WordPress has made site settings very easy. However, sometimes it is difficult to make changes to get the desired result. For example, if you want to change a post to a sheet, it can be challenging. By default, WordPress does not allow you to change the post type until the post or page has already been published. Fortunately, a super simple plugin allows you to change a post to a tab or vice versa. Read on to learn the difference between a post and a tab, what plugin you need to convert it to, and why you’ll need to convert a post to a tab.
What is the difference between text and tab in WordPress?
Simply put, there is a major difference between posts and tabs in WordPress. Entries have a time stamp that indicates a certain level of timeliness of the information provided. They will be listed in reverse chronological order on the main tab and all pages in your archive unless you do something to change their order.
Pages are static and untimestamped and, in theory, stay relevant to your visitors forever. Another important difference is that posts can be categorized and tagged, but sheets cannot. However, you can place them under other tabs. Traditionally, if you use WordPress to create a blog, most of your content will be written, and you will have far fewer pages.
When should you convert a WordPress post to a tab?
Often, you link to your tabs in your menu or footer. Your action means that as far as your site hierarchy goes, those pages are relatively high and have a lot of power. Search engines are good at recognizing the relevance of your site’s content. Do you know what else should be high up in your website hierarchy? Cornerstone content. Coined by Brian Clark in a 2007 article for Copyblogger, cornerstone content, or “flagship content,” is basic, educational, and essential information. This type of content is “broad” and serves as a long introduction to one of the main topics on your site.
Joost de Valk, the founder of Yoast, explained in this article why he believes cornerstone content should be created as a tab: “In my opinion, really important content deserves a tab in your site structure, not a post. It should be easily navigated with a few clicks.” If you do it right, there are other benefits to creating this content as a tab.
In most situations, sheets are not time stamped. This can make the content seem more timeless, as long as you keep it up-to-date. Also, while they aren’t included in your archive, pages are great to include in your site’s navigational architecture. They can be a link hub whenever you write about a related topic.
When you first create it, you often don’t realize you’re creating its cornerstone content. Often, cornerstone content starts as a regular blog post. Then expand until it becomes clear how important that post has become.
You can change that post to a tab using a plugin like Post Type Switcher. This allows you to improve your website’s ranking and take advantage of the additional search engine optimization (SEO) benefits that WordPress pages enjoy.
Are pages superior to posts for SEO?
Of course, like many white hat SEO techniques, there isn’t necessarily a clear answer to what is best. Some argue that posts have advantages because WordPress automatically creates a clear link structure for posts through categories, tags, and archives. Also, showing the time of publication and update in your post can be beneficial. It can make your content look especially fresh if you’ve updated it recently.
Something that search engines like Google seem to value. Some websites and blogs always seem to have the most recent content when they appear in search engine results. This is often because content creators review the information provided, make minor changes, and then update the content creation date.
Methods of changing text to tab in WordPress
There are two main ways to convert a post to a page in WordPress.
- By installing plugins
- through cPanel
Let’s go through both methods step by step.
1. Convert a post to a tab with plugins
WordPress does not allow you to convert a post to a page by default. But there is a plugin for this.
Plugins enhance the functionality of your website and are one of the fastest and most effective ways to turn a post into a page.
For this tutorial, we will use Post Type Switcher. This free plugin is the best option for converting a post to a page (or vice versa).
To start using it, you need to install and activate it
Install the plugin
To install the plugin, go to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress dashboard and search for “Post Type Switcher.”
Once you find the plugin, click Install Now and then activate it.
Configure options in the text editor
After installing and activating the plugin, go to Posts and press Edit on the post you want to turn into a page. You will be redirected to the post editor.
Now click the right sidebar, and you will see the Post Type option. Since it’s a post, it’ll show up as a post, but if you click on it, you’ll see different options to change the post type. You can convert the post to a page or product.
Now a window will appear, and you need to press Yes to confirm that you want to convert the post to a page. Then, make any necessary changes to the post and update the post before you move the post to the page.
This is it! You have converted a WordPress post to a page.
2. Convert a post to a page with cPanel
Convert a post to a page with cPanel While using plugins is a quick and easy way to convert a post to a page, you can also do it through cPanel. This is a great alternative if you don’t want to install plugins on your site. This method requires editing some files, and although it is very simple, it is recommended that you have basic programming knowledge.
Most WordPress websites use shared hosting and have access to cPanel. This allows you to use management options through your hosting platform and access database files.
Since we will modify some information in the database, we recommend making a backup before starting.
Open phpMyAdmin
To start the process, log in to your cPanel and open phpMyAdmin (go to the official panel site and log in using your account).
After logging into your cPanel dashboard, find the Databases section and click on phpMyAdmin
You will be redirected to the phpMyAdmin page, where you can access your website database.
Access your website database for posts
There you will see some databases on the left side of the dashboard. Find and click on the database of the specific website you are using. After opening it, you will see a list of database tables. All the information needed for your website is stored in these tables, so be careful.
Since we will be editing a post, find the post tables. They are usually called ‘wp_posts,’ but they may be named differently. When you find the post table, open it.
If you don’t find the table, you can search for it using filters.
Find your post in phpMyAdmin
After opening the post table, you can see all the posts on your website. You need to find the post you want to convert to a page.
If you have a lot of posts, it is very difficult to find a specific post by scrolling, so you can use SQL to find it easily. Before you can do this, you need a post ID.
To find the post ID, go to the Posts tab in your WordPress dashboard and find the post you want to edit. Then, hover your mouse over the edit button, and you’ll see the post editor URL in the lower left corner of the browser. In this URL, you will also see the post ID after the “post=” attribute, as shown below.
The number after the “post=” attribute is your post ID. Make a note of the ID and put it in a convenient place because you will need it to find your post in phpMyAdmin.
Now go back to the post table in your phpMyAdmin dashboard and click on the SQL tab.
There will be a default query in this tab that will show all the contents of the table, so replace it with the following:
SELECT * FROM ‘[post table name]’ WHERE ‘ID’ = [post ID]
By doing this, we retrieve all the information from the id of the specific posts in that table. As we saw earlier, our post table name is wp_post, and post id is 981, so our query will be:
SELECT * FROM ‘wp_posts’ WHERE ‘ID’ = 981
Add the corresponding post table name and the corresponding post ID from your website database to complete the query.
Edit the post type
Once you find the post, tap Edit.
Scroll down to find the post_type option. You will see that it is set as “post.” Change it to “page” and click Go.
This type of method changes the text to the tab.
This is it! You have converted a WordPress post to a page. You can see this change by going to the Pages tab in your WordPress dashboard.
Convert posts to pages in bulk
The tutorial above shows you how to convert a single post to a page easily, but you can also convert them in bulk using SQL in cPanel.
You must follow the steps above until you get to the SQL tab in the phpMyAdmin dashboard. Then, instead of adding the SQL to search your post, you can add the following SQL:
This query will change all the posts that have the post title on the page.
UPDATE ‘wp_posts’ SET ‘post_type’=’page’ WHERE ‘post_type’=’post’
If you want to bulk view some posts that are in the same category, you can do it using this method:
SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type=’post’ AND post_status=’draft’
Note that you need to edit the post type for each post one by one to convert them to a page.
The last word
If you’re looking for a super easy way to turn a post into a sheet (or any other type of post), you’ve got it. Whether you want to change the post type (you created the content as the wrong type) or promote a post to tab status, the Post Type Switcher plugin is a simple solution. Have you ever changed a WordPress post to a tab or vice versa? Share your reason for switching and how to do it in the comments section below.