The Anatomy of a WordPress Page: Headers, Body & Footers

How a WordPress Page Is Structured

If you're coming to WordPress from another platform — or building your first website ever — it helps to understand the basic anatomy of a WordPress page before you start clicking around. Every page your visitors see is made up of three core sections: the header, the body content, and the footer.

The header sits at the very top and typically contains your site name or logo along with the primary navigation menu. By default, WordPress displays the same header on every page of your site. You can disable it or create custom headers for specific pages, but out of the box it's consistent across your entire site.

At the bottom you'll find the footer, which behaves much like the header — it appears on every page by default. Footers usually house links to your privacy policy, terms and conditions, a copyright notice, and often a secondary navigation menu or social media links. Between the header and footer is where your actual body content lives — and that's where things get interesting.

Pages vs Posts: What's the Difference?

WordPress gives you two ways to add body content to your site: pages and posts. The difference between them is subtle but genuinely important to understand before you start building.

Pages are designed for evergreen content — the stuff that doesn't expire or need a published date. Think of your About page, Contact Us page, or a Services page. These are static pieces of content that visitors expect to find in your site's main navigation.

Posts, on the other hand, are date-stamped. They're designed for content that's published in a timeline — blog articles, news updates, announcements. Posts automatically appear on a dedicated post page that displays your latest content in chronological order. You won't typically see individual posts in your navigation bar; instead, visitors navigate to your blog or post page and browse from there.

This distinction matters for how your site is organized. Pages show up in your nav menu and serve as the permanent pillars of your site. Posts live in a feed and are meant to be discovered through your blog page or search. Getting this right from the start saves you a lot of restructuring later.

Customizing Your Header and Footer

Once you understand the three-part structure of a WordPress page, the natural next step is learning how to customize each piece. WordPress themes control the default look of your header and footer, but you have plenty of options for making them your own.

Most modern themes — like Astra — include built-in header and footer builders that let you drag and drop elements like logos, menus, social icons, and widgets without touching any code. If you're using a page builder like Elementor Pro, you can take this even further by designing fully custom headers and footers that override the theme defaults on specific pages.

This is particularly useful if you're building landing pages or sales pages where you want a cleaner layout without the usual navigation distractions. The key takeaway is that while WordPress gives you sensible defaults, nothing is locked in — you have full control over every part of the page structure.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.