OK, WP rockstars…since I am getting ready to work up a new site in WP, here’s a basic question: If I create a page that’s a sub-page of one of my main nav “buckets”– let’s say ‘Events’ is the name- I assume I can create multiple sub-pages beneath it for individual events.

Now, in WP can I create a sub-page of that initial sub page? Basically I want to be sure I can group all pages related to one specific event together, so it’s easier to know where things are and what has to be updated if a change is made.

Having them grouped should make this visible on a site map, right?

@joanmuschampfagnaninn  Sounds like what you’re trying to accomplish is better done with posts. – You can link to the latest posts or to a category of posts on the front page.

Too many pages make to a confusing and bulky navigation. (Google doesn’t open your drop down menu when it crawls a site either. So those pages which are on a drop down menu don’t get visited by Google.)

Posts are the way to go!

@johnkelly @amyhallbiz @camwilkes Thank you, would you still follow the “post” strategy even if you were creating special landing pages you weren’t showing in navigation?

Do you have any recommendations for some good training resources for WP? I want to rebuild my website but clearly don’t know the particular subtleties. Training needs to be soemthing I can take in small breaks, and preferably not too expensive or free

@amyhallbiz…  I think you meant to say this differently.

You said “Google doesn’t open your drop down menu when it crawls a site either. So those pages which are on a drop down menu don’t get visited by Google”???

I feel I need to clarify this correctly. Yes, a navigation dropdown menu doesn’t “open” by Google when it crawls a site but that does NOT mean the pages will not be crawled. They certainly can be. Search engine spiders “crawl” server files and the content withing them when permitted. They cannot “see” how a page is rendered on a browser. Therefor the markup language used to render the navigation has nothing to do with URLs in a directory.

Hope this helps.

@amyhallbiz

Thanks! I didn’t know that about dropdown menus!

@johnkellyThank you for pointing me to part of the thread I missed. 

great question, Joan, helpful for me as I am trying to get a blog site built, too. @joanmuschampfagnani

@joanmuschampfagnani Great thread as always Joan you excel at your Q&A!!!

I agree with the consensus here about using posts and categories. However, periodically you’ll have some evergreen content that people just keep coming back to.  I always take it out of the posts and make the content a page. Use a 301 redirect to insure the traffic and search engines find your new page. That way the the content doesn’t get stored in the archives.

@judithgotwald  Hi Judith … @johnkelly and I are saying basically the same thing.  when Google finds a visible link on a page it crawls through it and goes to the under lying page. If you are doing some “deep linking” (inter linking your pages) Google will crawl through one link and then the other. This encourages Google to spend some time on your site. If Google can’t see the link, it can’t crawl through it. That doesn’t mean it won’t see the pages on your site … it just can’t go through a link that it can’t see to the pages below it.

A good alternative to drop down menus are side bar menus which will allow your readers to find what they want without searching all over your site. Your sidebar menu can be arraigned by category. All of your similar posts can be added to the same category, then your readers will be able to find them all in one place … as will you.

On a site I like to use the minimum amount of pages I can get away with and utilize categories like Chapters of a book. Click on a side bar category menu link and all the individual “pages” (posts) of the chapter pop up. At one time there were no tags on pages for additional SEO value, so I got into the habit of putting as much as possible into posts instead of pages. (Now we have plug-ins that give us tags on pages … but old habits die hard.)

Basically there is more than one way to do what you want to accomplish and there are no “rights or wrongs”. As long as what you’re doing on your WordPress site is keyword rich you’ll get the traffic.

Hi Joan,I have a series of WordPress howto videos on my website.  They are free and cover just about any subject.  The link is http://lmdesigninc.com/wordpress-video-help/

Hope this helps.

no one really draws out if something is a page or sub page so why not choose a naming convention that covers the sub-page idea?

BigIdeaTitle

BigIdea: the subpage

BigIdea: another subpage

BigIdea: the Magic

Does anyone know how to set up a “rel=author” on a Wordpress Blog?  Don Power did a good article on Social Media Examiner, How to Add Google Author Tags to Your Blog for Improved Search Results, but it doesn’t work for Wordpress blogs! 

Any help is appreciated!  Thanks