Once your website’s up and running, one of the toughest things to do is keep it updated – even if it’s a simple task, such as updating a listing or adding a new team member. Unless you work every day with websites, it can be a lot of work to enter the new information and images, and make sure the design and formatting is consistent with the rest of your site.
That’s where WordPress’s custom post types can save the day. Instead of worrying about layout and formatting, you simply fill in a few fields. Here’s a very simple example.
The Rocklyn Inn is a delightful BnB in Rocklyn, Ontario, about 10 minutes south of Meaford in Grey County, Ontario. To make their website more inviting and offer visitors an introduction to the area, they provide links to various attractions and events.
For example, the Restaurant tab opens links to various restaurant directories.
Previously, these required a lot of work to add to and maintain, particularly since the Inn was using a somewhat non-user-friendly WordPress pagebuilder system called WP Bakery. And if they wanted an individual destination to appear in more than one category, it would need to be entered all over again. For example, Blue Mountain Resort is featured under “Downhill skiing/boarding”, “Local Attractions”, and “Outdoor & Adventure Tours”; it would have to be entered three times – taking care to ensure there were no typos and all the elements were positioned in the correct places.
Fill a few fields and populate multiple pages on your website
When owner Lesley Telfser asked me to upgrade the Rocklyn Inn website, we migrated the existing site to an Elementor-based theme in WordPress and streamlined the process using custom post types.
Now, we have a “post type” called “Attractions”, with different categories for each of the tabs.
To add an attraction, Lesley simply enters the Attraction name, the url, and checks a box for the attraction category. (We also have the potential to include descriptions and images, though we’re not using these at the moment.)
Consistent, attractive page design every time
The rest of the work happens behind the scenes, like magic, and the content gets updated, with the link automatically opening the third-party website in a new tab.
We employed the same convenient approach for displaying the Inn’s guest rooms. The site originally used a complex plugin intended for hotels with multiple rooms. But the Rocklyn Inn’s needs were more modest, and once we dispensed with the plugin, we created another post type, called “Rooms”. This essentially followed the same format as a regular post, using title, content, excerpt, and featured image, with no additional fields. Lesley can easily update room details in the main content area, the room’s intro, or quickly change the image.
On the front end, Lesley doesn’t have to give it a second thought. Guests view the rooms displayed in an attractive, consistent design, both on the overall Rooms page, and on each individual room’s page.
Start making your life easier with custom post types. Contact us today.