A website uses pages to display content – Home, About, and Contact are common examples of pages. You can have an unlimited number of pages on your WordPress.com website. This guide will show you how to create and manage the pages of your site.
In this guide
To add a new page to your website, take the following steps:
- Visit your site’s dashboard.
- Click on Pages on the left side.
- Click on the “Add new page” button.
- Choose from a large collection of readymade page layouts, or click “Blank page” to create an empty page.
- Give your page a title by typing it in the box at the top that says “Add title“.
- If you selected a page layout in step 4, a title will have been added for you. You can edit this title if you wish.
- Click on the + block inserter icon to add new content, or click on any block to edit existing content (learn how to use the WordPress editor here!)
When working on a page, you’ll find the page settings in the sidebar on the right side of your screen.
If you do not see the sidebar on the right, click the Settings icon in the top right corner to bring up the settings. This icon looks like a square with two uneven columns:
You can control the following aspects of the page here:
- Under Summary, you will find the following options:
- Use Visibility to make the page public, private, or protected behind a password. Learn more.
- Set the page to Publish immediately or choose a date and time in the past or future. Learn more.
- Click on Template to reveal the following options (learn more about templates here):
- Edit template: Modify the template that controls how the content of your page is presented.
- Swap template: Change the template used for that page. The Page template is the default template for pages.
- Create new template: Design a new template to use for the page.
- Show template: Preview how your content will be displayed with headers, footers, and other template parts applied.
- See and change the URL of the page. Learn more.
- Mark the page as “Pending review” for other users of your site. Learn more.
- Change the author of the page to another user on your site.
- On already-published pages, a “Switch to draft” button will appear. Click this to revert the public page to a non-public draft.
- Delete the page by clicking the “Move to trash” button. Learn more.
- Write an excerpt to describe the page. Learn more.
- Revisions: Using revisions, you can restore previously saved versions of the page. This option will appear only after you have saved some changes to the page. Learn more.
- Choose a featured image to represent the page. Learn more.
- Discussion: Allow people to leave public comments on the page. Learn more.
- Page Attributes: Select the page’s parent and order number. Learn more.
In the top right of the screen, above the page settings, you’ll see several options for your new page:
These options are:
- Save draft: Save the latest version of your draft page.
- If this shows Saved instead, it means the latest version of your draft has been saved successfully.
- Preview: See what your page will look like on desktop, mobile, and tablet screens. Click Preview in new tab to see how the changes will look on the live site.
- Publish: Publish the draft page to your website.
- Settings Icon: Show or hide the page settings.
- Jetpack Icon: Show or hide additional options provided by the Jetpack plugin:
- Shortlink: Copy a shortened URL of the page.
- Social Previews: See how the page will appear on Google and social media.
- Likes and Sharing: Enable the Like button and social media sharing buttons.
- SEO: Customize the title and description of the page (eligible plans only.)
- QR Code: Generate a QR code for the published page.
- Help Icon: Open up the help center to search for guides or access support.
- Ellipses Menu (the three vertical dots): Open additional editor settings.
After publishing a page, you can return to the page to continue editing it:
- Visit your site’s dashboard.
- Click on Pages on the left side.
- Choose from one of the following tabs:
- Published: Pages you have published to your site.
- Drafts: Pages you have started but have not yet published.
- Scheduled: Pages you have set to be published at a future date.
- Trashed: Pages that will be deleted after 30 days.
- Locate your page in the list and click the title of it to open the editing screen.
When viewing your website publicly, you may also see a link that says “Edit”, “Edit page”, or “Edit this page” to quickly open the page editor. The availability of this link depends on your browser settings and your site’s theme, and can’t be removed.
The link will only show to you as the site owner, while logged into your account. It will not appear to your visitors — no visitor would have the power to edit your site.
A published page will show the following options at the top of the screen:
- View page (arrow icon): Open the live version of the page in a new browser tab.
- Preview: See what your page will look like on desktop, mobile, and tablet screens. Click “Preview in new tab” to see how the changes will look on the live site.
- Update: Save your changes to the already-published page.
Once you have published your page, you’ll want your website visitors to find it. There are several methods to do so:
A website typically displays a menu of pages for visitors to browse through. You can add any published page to your menu – see Add Links to a Menu to learn how.
Once you have published the page, you can generate a QR code for the published page in a couple of ways:
- From Jetpack settings in the page editor.
- Using browser tools. You can search for instructions specific to your browser in Google. For example, in the latest version of Chrome, you can visit a specific page and select more options at the top right by clicking ⠇ → “Save and share” → “Create QR code” option. You can also get the QR code for your website using these steps by visiting the home page.
Every page has a unique URL you can use to share the page with the world. To find the page’s URL, take the steps below.
Select the appropriate tab for your admin interface style:
- Visit your site’s dashboard.
- Click on Pages on the left side.
- Locate your page in the list and click the three dots next to the page’s name.
- Click the “Copy link” option.
The link will be copied to your computer’s clipboard for you to share on social media, in an email, or anywhere you’d like.
To make your newly published page the first page visitors see when arriving on your site, you can set it as your site’s front page. See Set the Homepage to learn how.
You can find the page’s ID in your browser’s address bar after opening the page in the editor. For example, the page ID for the following example is “7683”:
