This month, I had the privilege of giving a talk at High Ed Web in Grand Rapids. After my talk, I attended Daniel Spillers presentation about the University of Arkansas Little Rock custom post type usage. Although we have used custom post types for many years, we are in the minority. His presentation and Daniel reminded me of the magic world of custom post types that WordPress users are yet to discover.
What are Custom Post Types and how do they work?
WordPress provides a variety of ways to categorize and separate content. These types allow you to separate content and give unique data per type. This data can be used to create customized displays for visitors on the live site.
WordPress can now be extended beyond simple pages and posts with custom post types. You can create many new content types, which create an easy-to-use entry system for users. This is enhanced by specific templates that present this data to website visitors Søgemaskineoptimering.
Real-World Applications of Custom Post Types
My first WordPress website project was a mini directory of motorcycles, segmented by model year and feature, such as price, style, and use type. The only way I could create this website back then was to use WordPress posts and do some fancy segmentation using the post tags. It was a cool website in 2009.
This is because WordPress now has custom post types (CPT). I could have built the same website much faster if I had done it today. CPTs would have provided me with the mini-database that I needed. It would also have given me more control over how data segments are displayed and presented in a stylish way.
We use custom post types a lot now that they are available. They allow us greater flexibility in graphic design and are easier to manage for our clients on an ongoing basis.
You can use custom post types to create testimonials, portfolios and products.
More concrete examples?
These are some places you can see custom post types in real-world applications:
- Web Savvy’s testimonials
- Web Savvy’s industries were
- Web Savvy’s design portfolio
- RSSMS’s latest and most recent events.
- FAQs
- LocalVox resources
- UCLA discourse articles
- Dawda Man attorneys
- Africa24 videos
- UALR Ottenheimer Library’s articles, databases
These links offer a range of examples from many industries. These custom post types are so diverse that they can be used to enhance any website.
CPT’s even better with custom taxonomies
You can extend the functionality of custom post types by including taxonomies. A taxonomy allows you to group similar content together. WordPress already allows you to do this by using tags and blog categories. You can expand this functionality by adding custom taxonomies. This allows you to group content in many different ways and make it available in a variety of applications.
You can turn WordPress from a small business website into a enterprise-level application by joining custom post types or taxonomies.
How do you code custom post types?
CPT code can be integrated into a theme or as a standalone plugin. There has been much debate. It is easy to dismiss this debate by asking one simple question: Will you ever change your WordPress theme? You should always create custom post types in a plugin to make the code and data portable between themes.
Web Savvy creates a custom plugin to handle each type of custom post. This allows it to be independent from the theme. It will also preserve the data integrity in case our client wants to switch themes.
This is an important point to remember when buying WordPress themes with advanced functionality.
