Pages, Posts & Media, OH MY! – pt. 4 of Creating Your Wellness Website Series

Welcome to the last portion of the Creating Your Wellness Website!

In this post, we’re going over what the difference is between Posts, Pages, and Media, and how to take full advantage of each to your benefit.

If you missed the past week’s posts, make sure you check those out here:

Creating your Wellness Website – pt. 1: Domains, Hosting & CMS

How to Install WordPress on Your Wellness Website – pt. 2 of Creating Your Wellness Website

Themes, Plugins, Widgets… What?! – pt. 3 of Creating Your Wellness Website

Your website, as you know, is the online face of your business, and presenting it professionally is key to your success. Now, keep in mind, that “professionally” can mean a whole range of things, and I’m not just talking about corporate professionalism where everything is very stark and devoid of personality (in my opinion).

When working in WordPress, your website will have different options on how to get your content out there.

These include: Pages, Posts & Media.

Follow along as we go over each, and how to knock it out of the park with each type.

WordPress Pages

Pages are the meat and potatoes of your website. The Page in WordPress is where you’ll be listing your services, creating a contact page, and what you’ll use to advertise your latest opt-in.

Technically speaking, a Page in WordPress is a post type, however there are a few key differences that set Pages apart.

  • Posts are timely content part of a series of posts in a blog. Pages are static one-off type of documents which are not tied to the blog’s reverse chronological order of content.
  • Pages can be hierarchical, which means a page can have sub pages, for example a parent page titled “About us” can have a sub-page called “Our history”. On the other hand posts are not hierarchical.
  • By default posts in WordPress can be sorted into taxonomies Categories and Tags. Pages do not have categories or tags.
  • Pages can utilize custom page templates. Posts can not utilize this feature by default in WordPress.
  • WordPress posts are displayed in RSS feeds while Pages are excluded from feeds.

These main differences between the two are what allows us to create websites with static pages instead of a blog with a series of posts.

There is no limit to the number of pages you can publish on your WordPress website. And choosing a home page instead of your posts as your front page can be easily done by navigating to settings > Reading > and selecting your preferred home page from the drop down menu under “Front Page Displays”

To create a new page, click on Pages in the left hand side menu in your admin dashboard, and click on “New Page” at the top of the page. From here, you can add your content, copy, and images you’d like to use to create your new page!

Some themes (which we talked about in the post HERE) have built in settings for designing your pages to keep your branding similar from page to page. Make sure you take full advantage of these to keep your website on brand, and easy to understand for your customers.

WordPress Posts

WordPress Posts are what you will use, mostly, as blog posts. These will contain copy, images, and links to products or services in which you can use to promote your business. Regular posts are what you’ll usually use to create fresh and engaging content for you to catch the attention of your potential customers! As mentioned above, there are a few different “post types” that you’ll encounter in your website, with a few listed below:

  • Post
  • Page
  • Attachment
  • Revision
  • Nav Menu

 

For the sake of this article, and to prevent any confusion, I’ll usually only use the word “Post” to refer to a blog post in the blog area of your website.

Your posts page in WordPress will contain several different elements:

  • creating my wellpreneur website part 4 pages posts and mediaTitle/Headline Box
  • Body Copy Box
  • Preview button
  • Publish box
  • Publish box
  • Permalink
  • Featured Image
  • Save
  • Publish
  • Post Tags
  • Categories
  • Excerpt
  • Send Trackbacks
  • Custom Fields
  • Discussion
  • Password Protect This Post
  • Post Author
  • Revisions

The most important are Your Title, Body Copy, Permalink, Featured Image, and your Category.

Your title should always be catchy, luring potential customers in, but also containing your main keyword for the post (related to your industry).

The body copy is where the main content will go for your blog post. This includes copy, images you’d like to display in the main content of the blog, and links.

Your permalink is the link where your blog post will be located. Usually wordpress picks up the blog title, and will use that as the link, but if you would prefer it to be something custom, you can change it to improve it’s SEO!

The featured image you choose is going to be the image that shows up when you share it to social media, so choose wisely. The image you choose should be closely related to the topic of your post.

And finally, choosing your category is key. Most times, you will need to choose which category is going to be displayed in your blog when you’re designing it, so make sure you choose that category as the Primary category, and select any other related categories that the post may fit under. This will make browsing for related articles easier for your viewers.

Not only that, but it also plays a part in the SEO of your blog post.

For example, the categories for this blog post in particular are: Blog (Primary – so that it shows up in my blog page), Web Design, & Wellness Website Help. If you were to select one of the other 2 categories (besides “Blog”), you would see other related articles that can help you with your website!

& Finally, Media!

Your Media area is where you will find all of your images, video, recordings, and files that you upload & that can be used on your website.

The Media Library Screen allows you to edit, view, and delete Media previously uploaded to your blog. Multiple Media objects can be selected for deletion. Search and filtering ability is also provided to allow you to find the desired Media.

Media Library provides two type of views. One is simple visual Grid View and another is conventional List View. Switch between these views using the icons to the left above the screen.

Media Library Screen Grid View   Media Library Screen List View

When you select a media file, you will see Attachment Details pop up. From here you an view the following:

  • File name – The name of media file
  • File type – The MIME Type of media file
  • Uploaded on – The date when media file was uploaded
  • File size – The file size of media file
  • Dimensions – (Image files only) The dimensions of image media
  • URL – Read only display of a direct link to the media file.
  • Title – The name of the media. A title is often shown on attachment pages and galleries if themes or plugins are designed to display it.
  • Caption – A brief explanation of the media.
  • Description – An explanation of this particular media.
  • Alt Text – (Image files only) The alt text for the image, e.g. “The Mona Lisa” to describe the media. Used for accessibility.
  • Artist – (Voice files only) Singer, composer or producer of this media.
  • Album – (Voice files only) Album title that includes this media.
  • Uploaded By – author who uploaded the Media.
  • Uploaded To – Title of the Post or Page that contains this Media. Click on the title to view that Post or Page in an edit Screen. If the Media was unattached to any Post or Page, this line does not appear.

At the bottom there are three link menus:

View attachment page: shows the media in a simulated view of how the image would look when displayed in your Theme.
Edit more details: displays the Edit Media Screen. See the Edit Media for details on editing Media information.
Delete Permanently: deletes the media.

Also, image files has Edit Image button at the lower left

Edit Image: (Image files only) allows you to make edits such as rotate, scale, and crop.

Out of all of these, the most important for your to know and understand will be your Title, Description, Alt Text, and the URL. Setting these to contain your keywords is extremely beneficial to your website’s SEO, and will help Google pull up your images in the image search results.

Understanding each element here is key to the success of your business’s website, especially if you’re building and managing it yourself.

Pages, Posts, and Media all need to be optimized with related keywords, titles, and descriptions (or content) in order for Google to recognize it as related content to your topic! Yes, that may seem like common sense, but it’s important to know just how crucial each of these elements are, and what it means for your website.

Don’t have your content get lost in cyber space just because of a few simple principles! Take advantage of this list, and watch your business grow!

If you’re stumped on what you need to even get started with your website, grab your FREE copy of the website prep checklist!

Get Your Copy Now

 

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