This tutorial is all about using Posts in WordPress. You've already gotten a basic introduction to Posts from the First Steps with WordPress tutorial, so here we'll go a bit more in-depth.

As you know from Martha Burtis's workshop and from the First Steps with WordPress tutorial, you can put written content on your WordPress site as either a Post or a Page. Posts are what we typically think of when we think about blog content—content that is regularly updated, added to, or changing, and that appears in reverse chronological order on a site.

Unlike Pages, which can contain content and give your site structure and organization, Posts are purely content. They usually have comment fields below them and are included in sites' RSS feeds.

For COPLACDigital, you and your students will be using posts on your course sites (slug.coplacdigital.org/course and slug.coplacdigital.org/student) as a way to respond to assignments, update each other on projects, and have discussions about course content and research discoveries.

Posts and Pages share some similarities: they both have titles and content, and your theme will keep a consistent aesthetic look throughout your site. However, Posts have several key distinctions that differentiate them from Pages:

  • As mentioned above, Posts are for time-sensitive content that is regularly added to or updated.
  • Posts display by default in reverse chronological order so that viewers see the most recent Post first.
  • Posts can be organized using Categories and Tags (which we will explore in the next step).
  • Posts usually have comment fields below them.
  • Posts are included in a site's RSS feed.
  • You cannot construct a website in WordPress using only Posts.
  • Posts can utilize different Formats (depending on your theme) to control how content within a Post is displayed—however, using a Post Format does not change the larger layout of the site/page.

Now that you know a bit more about Posts, let's get some practice using them and understanding how they really work.