This is Part 3 in the “Life After Design” blog series. Part 2 can be located Here

In this post:

• The Basics
  • Pages
  • Posts
  • Products
  • Plugins

When I first started web-design with WordPress 6 or 7 years ago, the hardest thing for me was the navigation – The next few posts in this series are intended to clear up some of that confusion for you.

In order to explain Pages, Posts, Products, and Plugins – I like to think of WordPress powered websites as Houses, yes houses. It’s the best analogy that I have thought of to date, and have run in to several other developers that use the exact same analogy, so it appears to be valid… stick with me.

If we were to build a house using the objects in this blog post it would look like this:

Pages would be the rooms, Posts would be the furniture, Products would be the people and Plugins would be the appliances. Let’s get into it:

Pages, just like rooms in your house, are generally set up for specific purposes, and should not be altered too much without the help or advice of a professional. Pages will be set up to contain specific posts, products and plugins; just as the rooms of a house contain specific furniture and appliances, as well as hosting people.

In general, your audience will move from page to page on your website. Not all websites (like houses) are designed the same, but many are similar. Pages often appear in menus throughout the site so that people can navigate from one to the next; menus would be the hallways of your house. If we move a page, all of the content within that page will be moved, if we delete it, we can expect that content may be deleted or hidden from view. It is very important to setup your pages in a way that will match the goal of your site. More on this in the upcoming post “Posting: Pages”.

Posts, just like the furniture in your house, will be controlled mainly by you – unless you want my help, then I am always here for advice and assistance.

Posts will be important for connecting with your audience, promoting your products, and keeping your site relevant to your users; which is why I want you to get very familiar with them!

Posts are great because you can get pertinent information out to your audience in a very professional looking manner, you can promote products within your post, and even use different plugins to keep them up to date. You will often see posts as the main funnel of traffic into your site (more about this once we reach “Analytics”).

More information will be available in the upcoming post “Posting: Posts”.

This may only apply if you have an e-commerce site, but could potentially be pertinent to your site no matter what. I should note before getting into it that explaining products in a single blog post is virtually impossible, all I can hope to do is break down the basics for you.

I generally set up my e-commerce sites with a plugin (more on this in a minute) called Woocommerce. Woocommerce essentially streamlines the setup and addition process – using templates and automation.

I will focus on adding, updating, and managing your products in a future post, but I’m trying to keep these posts short, and any further explanation would just make me worried about getting confusing.

Just like in your house, you probably have multiple appliances, some that perform similar functions, and some that are highly specialized. The same goes for Plugins on your WordPress site. There are hundreds of thousands of plugins on the market today – some come with specific sites in packages called “themes”, some are available separately, some are free, and others are paid – just like apps on smartphones.

As I stated before, I tend to use plugins on the sites that I design to create a better user experience for my clients and their audience. I use plugins to display Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook feeds; On one of my sites (Rory McCormick’s Realtor Site) I found a plugin to tap into the MLS – The house listing website – to grab data about new listings and to post it to his site… it’s pretty amazing what theses plugins can do!

Coming up next: Part 4: Posting Pages