1. Posts
2. Pages

New bloggers often struggle with the concept of posts and pages.

Introduction to Posts

Posts are where you publish the latest update or new article on a blog.

Posts are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order with the most recent post at the top of the page (e.g. check out the Teacher Challenge blog).

Most of the content published on a blog is normally written as Posts.   The information you want to share or reflect on are normally published as Posts and not on Pages.

Blogs are designed to have only one Post page which normally displays on the homepage of the blog.

If you look closely at a post you will see it is normally made up of:

1. Post Title – tells the reader what the post is about.  A great post title grabs readers attention and is more likely to encourage them to read your post.
2. Date published – all post display the date a post was published.  You’ll normally see this displayed at the top of the post.
3. Categories and tags - are used to help readers locate information in different ways.  We’ll explain how to use categories and tags in a later activity in this series.
4. Your post content – this is the main information that you want to share or reflect on with your readers
5. A link to comments - This is where your readers can click to write a comment in response to your post.  Comments give readers an opportunity to share their thoughts, connect with you and interact with other readers.

Introduction to Pages

Pages on blogs are normally used for information that you want to share with your readers but don’t expect to update frequently.

Example of Pages used on blogs

1. The most common type of Page on a blog is the About page.   Your About Page is used for telling readers more about yourself and your blog.
2. Class blogs often use Pages for Blogging Rules and Guidelines (check out these examples of Blogging Rules and Guidelines on class blogs).

There are key differences between pages and posts that are important to understand when working with them.

Categories are like chapters of a book; they provide a general overview of the topics you blog about. Whereas tags are more like the index at the back of the book and explode the topic into a million bits.

On a post you can add as many tags and categories as you need to make the post easier to locate.

The categories and tags you use are displayed in your blog sidebar using the categories widget and tag widget (via Appearance > Widgets).

When your readers click on a categories or tag link on a post or in your sidebar it loads a page with all posts that use that tag or category.

Categories

Categories can have unique names and be wordy; you want them sufficiently descriptive so your reader understands the type of subject matter they will find when they click on the link.

As a general rule you tend to limit the total number of categories you use on a blog.

Below are the categories used on The Edublogger.

Add Categories

Categories are added when you write posts by either:

A.  Select the checkbox next to a category you want to use

B.  Creating a new category

1. Click on the + Add New Category link.
2. Type your new category in the Add New Category text box
3. Click Add New Category

To remove a category from a post just unselect the checkbox to the left of that category.

Tags

Tags are displayed on your blog attached to posts or as a tag cloud in your sidebar.  Clicking on a tag name will take your readers to all posts tagged with that term.

Tags are normally short, one or two words, and are generally keywords (i.e. terms readers would be likely to use if they searched your site); terms that your readers will understand.

Below are the tags used on The Edublogger.

The larger the size of the word in the tag cloud the more posts that have been tagged using that term.

Adding Tags

Tags are added when you write posts by typing your desired tags in the Add New Tag text box and then clicking Add.

Each tag needs to be separated with a comma otherwise the system considers the words to be one tag.

To remove a tag from a post just click the X to the left of that tag.

Properties of posts are:

• Blog posts appear in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post is the first post that your readers see
• Posts are dynamic (updated regularly) and have time stamps i.e. display the date posted
• You can assign tags and categories to organise blog posts
• Posts appear in RSS feeds i.e. your readers who subscribe to your blog will receive your latest post in their feed reader

See Also: What Are The Properties of A Page?

Properties of pages are:

• Blog pages are displayed independently of post history and are more static i.e. remain the same from day to day since they are rarely updated
• You normally use pages for information that you want to share with your readers but don’t expect to update frequently. e.g. Edublogs Info! on The Edublogger is a page
• Pages don’t have time stamps i.e. don’t show the date they were posted
• Blog pages can appear anywhere on your blog depending on your blog theme
• You can change the order pages appear. Pages are normally displayed in alphabetical order but their order can be changed using Page Order
• You can’t assign tags and categories to pages
• Pages don’t appear in RSS feeds so readers need to visit your site to view the latest updates to pages
• You can’t embed posts into a page
• You can create sub-pages which you assign to a parent page to build a more complex site

See Also:  What Are The Properties of A Post?