Pages and Posts

Home Page

A home page is the face of your website – it’s often the first page people will encounter when they visit your site. Aptly named, the home page is home to all of your other pages (i.e. landing and content pages). If we think about a website’s organization like a book, the home page is like the book cover and serves as the parent under which your other pages are nested.

The homepage has many of the same options as any other page on your website, but there are a couple unique options that are only available on the homepage. Depending on the theme you are using, to add a featured image to the homepage, you’ll need to use the Program Homepage Hero or School Homepage Hero blocks.

Posts

Posts contain many of the same content fields as pages, but consist of web content that is usually date specific and can be featured on pages, such as news articles and announcements. You create posts in much the same way as pages. It is possible to add tags and categories to posts which will allow editors to filter through publications and specify which posts appear on pages. WordPress also automatically generates archive pages that serve as a running feed of posts with a particular category or tag. Posts are ordered by date, so the relationship between posts is chronological.

Posts are often used in conjunction with the News or Featured Stories block to display relevant posts on other pages. For example, you might periodically create posts profiling new research by faculty in your department or create posts that announce new and relevant information for your website users. These posts could then be displayed on your homepage or another relevant page using one of the aforementioned blocks.

Pages

Pages contain many of the same content fields as posts, but consist of static, informational content and typically compose the majority of content on your website. For example, a Home page or an About page would display informational content that changes infrequently. It is not possible to add categories or tags to a page. Pages can be organized into pages and subpages, so the relationship between pages is hierarchical.

Page Types

There are four different page types: content pages (default), landing pages, chaptered pages, and parent-child pages. These page types can be set under the “Template” section of the Page tab of the inspector panel. For examples of each page type, view the Page Models section of the Component Guide.

Content Page (default)

Content pages are the same as the “Default template”, which is automatically set when you create a new page. A content page contains more specific information about a given topic and is typically nested under a landing page (but not always). If a landing page is like a book chapter title, then a content page is like the chapter’s actual content. Unlike a landing page, content pages are visually characterized by having a fixed width, meaning the content of the page will not extend the full width of the page.

Landing Page

The Landing Page Intro block is a landing page-specific block you can use to give a brief introduction to the content on the page. The Landing Page Intro block works best with a featured image.

For landing pages, think about the overall story you want to use to connect with your audience. This may include calls to action to get your main points of interest across, storytelling blocks to support the page’s goal(s), current news, events to learn more about happenings, and explore more links for other points of interest that help support the main goal(s) of the website. The ordering of the blocks should be based on the most important message that connects first with your audience.

To make a page into a landing page, open the editing screen for the page and open the inspector panel. Under the “Template” section, select “Landing Page”.

Chaptered Page

A Chaptered Page is a page that can help organize content into digestible bits of content (i.e., a page with internal links). Visually, a chaptered page can be characterized by having a fixed width and left-hand side navigation listing the sections of the page. All content found on this type of page should be related.

To make a page into a chaptered page, open the editing screen for the page and open the inspector panel. Under the “Template” section, select “Chaptered Page”. Adding an H2 heading block will create a Chapter section and will automatically add that section to the side navigation.

Parent-Child Page

A parent-child page is a page that can help organize large bits of content into separate pages. Note that all content found on these types of pages should be related and organized based on your main audience(s). Similar to the chaptered page, a parent-child page has side navigation to help users navigate
through the child pages.

To make a page into a parent-child page, open the editing screen for the parent page and open the inspector panel. Under the “Template” section, select “Parent-child Page”. For child pages to appear in the sidebar navigation, you’ll need to make sure they have a parent page set.