This article has been posted parallel to our episode entitled “Post vs. Page.”
For practical purposes, there is no difference between a post and a page. Each is viewed as content, and for SEO and rankings perspective, neither has an advantage over the other.
For most websites, including our favorite platform WordPress.org, page and post should be considered as synonyms along with “article” or “content.”
What is a Page or Post?
Both a Page and Post are text documents usually created on the word processor included on your CMS (content management system, e.g. WordPress, Drupal, Joomla). It is an article that you have written.
It is then optimized to maximize webpage rankings and then published.
If properly optimized, both a page and post will become indexed by the search engines and will be ranked. For ranking purposes, both carry equivalent weight.
Optimized Posts and Pages
There are standard recommendations for writing a post or page. Recommendations for your articles;
- Length of 300-500 words
- Write in the first person
- Write to the level of an 8th grader (very important for doctors)
- Use keywords
- One subject per article (increasing adds to the length of article)
Length – if your post or page is fewer than 300 words, your article may be too short and you run the risk of the search engines NOT indexing your article. Greater than 500 words, you run the risk of boring your audience.
1st Person Point of View – in short, you want to imagine your perfect next patient sitting in front of you. Writing in the first person (just as you would if I were sitting in front of you) is more effective in engaging your next patient and also gives you more credibility and authority.
The 8th grader – writing “down” to the level of an 8th grader forces you, the writer, to use terms more easily understood by the uninitiated, your next patient. Use of long clinical words does not impress your next patient…it bores them.
Keywords – ideally, your goal should be for your post or page to rank for 1 keyword. A keyword is similar to the subject of your article. For instance, if you write an article intended to rank for macular degeneration, your keyword is macular degeneration. Keywords should be used to a maximum frequency of about 5.1% of total words in your post or page .
Subject per Article – your next patient is serfing the Internet looking for the answer to a particular question. Your article should answer that particular question. Keep the focus of your article narrowed and limited to one subject. If you find your article is getting too long or you have more to say, write another article!
Differences Between a Post and Page
For those of you who have started writing articles for your website, here are a few distinctions to differentiate a post and page.
- Time Stamp
- RSS Feed
- Navigation Location
Time Stamp – a time stamp appears on a post, but not a page. This may or may not be important. In general, this is a very subtle difference. You can elect to have the date appear on the post or be hidden…and then it looks exactly like a page.
RSS Feed – a post appears in the RSS feed. This means that your followers will get notified of the new post via email (assuming you are using an email service provider (ESP)). If I want to add content without alerting my subscription base, I’ll create the new article as a page. I do this very rarely.
Navigation Location – in general, I personally feel that a page should be clickable from your Home page. This is not tried and true, but just my opinion. When I construct websites, I have links from the Navigation bar, footer or sidebar to a page. Rarely to I link to post from the Home page.
If you’ve got some other differences between a post and a page, please share with us below!
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