive.
- Design for different contexts: web page, rss feed, blog, etc.
- Organize content in a consistent fashion.
- Create content in chunks with consistent elements so they can be rearranged and presented in different media.
- Articles might include a heading, a date, an author, a summary and content.
- Products might have title, description, color, size, quantity, etc.
Identifying Categories and Tags
WP posts can be organized using descriptive words to create categories of stories and with keywords. Categories are likened to the table of contents of a book and tags are like the index. They are both used to help your visitors find content on your site of interest to them as well as helping search engines understand the content.
WP Beginner training video on Categories and Tags.
Categories
- Every post should have 1 and only 1 category.
- Short text descriptions used to organize posts into related topics.
- Designed to help users quickly find the information they are interested in.
- Categories can be placed in a navigation menu.
- You should have a limited number of categories for your site - between 3 and 10.
- All categories should have a comparable number of posts. If one category has 90% of your posts, then it should be split into several categories. If you only have 1 or 2 posts for a category, it should probably be combined with something else.
- Categories can have sub-categories to better organize your information.
- Rename the default category for your site from Uncategorized to something more meaningful for your site.
Tags
- Posts can have multiple tags.
- Tags are search terms or keywords designed to help users find information.
- You should not have a tag with the same name as a category.
- Tags should be short and precise. Don't be overly descriptive or restrictive.
- Tags should be re-used on multiple posts to help users find related content. Don't create similar tags with different wording or spelling that mean the same thing.
- Limit each post to between 5 and 10 tags to better attract and assist users.
Comments
Comments are an option for WordPress posts, but can increase visitor engagement. They can be configured to meet a number of options for controlling who can comment and whether those comments are published, reviewed or deleted.