What is better to use, a post or page in Wordpress?

15 Apr 10 8:35 am

SEO-wise, there really isn't any difference between posts and pages. Whether or not a page or post will be ranked highly depends on the content and optimization of the page or post.
If you set up your wordpress site as a blog, then it is best to use posts.
But if you are using wordpress to build a "static" site (many Affilorama members opt to use wordpress to build their sites because it is a free option, as opposed to having to buy website-building software), then it is best to use pages. That's because with pages you can have a homepage that remains the same. When you use posts, your homepage would change every time you put in a new post.
Of course you can also have a combination of posts and pages and set your homepage to a static page so that it does not change when you put in new posts.
Whether you have posts or pages depends on your preference. Like I said earlier, it's the content and optimization that counts.

15 Apr 10 9:34 pm

It doesn't really matter whether you use posts or pages. In most cases, what you choose will depend on your theme. If you want a static kind of site with a theme that's designed for blogging, then you will use pages to get that look. If your theme can present posts in a way that looks static (eg, 1 post to a page) then you might use posts.

In the AB 1.2 theme we use pages, not posts, but in the 2.0 version (coming out today or tomorrow) you can use posts and it looks exactly the same.

"which one has to be updated regularly to keep your page rank in the search engines?"

The search engines don't really make any distinction between a "blog" and a "static" site. They really don't care what you use to create your content, they're just looking at the content itself.

With both types of sites, there are some potential benefits to be gained by regularly updating your content. But that's just one part of the mix, as with anything in SEO. You can regularly update a static site, just as you can have a blog that never changes. The type of entry you use does not determine anything.

I noticed he has a plug in you can download but I don't understand the reasoning behind it either, something about pages.

I think that was a plugin to allow you to exclude some posts from the sidebar, so that if you created a "thanks for signing up to my newsletter" page, it wouldn't show up in the sidebar.

I would like to make it more like AffliloBlueprint style but am confused about the best way to approach it. I even used Web Artiste er like he recommended, so just looking at my options.

If you have AB, why not use the AB theme and follow the lessons in there to create your website? They're a lot more comprehensive and structured than the BB lessons, if you're just wanting to follow the technical aspects of setting up a site. You can watch the BB for some extra ideas, but I think it's mostly just a condensed version of AB.

And like I said... there should be new lessons going up today or tomorrow.

16 Apr 10 10:55 pm

Hi Guys,

Thanks for this post. This has been a question I have been pondering for some time.

Sportakus, I too have done what you did. I followed the blogging bootcamp (BB) and added content as posts. However, now that I have seen Affiloblueprint (AB), I prefer the appearance of pages. I like being able to look down the sidebar to see the menu of articles/pages. Like you I have also used AMA and am concerned about making changes that would result in a loss of backlinks. Furthermore, I am also looking to add more products to sell as I only have one at present (and hence only 1 product review). My site is morphing into a BB site with a couple of AB features. For instance, I am currently working on a review table as a way of adding more products. I will add this as a post under the category of reviews. When I get to doing PPC, I am thinking I will take my audience to the review table post but would welcome any feedback on whether or not that is a good idea or not. The other thing I am doing is adding a newsletter series as per AB. However, I will leave everything else as per the BB set up (ie content as posts rather than pages) as I don't want to lose those backlinks now.

For what it is worth, I have come to the conclusion that AB is (for me at least) the way to go. I liked the BB info (especially the keyword research part) but I find AB to be more complete. I think, (Aletta, correct me if I'm wrong please), everything needed is in AB. Just my thoughts though.

Anyway, I'm not sure of that helps other than to say I'm in the same boat. It's a learning curve and I'm sure we'll make mistakes and eventually figure out what works best for us (God I hope so any way!!)

Cheers,
Jesse

17 Apr 10 10:50 am

In Wordpress you can set the permalinks/slugs of posts/pages, so you don't have to worry about your backlinks being lost. Just change the new page/post to have the same URL as the old page.

Don't worry about the "search engines don't like tables" thing. That's pretty much bunk these days, and certainly not really applicable to the teeny tiny table we use for creating that product review table.

They're mostly talking about the bad old days when websites were built using tables as structural tools (as opposed to just presenting tabular data, as they were intended) and it interfered with the search engine spiders' ability to read the page in the same way that humans would read the page.

I've heard Google admit that while they'd love everyone to stop using nasty code, there are a lot of good sites out there that still use them, so to penalize their rankings would hurt Google's usefulness as a search engine.

I'm getting off track here. Basically: Don't worry about tables. Go forth and create that product review table!

21 Apr 10 10:07 pm

this becomes an issue with the "Recent Posts" widget in Wordpress as it only allows for up to 15 posts to be listed. We would need to make links using the Text widget in order to link to the posts beyond 15 whereas with pages we don't have to.

Surely this depends on the theme you're using?

With our theme, it was limiting them to the 5 most recent posts until I spotted it. Got someone to tweak the theme, and now you can have as many posts as you like.