Easy-to-Use WordPress Content Management Guide
By PaperStreet on December 17, 2010 in WordPress Tips
WordPress is a very powerful, open-source Content Management System (CMS) that can be used for both blogs and entire websites. Here is a basic how-to guide for our clients to understand how to use WordPress to manage their content:
Editing your content- Posts vs. Pages
The most asked about question and the first step to understanding WordPress is knowing how to add or edit content. In WordPress, content is separated into two categories: posts and pages.
WordPress Pages
Pages are used to create content that make up the architecture of your website. They may use different page templates that are styled differently and have a hierarchy, meaning they may have subpages below them in a tree. The informative static content, such as your “About” or “Contact” page, would be found under pages. Pages make up the web site’s navigation and structure.
WordPress Posts
On the other hand, posts are used to create content that is updated frequently, such as your blog, news or videos. They can be assigned categories and tags (keywords they can be searched under) as well as an author to organize the content. They would display on a feed page (or pages separated by category, depending on how your website is set up) with the latest post on top. Posts are often set up to accept comments that can be managed by the WordPress administrator and are great for SEO, as they allow the user to write on a variety of topics within their website.
Cool WordPress Features:
Making a Sticky Post
If you are using WordPress posts on your website for your blog or news page and have an important post you would like to keep on top, you can make it “stick” to the top of the feed very easily. In your admin panel, as you open a post, you will notice on the right-hand sidebar a “publish” box. Look at the Visibility:Public area and click edit. Check the box to make it sticky and hit publish. The post will remain above the others, regardless of the post date.
Scheduling a Post
If you have news or events you would like to publish on a certain day or time, you can schedule your post to be published at that time by utilizing this feature. This also helps if you want to write content in advance and publish it on a schedule to always have fresh content.
Similarities with Posts and Pages
Both posts and pages have an easy-to-update visual editor. The editor allows you to format the content similar to using any word processing software, such as Microsoft Word. You can bold and italicize your copy and create paragraphs and lists. You can also set the permalink or url name to something that is SEO friendly and easy to link to in the permalink area. To add images and other media files, use the upload/insert area below the permalink structure, which adds your uploads to the WordPress Media Library so you can reuse assets.
And last but not least, both WordPress posts and pages allow you to save drafts of your work before you “Publish” them. It keeps copies of your working drafts, so you can revert to an older one if you need to.
We hope this guide helped you better understand how to manage your WordPress content.
