Do you want to easily reorganize pages on your WordPress website? Organizing pages in WordPress is already easy and the platform offers multiple ways to do it, but none of them allow to use a drag and drop method. Drag and drop methods are considered the easiest and beginners and experts agree that they are simplest to understand.
This is especially true in the case of pages since websites can literally have hundreds of pages. Pages are also created regularly, which creates the need to re-order them. Pages make up your website so their order is essential to the success of your website. Today, I will demonstrate how to organize pages with the Simple Page Ordering plugin in WordPress.
Why Does Page Order Matter in WordPress
In many WordPress themes, pages are used as the top menu items by default. They will either be selected by alphabetical order or by the date they were published. Not all pages a website creates should be a menu item, which is why re-ordering pages is extremely important in WordPress.
For example, if they were ordered by publish date, your first few pages would always be displayed there. Older content does not typically do well for websites. In fact, in most cases, older content will be deleted, reworked, or archived so that it does not look out of place on the website.
How to Organize Pages With the Simple Page Ordering Plugin in WordPress
Today, I will demonstrate how to organize pages with the Simple Page Ordering plugin in WordPress. This plugin has over 200,000 active installs and works after activation. There is no set up required, which makes this process extremely quick and the best part is it’s completely free to use. Keep in mind that using this plugin does not stop you from using other methods if you wish. Also, remember that this plugin is not meant to be used to reorganize your menu items.
Installing the Simple Page Ordering Plugin
Click on Plugins and select the Add New option on the left-hand admin panel.
Search for Simple Page Ordering in the available search box. This will pull up additional plugins that you may find helpful.
Scroll down until you find the Simple Page Ordering plugin and click the “Install Now” button and activate the plugin for use.
This plugin works after activation, so there are no settings to set up. Now it’s time to re-order your pages.
Using Simple Page Ordering to Re-Order Pages
Using this plugin is very easy and will take a very small amount of time to fully understand. On the left-hand admin panel, click on Pages and select the All Pages option. This will display every page on your website.
By default, the pages should be arranged alphabetically, with the exception of child pages. Child pages will be listed under their parent page. The plugin allows you to click on a page and drag it to a new position. Hover your mouse over any of the pages and your cursor will change to a four-sided arrow. Click down and drag the page to any position on the list.
You will need to wait a few seconds after moving a page before you can move it again. Moving a parent page will also move all of the child pages as well. Keep in mind that you can also rearrange the child pages under the parent page. Repeat this step as many times as necessary.
Congratulations, you have successfully learned how to organize your pages. Remember to look at the page ordering every time you add new pages to your website.
Why Use This Method Over the Page Attribute Method
The most popular method of re-ordering pages is to use the Page Attribute box and it works quite well. It is the most popular method because it is built directly into WordPress. The issue is that is can become increasingly tedious as a website grows and more and more pages are added. Changing the page order number does not change every page order number. This means that changing one page order number could result in changing hundreds. Thus, it can become quite confusing and a lot of extra work for larger websites.
Keep Your Website Organized
Keeping an organized website does not just benefit your visitors, but it also benefits your web developers. Running a website is a full-time job and saving time can really make the difference when you are trying to add new features and content. It is true that using plugins can slow down your website slightly, but they may be worth it if it saves you hours of work when you are low on manpower.
This is especially true for small tasks that you may have to manually perform hundreds of times. Humans make mistakes and this is especially true when you are repeating the same task over and over again. Numbers tend to blend together when you are changing them all at once, while a plugin will do it much faster and not cause mistakes.
How easy have you found it to rearrange your page order? How many pages have you moved around?