How WordPress content, themes and plugins fit together

WordPress keeps three things apart: content in the database, appearance in the theme, and features in plugins. Most questions about where a change should go are answered by asking which of the three it belongs to.

Posts, pages and taxonomies

Posts are dated entries that appear in the blog feed, archives and RSS. Pages are standalone content such as About, Contact or Privacy, and can have parent and child pages. Posts are grouped with categories, which can be nested, and tags, which are flat labels. A post always has at least one category. A common beginner mistake is creating hundreds of tags used once each, which produces thin archive pages.

Themes and child themes

A theme controls how the site looks. When the theme is updated, all its files are replaced, so any edit made directly in it is lost. A child theme inherits everything from a parent and holds only your changes. Its style.css needs at least:

/*
 Theme Name: Client Child
 Template: twentytwentyfour
*/

The Template value is the parent's folder name. Your custom styles, template overrides and theme-related functions go in the child theme.

Plugins

Plugins add features: forms, shops, SEO tools, caching. A useful test is to ask whether the feature should keep working if the client changes the theme. If yes, it belongs in a plugin, even a small custom one. Choose plugins that are actively maintained, avoid installing several that do the same job, and delete any you no longer use.

The block editor

Content is built from blocks: paragraph, heading, image, columns, buttons and many more. Patterns are ready-made groups of blocks you insert and then edit. Synced patterns stay linked, so editing one updates it everywhere it appears; use them for repeated elements like a call-to-action box. Keep headings in order and give images alt text, just as you would in hand-written HTML.

Habit: before making any change, say out loud whether it is content, design or a feature. That decides whether it goes in the editor, the child theme or a plugin.