Montreal word camp 2017
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Transcript of Montreal word camp 2017
PAGES, POSTS, CATEGORIES AND TAGS
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
AGENDA
▸ Who am I?
▸ What are Posts?
▸ What are Pages?
▸ When to use them both
▸ Categories
▸ How to use them to organize your content
▸ Tags
▸ Common questions
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
WHO AM I?
▸ WordPress user since before it was WordPress
▸ Have taught people how to use WordPress for over 6 years now
▸ Taught first college level course on WordPress in Canada
▸ Currently work for the worlds largest hosting provider as their WordPress guy (among other things).
▸ Assist Custom Website team that builds exclusively with WordPress
▸ Have spoken at WordCamps across Canada and the USA
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
WHAT ARE POSTS?
▸ Posts are the content type most often used by WordPress websites.
▸ Displayed in reverse chronological order.
▸ Typically offer timely or current information.
▸ Found on either the home page or the blog related page (could be named anything…news, blog, etc.).
▸ Posts typically have comments enabled as this is where you want people to discuss and comment on your content.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
WHAT ARE PAGES?
▸ Pages are for more static or non-timely content.
▸ Used for things like About Us, Contact,Legal disclaimers etc.
▸ Comments are typically turned off as there is no need for discussion.
▸ Pages are not files, they live in the WP database like everything else.
▸ A specific page can be set as your homepage or static front page of your website.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
WHEN TO USE PAGES VS POSTS
▸ If the content relates to your company history, make it a page. No need for discussion or comments.
▸ If the content is something you might send out as a news release, make it a post.
▸ If you want feedback on the content , make it a post.
▸ If the content is likely to not change (ex. Contact Us), make it a page.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
CATEGORIES
▸ Categories provide an easy way to group related posts together.
▸ They are only applicable to posts and not to pages.
▸ Helps your reader get to the content they are looking for quickly without having to wade through all of your content.
▸ Categories can be broken down into sub categories.
▸ They should be relevant to the content you are producing.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
CATEGORIES EXAMPLE
▸ Think of your website like a newspaper.
▸ Newspapers have distinct sections (aka categories)
▸ Sports
▸ Entertainment
▸ Classifieds
▸ Financial News
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
CATEGORIES EXAMPLE
▸ If I write a post about the local sports teams game from the night before, I want it to show up in the proper section or category of my website.
▸ In this case it would be the sports section (obviously).
▸ As more content is produced, the posts should be assigned to relevant categories, making it easy for your readers to find what they are looking for.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
CATEGORIES EXAMPLE
▸ You can further refine your categories by adding subcategories.
▸ Example:
▸ Entertainment section could have the following sub categories
▸ TV
▸ Movies
▸ Books
▸ Music
▸ You get the idea
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
TAGS
▸ Tags are similar to categories but are more granular in nature.
▸ If categories are your table of contents, tags are your index words.
▸ You don’t need to use tags but they are great for searching your site.
▸ Tags further describe your content to the site user.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
TAGS EXAMPLE
▸ A recipe website
▸ Recipes categorized by meal type ( breakfast, lunch, dessert, etc.)
▸ Site user finds a great pie recipe, and wants to find more pie recipes on your site.
▸ If every pie recipe on the site had a “pie” tag, the user could find more recipes quickly.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
ONE MORE EXAMPLE
▸ A real estate website
▸ Categories could be
▸ Detached , Semi-Detached, Condo
▸ Tags could be
▸ Fireplace, Pool, Finished Basement
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
COMMON QUESTIONS▸ How many categories should I have?
▸ Enough that people can find what they are looking for, but not so many that they get confused.
▸ How many tags per post should I use?
▸ No set number here either. You should tag sparingly and efficiently.
▸ Do I have to have posts on my site?
▸ No, you can create a site that is all pages if you wish.
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
WRAPPING UP
▸ Questions?
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
CONTACT
▸ www.wpteach.com
ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
PAGES, POSTS, CATEGORIES AND TAGS
Thank you!
