Posts vs Pages

By the end of this lesson you will know exactly when to create a post and when to create a page. You will also organise posts with categories and tags, schedule a post for later, and see how WordPress stores both in the same database table.

The simple rule

WordPress has two main kinds of content:

• Posts are dated, timely entries. Think of news, blog articles, exam updates or offers. New posts appear at the top of your blog list, and older ones move down.
• Pages are fixed, timeless content. Think of Home, About Us, Courses, Fees and Contact. They do not belong to a date.

A school notice board is a good picture. Daily notices ("Holiday on Friday", "Results declared") are posts. The school's address, rules and admission process, printed in the prospectus, are pages.

Creating your first post

Step 1: Go to Posts > Add New Post (or press Ctrl+K and type "add new post").

Step 2: Type a title, for example "Class 10 Board Exam Tips from Our Maths Teacher".

Step 3: Click below the title and write two short paragraphs.

Step 4: Open the Settings sidebar (the square icon at the top right) and click the Post tab. You will see Status, Publish date, Categories, Tags, Featured image and Excerpt.

Step 5: Click Publish, then Publish again to confirm. WordPress shows "Post published" with a View Post link.

Open the link. Your post shows its date and author, and it now appears at the top of your blog list.

Categories and tags

Posts can be grouped two ways:

• Categories are broad sections, and they can have sub-categories. Example: "Board Exams", with a child category "Class 10".
• Tags are small labels with no hierarchy. Example: "algebra", "time management", "Rohtak".

A library uses the same idea. Categories are the shelves (Science, History). Tags are the small subject words written inside each book.

Every post must have at least one category. If you do not choose one, WordPress uses the default category, which is called Uncategorized on a new site. Rename it under Posts > Categories to something useful such as "News".

Keep categories few, maybe five to ten. Too many thin categories confuse visitors and search engines.

Creating a page

Step 1: Go to Pages > Add New Page.

Step 2: Title it "Fees and Batches" and add a short table or list.

Step 3: In the Page tab of the sidebar, look for Parent (sometimes shown under "Page attributes"). Choose "Courses" if you want this page to sit under it.

Step 4: Click Publish.

With a parent, the address becomes nested, which tells visitors where they are:

https://brightfuture.in/courses/
https://brightfuture.in/courses/fees-and-batches/

Status, scheduling and visibility

Both posts and pages have a status:

To schedule a post, click the publish date in the sidebar and pick a future time, for example 1 March at 8:00 am, before a board exam. The button changes from Publish to Schedule. Make sure Settings > General > Timezone is set to your city (for India choose Kolkata), or the post will go live at the wrong hour.

You can also password protect a post or page. Visitors must type the password to read it. This is handy for a parents-only timetable, but it is not strong security, so never use it for private documents such as mark sheets.

Slugs and excerpts

The slug is the part of the address made from the title. WordPress turns "Class 10 Board Exam Tips from Our Maths Teacher!" into class-10-board-exam-tips-from-our-maths-teacher. You can shorten it in the sidebar to class-10-maths-tips. Short, readable slugs are easier to share on WhatsApp.

The excerpt is a short summary shown in blog lists and sometimes in search results. If you leave it empty, WordPress cuts the first part of your post automatically.

How WordPress stores posts and pages

Here is a surprise: posts and pages live in the same database table, wp_posts. A column called post_type tells them apart. You can see this in phpMyAdmin with a query like this:

SELECT ID, post_title, post_type, post_status
FROM wp_posts
WHERE post_type IN ('post', 'page')
ORDER BY ID;

+----+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-------------+
| ID | post_title                                      | post_type | post_status |
+----+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-------------+
|  1 | Hello world!                                    | post      | publish     |
|  2 | Sample Page                                     | page      | publish     |
|  5 | Class 10 Board Exam Tips from Our Maths Teacher | post      | publish     |
|  7 | Fees and Batches                                | page      | draft       |
+----+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-------------+

"Hello world!" and "Sample Page" are created by the installer. Your own IDs will differ. Later, you will create your own custom post types, such as "course", which live in the same table.

Developers often fetch posts with PHP. This snippet gets the three latest posts in the "Board Exams" category:

<?php
$latest = get_posts( [
    'post_type'     => 'post',
    'category_name' => 'board-exams', // category slug
    'numberposts'   => 3,
] );

foreach ( $latest as $post ) {
    echo esc_html( $post->post_title ) . "\n";
}

Class 10 Board Exam Tips from Our Maths Teacher
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Sample Paper Mistakes Students Make

esc_html() makes the title safe to print. You will meet it again in the developer lessons.

Common mistakes

• Making "Contact Us" a post. It then shows a date and appears in your blog list. Use a page.
• Writing news as pages. Pages do not appear in the blog list or feed, so readers never find them.
• Leaving "Uncategorized" on every post. Rename it and choose a real category each time.
• Changing a slug after sharing the link. Old links break. If you must change it, add a redirect.
• Scheduling with the wrong timezone. Set Kolkata before you schedule anything.

Key points

• Posts are dated and timely; pages are fixed and timeless.
• Posts use categories (hierarchical) and tags (flat); pages can have parent pages instead.
• Status can be Draft, Pending Review, Scheduled, Published or Private.
• Set the timezone before scheduling posts.
• The slug is the readable part of the URL; keep it short and do not change it after sharing.
• Posts and pages are both stored in wp_posts, separated by the post_type column.

Diwali holiday notice: Scheduled for next Monday at 9:00 am