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Pages

Creating Pages

From the WordPress Dashboard, select Pages > Add New for a new Page. The WordPress editor window will then appear.

Titles and Permalinks

WordPress requires a title for each webpage. When creating a new piece of content, your cursor will automatically prompt you to fill in the title field first. To learn more about how titles can impact your content’s discoverability, visit Webguide’s page on Search Engine Optimization.

Shortly after adding a page title, the “Permalink:” line will appear underneath the title bar. The permalink is the direct address (URL) viewers will use to link to a specific Page. As you can see, WordPress uses your title for the permalink. So, keep your title brief, and avoid special characters within your title (though hyphens and underscores are okay to use).

You can edit the title after publishing your Page, but be aware that the permalink URL won’t automatically change to match the new title. The permalink can be edited if you wish by clicking the Edit button next to it. Keep in mind that if the permalink changes, any web pages that link to your site will be unable to find and connect to it.

Page Attributes

Pages Attributes are found to the right of the editor:

In the “Parent” dropdown menu, you can establish a digital hierarchy by choosing whether a Page exists beneath the main site (home) page, or is a sub-page of another page. For example, a Page for “All Courses” might live directly beneath your main site (home) Page, but a Page for “Biology 100” might be a sub-page of “Biology Classes,” which itself could be a sub-page of “All Courses.”

The “Template” dropdown selects a page layout template for the webpage. Visit our Webguide page on Page Templates for more detailed information about page layouts.

An option also exists to determine the Page Order. In most cases, Boise State websites organize left-navigation links to their Pages by dragging and dropping pages in a specific order in the Menus screen (see our page about Navigation and Custom Menus for more information), but settings also provide the ability to display Page links there automatically instead. By default, Pages are organized alphabetically, but numbering your Pages using this Page Order attribute will order them accordingly.

Back to Top Button

The Back to Top Button option adds a “Back to Top” link that will appear when the user scrolls approximately 50% of the way down the page. This can be helpful for long pages with a lot of content. Toggle the “Show button” switch to “Yes” to enable the Back to Top option.

Maintenance Mode

The Maintenance Mode option in the Edit Page screen can be used to temporarily hide a page or post from users. Toggling “Maintenance Mode” to Yes on a page/post and clicking “Update” will show a “Page under maintenance. Sorry, this page is undergoing scheduled maintenance. It’ll be back shortly.” message on the page.

Publishing

Once you’ve finished configuring and adding content to your Page, click “Preview” to make sure it looks okay. Then click either Save Draft or Publish (or, depending on your WordPress role, “Submit for Review” may be the only option available).

All Boise State WordPress sites have dynamically generated sitemaps that contain all published pages and posts on a site. These sitemaps help crawlers like Monsido and search engines find content. However, it is important to note that:

  • If you have pages/posts that are still in development, they should be left in “Draft” status until you are ready for users to see them (because search engines will be able to find them, even if you don’t link to them).
  • If content is no longer needed, it should be deleted. To delete content select “Move to Trash” from the page or post editing screen.

WordPress Visibility Options

Additionally, WordPress allows you to control the visibility of your Posts and Pages individually. By default, all Posts and Pages are visible to the public.

(Review the Information Security page for more information about protecting confidential information.)

Options are:

  1. Public: The default, viewable to all.
  2. Password Protected: Password protected pages are not recommended as a method to restrict access to internal documents or content that should not be publicly available, primarily because WordPress’s native password protection functionality does not work in Boise State’s environment. Non-public content can be added to Google Drive or a Google Site. Access can then be controlled through Google permissions.
  3. Private: This option hides the content from the public. Logged in Boise State Admins and Editors can view content.
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