How to add a new page in WordPress, and when to choose a page or a post
You add a new page in WordPress under Pages → Add New: enter a title and content, choose a parent page if needed, and click Publish. Choose a page for permanent content such as About, Pricing or Contact. A post is for content with a date. The new page won't appear in the menu until you add it there.
Author: The TellMyShop team. A guide for WordPress site and WooCommerce store owners: the cause, the manual fix and the same work in a chat conversation.
Last updated: · 6 min read
Page or post: which to choose
A page suits content that has a fixed place on the site and rarely changes. A post suits dated content that lines up on the blog, newest first. If the text should be just as current in six months' time and should sit in the menu, it's a page.
| Feature | Page | Post |
|---|---|---|
| Examples | About, Services, Pricing, Contact, FAQ, Terms | guide, news, event report, new product |
| Publication date | not shown | usually shown |
| Structure | parent page and child pages | categories and tags |
| Where it appears | in the menu, if you add it | on the blog, in a category, in the RSS feed |
| Comments | usually off | usually on |
| URL | /services/garden-design/ | depends on settings, often /post-name/ |
The guide on the difference between posts and pages gives a broader comparison with examples. If you're writing a guide, though, see the post on how to write a WordPress blog post.
A common mistake is a price list or service description added as a post. It then lands on the blog among the news, carries a date from two years ago and looks out of date, even though the prices are current.
The opposite mistake happens too: news added as pages. They don't reach the blog or any category, and after a year the admin has dozens of pages with no order to them. If a text has a date and nobody will look for it in the menu six months from now, add it as a post.
How to add a new page in WordPress, step by step
These steps are for the block editor, the default since WordPress 5.0. Button names may differ slightly depending on the version.
- In the admin, go to Pages → Add New.
- Enter a title. WordPress makes the page URL from it, and you can change that in the panel on the right, in the link settings.
- Add content with blocks: paragraphs, headings, images. On a service page, start with what the customer gets and how to contact you.
- If the page should be a child page, choose a parent page in the panel on the right, for example Services.
- Fill in the title and description for Google in the Yoast SEO or Rank Math panel.
- Click Preview, and when everything looks right, Publish.
- Add the page to the menu. Without that, visitors will only reach it from a link.
The Edit Page screen guide in the WordPress documentation describes the page editing panel with all its settings. Rank Math covers parent pages and the order of child pages in its guide on creating a parent page.
New WordPress page not showing: three causes
When you can't see the page anywhere after publishing it, check these three things in this order.
The page isn't in the menu. Publishing doesn't add it to the navigation. You add it under Appearance → Menus in a classic theme, or in the Navigation block in the Site Editor in a block theme. We cover every case, including mobile menus and unassigned menus, in the guide to the WordPress menu.
The page isn't published. A draft, a private page or one scheduled for later isn't visible to visitors. You, logged in, can see it in the preview, so it's easy to get confused. Check the status under Pages → All Pages, or open the URL in a private window.
The URL returns a 404 error. This happens after changing the URL or moving the page under a different parent. An old link in the menu or in other content then leads nowhere. We explain how to fix it in the post on the WordPress 404 error.
If the page works but isn't in Google's results, that is a separate matter. A new page needs time, and sometimes noindex is blocking it. You'll find a checklist in the guide on how to add a WordPress site to Google.
How the chat adds a new page
The TellMyShop plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce lets you ask your chat (Claude or ChatGPT) for a new page in a plain sentence. The chat gathers facts from the site, writes the content, title and description for Google, and creates the page as a draft. It publishes only when you ask it to explicitly.
You: Add a “Garden design” page under the Services page. Take the prices from the price list and put a link to the contact page at the end.
Your chat: I've read the Pricing and Services pages. Preview of the new page:
I'm missing one fact: does the design include a site visit? I'll save the draft after your ‘yes’.
You: Yes, the visit is included in the price. Save it.
Your chat: Draft saved, and the preview link is in the admin. Once you've looked at it, I can publish the page and add it to the main menu under Services.
Card status: waiting for your “yes”new version: Title: Garden design
new version: URL: /services/garden-design/
new version: Title for Google: Home garden design | Woodside Gardens
new version: Content: 4 sections, prices from the price list, link to the Contact page
new version: Status: draft
The names and URLs in this conversation are examples. The chat doesn't guess facts about your business: it collects missing ones in a single question. With one request it creates up to 10 pages or posts, each as a draft.
What happens next:
- Menu. After publishing, the chat adds the page to a classic menu, with a preview of the menu item. It won't add a link to a draft to the menu, because it would lead to an error. You change navigation in block themes yourself in the Site Editor.
- Undo. Creating the page and adding the menu item go into the change history. You can undo most changes with the instruction “undo the last change”.
- Versions. In the free TellMyShop Free version, the chat prepares the content, title and description in the conversation and checks why an existing page isn't visible, but saves nothing. Creating pages and changing menus work in TellMyShop Pro as soon as the licence is activated.
You'll find more about the plugin on the TellMyShop for WordPress and WooCommerce page, prices on the pricing page, and more guides on the blog.
Questions and answers
What is the difference between a page and a post in WordPress?
A post has a date, an author, categories and tags, and appears in the blog list. A page has no date or categories, but it can have a parent page and child pages. Use pages for permanent content like About, Contact or Pricing, and posts for news and guides.
Why doesn't the new page show in the menu?
WordPress usually doesn't add new pages to the menu by itself. You add them under Appearance → Menus, or in the Navigation block in the Site Editor. The page also has to be published, because visitors can't see a draft.
How do I make a page a child of another page?
In the page editor, in the panel on the right, find the parent page setting and choose the page the new one should sit under. The child page's URL then starts with the parent's URL, for example /services/garden-design/. Setting a parent doesn't add the page to the menu.
Can I turn a post into a page?
WordPress itself has no button for that. The simplest way is to create a page with the same content and redirect the old post URL to the new one with a 301 redirect. Separate plugins for changing the content type can also do it.
Will the chat publish the page straight away?
Not by default. The chat creates new pages as drafts and publishes them only when you ask for that explicitly and approve the preview. That way you can look at the page in the WordPress preview first.
WordPress is a trademark of the WordPress Foundation. WooCommerce is a trademark of Automattic Inc. Claude is a trademark of Anthropic PBC. ChatGPT and OpenAI are trademarks of OpenAI. TellMyShop is not affiliated with these companies.