From the WordPress Dashboard, select Pages > Add New for a new Page. The WordPress block editor window will then appear.
Titles and Page Link
WordPress requires a title for each webpage. The first words at the top of the block editor are “Add Title”. You are unable to Save Draft without entering a title. 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 “Link” field on the right sidebar of your page editor will be populated with the page Link. The link is the direct address (URL) viewers will use to access your page. As you can see, WordPress uses your title for the page URL. 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 page Link field won’t automatically be updated to match the new title. The Link can be edited if you wish by clicking the page Link in the editor. Keep in mind that if the Link changes, any web pages that link to your site will be unable to find and connect to it unless you set up a redirect using the Yoast application.
Page Attributes
It’s important to enter the “Parent” page attribute if you would like your page to appear in Section Navigation. When you do this your page becomes the “Child” page of the Parent, which allows it to appear in the Section Nav.
On the right side of the page editor, there is a field used to select the Parent attribute. The default status is “None”. If you want to select a parent page, click on the word None, and a pop-up will display an empty field. Click into the empty field and a list of all the Parent and Child pages will display. 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.”
Template
The “Template” dropdown located on the right side of the page editor selects a page layout template for the webpage. It defaults to Default Template. Visit our Webguide page on Page Templates for more detailed information about page layouts.
Page Order
An option also exists to determine the Page Order . In most cases, Boise State websites organize top 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 Order attribute will order them accordingly. By default, Pages are organized alphabetically, but numbering your Pages using this 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 “Save” (which will publish your page) will show a page under maintenance message: “Sorry, this page is undergoing scheduled maintenance. It’ll be back shortly.”
Publishing
Once you’ve finished configuring and adding content to your Page, click the Monitor Icon in the top right navigation. A dropdown menu will open and you should click on “Preview in new tab” to make sure your page looks okay. Then, if this is a new page that has not been published in the past, click on the Save Draft link and then the “Publish” button, to publish your page. If the page has been published in the past it will auto-save your content so there will be no “Save Draft” link. There will only be the option to publish the update by clicking on the “Save” button. The Save button will publish your page. 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, look at the editor options on the right side of the page. Make sure you are on the “Page” tab. Below the options of Page and Block, will be a page icon and the title of your page. To the right of those words are three vertical dots. If you click on the dots a dropdown menu will display an option to “Move to Trash”.
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.)
The status of your page can be found in the right side of your page editor next to the word “Status”. When a page is published, it says “Published”. To see other statuses click on the linked word that appears next to the Status label. The options in the dropdown menu are:
- Draft: Not ready to publish.
- Pending: Waiting for review before publishing.
- Private: This option hides the content from the public. Only logged in Boise State Admins and Editors can view the content.
- Scheduled: Publish automatically on a chosen date. When you select this option you will have the ability to set the time and date of publishing.
- Published: Content is visible to everyone.
- Password Protected: Password protected pages do not work 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.
WordPress Block Editor and Blocks
Learn how the new WordPress Block Editor works with overviews of the Top Toolbar, the Right Sidebar, and the Content Area. Read and explore the different WordPress Blocks available to build your pages and posts.