What’s the SEO difference between page and post in WordPress?
In my blog posts, I generally try and provide information about some frequently asked SEO question. Today I would like to answer the question:
“What’s the SEO difference between page and post in WordPress?”
Clients ask me very often about pages versus posts, which one is better for SEO purposes. This, instead, is not or should not be an SEO question at all. If you’re trying to decide if you should use a page or a post, what you need to understand is how they function within WordPress.
The functionality difference between page and post in WordPress
Another huge difference between page and post in WordPress is that pages cannot belong to a category or a tag or an author archive, as posts do. Keeping your content tidily organised into the right categories will help your User Experience and (so) your SEO and possible website ranking.
The difference between page and post in WordPress is in how to find them, too.
Pages can be found from referral (if you link to them somewhere internally, within the website – from your menu, for example -, or externally, from backlinks) from Social Media sharing, or from organic search, if they get found from search engines results pages.
Posts, instead, can be also found by:
- typing their topic in the search box that is generally provided by blogs
- in their specific category,
- date or
- author archive
Otherwise, they get “pushed down” by more recent articles in the general articles page.
This kind of functional difference between page and post in WordPress is very important and that’s how you should make the decision between using one or the other.
You’ll have to decide the one you need according to how they function, making it a functional website. It is a CMS decision, not an SEO decision.
The difference between page and post in WordPress is not an SEO factor.
Pages and posts don’t differ in their ranking potential. With the right techniques, they can both get to rank very well equally.
If you still are wondering how to promote or improve the SEO of your posts or your pages, you need to remember to apply your SEO techniques just like you would with any piece of content.
To summarise just the most important ones:
- make some careful keyword research, before writing your content
- targeting your specific topic, make sure that all the title and subtitles/header and subheaders, image alt, meta descriptions and such are optimized for those keywords
and for clicks when they appear in the search results or when they appear in social media - make that content really, really useful and valuable, so you’re including images, breaking up your text in a very readable way with different headers, maybe including a video or different graphics
- promote that content on social media and to your mailing list, making sure you keep your audiences engaged
The difference between page and post in WordPress over time
There’s one slight difference between page and post in WordPress I’d like to point out for SEO reasons: posts are going to naturally get “pushed down” by more recent articles in your category archives or your blog archive. For this reason, every once in a while, try and refresh them, making sure their content is still valid and up-to-date. Also, create internal links from newer posts back down to the older posts every once in a while. Don’t overdo, just make it when it’s really useful, when the old post might be relevant information to the new post and keep the anchor text natural enough.
This will help visitors spend more time on your site, will decrease your bounce rate, which is quite a bad signal for Search Engines, and you will guide your visitors through your site, showing them more of your knowledge and expertise.
What is your preference and your experience, choosing between pages and posts, in which situations and why? Let us know this in the comments or on our Social Media!
