Creating new pages in WordPress is very easy, but you need to avoid some common mistakes that can cause serious issues for your websites.
Creating New Pages or Posts from Scratch
There are a number of ways of creating new pages and posts, but creating a new page from scratch can be time consuming and complex.
The quickest way of creating a page (or a post), is to install a “Duplicating” plug-in, such as “Duplicate Page”. This allows you to find a page on your website that closely matches the layout that you want to create, and then duplicate this page. You can then edit the URL, content, etc. saving you a lot of time and effort.
Benefits of using WordPress Duplicate-page plug-ins
Layout
Creating a page or post from scratch, means having to create all modules, formatting, images, etc. Using a plug-in to duplicate a page means you have a good base to start.
If the lay out of the page you have copied does not fully match what you want for your new page, you can add or remove elements, or copy them from other pages. These tasks are especially easy when using page builders such as Elementor or WP Bakery.
Images
When you duplicate a page, you also duplicate images or sliders. You can of course change these easily, or where appropriate, retain the existing images.
Meta Tags
When you copy a page, you also copy all the Meta-Tags, so make sure you rewrite these fields as you need to make sure your Meta-tags reflect the content of the new page. Failing to do this will impact the SEO and indexing of your new page or post.
Adding Content
Whilst you can directly type your content into your new page, many website users create content in other applications such as MS Word and copy them across. This is fraught with danger!
When copying and pasting from a word-processing application, such as MS Word, you carry formatting codes from your word-processing application into WordPress, which WordPress does not recognise.
Word-processing applications use proprietary formatting codes that are not recognised in the HTML environment, hence WordPress (or any other platform) does not recognise them. This means either content is not displayed at all, or will look very strange, as HTML platforms try to find the “best match”.
In order to void the issue, you have 2 options.
- First option is pasting the content into the “Text” tab, which in most cases removes all formatting codes, and then reformat the content using the “ Visual” tab, which allows you to format the content using the correct HTML codes.
- Second option is to paste them into a “TXT” file, which removes all formatting, and then copy-and-paste the content from the TXT file into WordPress content area.
Copying from other websites
You should never copy content from another website.
- Firstly, this is a breach of copyright and the original website can demand you remove the content. If you fail to remove the content, they can contact the hosting company who will remove any content that breaches copyrights.
- Secondly, copied content can hurt your Google Ranking, as Google will recognise and penalise your website for duplication.
- Finally, when you copy content from a website, you import CSS and styling references into your website that your website can not recognise. This will result in odd behaviour of the page, including font, spacing, positioning, etc.
Summary
Creating new content in WordPress is easy, but it is much easier when you use a Duplicate-page plug-in. It is much quicker and allows you to create more sophisticated and attractive pages.
If you need help with creating content on your WordPress consider our Fully Managed WordPress Hosting, or contact us for help.