Content Types, Post Types and Categories
As websites grow, simply creating pages is often no longer enough. You may want to publish news articles, manage events, showcase team members, share publications or maintain a project portfolio. While these all contain content, they are not necessarily managed in the same way.
This is where content- and post types come in.
Content Types in AXIO
Content Types define different kinds of pages in your website, each with their own fields and behaviour. AXIO includes several content types.
Pages
Pages form the structure of your website. Examples include your homepage, contact page and service pages.
Posts
Posts are used for content that belongs to a collection of similar items, such as news articles, blog posts, events or publications. They differ from pages by having additional fields like a publish date or author, depending on their Post Type (more on that later).
Team
The Team collection is designed specifically for people. Team members often require dedicated information such as profile photos, job titles and social media links, making them different from regular posts.
What is a Post Type?
A Post Type define how posts are organised, edited and displayed on your website.
For example, a news article may have:
- A title
- A publication date
- An author
An event might require different information:
- A title
- A start date
- A location
Although both are content, they serve different purposes and therefore require different fields and presentation.
Why use Post Types?
Post Types help keep your website organised and consistent. They are a way of defining your own specific categories beyond content types, that you can then use to present related articles of that type side by side automatically.
By defining Post Types, you can:
- Present editors with the right fields
- Create consistent layouts
- Generate overview pages automatically
- Support filtering and searching
- Keep content organised as the website grows
Creating your own Post Types
Every organisation is different. A research institute may want to manage publications, while a conference website may need speakers and sessions. A product website may require case studies and testimonials.
AXIO allows site administrators to create their own post types that fit the needs of their website.
Examples include:
- News
- Events
- Publications
- Projects
- Case Studies
- Products
- Testimonials
- Research Outputs
Each post type can have its own structure, overview pages and presentation.
Post types and website structure
Choosing the right Post Types early on makes it easier to scale your website over time.
Instead of storing everything as the same type, content can be grouped logically and displayed automatically in listings, archives and search results.
This not only makes life easier for editors, but also helps visitors find the information they need.
Categories
To further divide your content, AXIO offers categories. These can also be defined as you see fit.
For example you could define categories like
- Longread
- Background
- Concepts
- Featured
Posts can then have several categories to help a visitor understand your content and to help you filter articles in overviews. You could for instance add an overview of the last three featured news items on your homepage.