Post types

2 minute read

Post types are a critical aspect of managing content in WordPress. (Presumably, even the name “post types” hearkens back to WordPress’s roots as a blogging platform.) Different post types have different behaviors and different capabilities.

In addition to the built-in post types, WordPress allows developers to add their own custom types. Plugins, such as the calendaring plugin EventON, have a tendency to add custom post types.

Top post types for ERMA PTA

For https://www.ermapta.org it is best to be aware of five post types:

  • Pages are the primary mechanism we use to build content. Pages are extremely similar to posts apart from the fact that they tend to change/become outdated less frequently.
  • Posts are typically used for time-bound content. Posts are best for newsletters, fundraiser “pages”, and other content that tends to be associated with a particular point in time.
  • Events are a custom post type added by the EventON plugin. Events are used for content that should appear in calendars.
  • Forms are a custom post type added by the Gravity Forms plugin.
  • Media (such as images or videos) have attachments that enable us to store alternate text and other metadata about the media.

In addition to these post types, nearly everything in WordPress is technically a post type including menus, event types, and more. Thinking about content in WordPress in this way helps make sense of things like permalinks/slugs, etc.


Last modified August 13, 2020: Update post-types content (cac31b1)