Do you want to create a child page in WordPress?
WordPress pages can be standalone or hierarchical, which means the page has its own sub-pages known as child pages. For instance, you may want to create a Case Studies parent page and then create child pages for each of your separate case studies.
In this article, we will show how to organize your pages by creating a child page in WordPress.
What is a Child Page in WordPress?
WordPress comes with two default post types called posts and pages.
Posts are blog content, and are shown in reverse chronological order so the people who visit your WordPress blog will see the newest posts first.
Posts are normally organized with categories and tags, which is a great way to help visitors find related content.
Pages are one-off or standalone content that is not part of a blog. For example, many websites have an About Us and a Contact Us page. These pages can be hierarchical, which means you can organize them with parent and child pages.
Typically, business websites use pages to build a website without necessarily creating a blog. Businesses who want to add a blog to their content marketing strategy can still do so by simply creating a separate blog page, but this isn’t mandatory.
If you have too many pages, then it becomes difficult to organize them. This is where child pages come in.
You can create a parent page and then add child pages to better organize your navigation menus and your website as a whole. For example, the MonsterInsights website has a ‘Features’ parent page with a separate child page for each feature. This makes it easier for customers to find the feature they want to read about.
Many online stores also use child and parent pages to help visitors explore their eCommerce site and find products to buy.
Any child page can also have its own child pages. In this way, you can build relationships between your pages and create a logical structure that’s easier for visitors to navigate.
When pages are organized into parent and child categories, they also tend to be easier to manage in the WordPress admin area. This is particularly true as your WordPress website continues to grow.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily create a child page in WordPress.
How to Create a Child Page in WordPress?
To create a child page, you first need a parent page. You can use any page as a parent, or create a new page.
Once you have a parent page, you’re ready to add some child pages. Again, you can turn any existing page into a child, or create an entirely new page which will become your child page.
Then, simply open the child page for editing.
In the right-hand menu, click on the ‘Page’ tab. Then, find the ‘Page Attributes’ section and give it a click to expand.
If you look at the ‘Parent Page’ field then this is blank by default. This means the page is currently a parent page.
To turn this parent into a child page, simply open the ‘Parent’ dropdown. You can then select the page that you want to use as the parent page.
After that, go ahead and save your changes by clicking on the Update or Publish button.
To create more child pages, simply repeat the process described above.
To see all of your child pages, head over to Pages » All Pages. WordPress will show all of your child pages listed under their parent page with a — prefix.
In the following image, you can see that ‘Google Analytics dashboard’ and ‘WooCommerce Analytics’ are child pages of ‘MonsterInsight Features.’
After creating some child pages, you may want to add a list of child pages for a parent page to your WordPress website.
We hope this article helped you learn how to create a child page in WordPress. You may also want to see our complete guide on how to create a landing page in WordPress and the best drag and drop WordPress page builders.
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Moinuddin Waheed says
One of my client has asked me to make child pages for his website as he want to list medical colleges continent wise, like Asian Countries, European countries colleges and others.
This is very helpful guide as I will be making child pages for him for this purpose so that he can show all the colleges continent wise.
This is very helpful in case related things like features and then different child pages for each feature.
WPBeginner Support says
Happy to hear our guide was helpful
Admin
Gaz says
I want the subpage to have the same format URL as this guide ie: Sitename/subject/sub-page. If I use the above method will it automatically create this URL structure? If not how do I create this to get my subpage with its correct URL structure?
WPBeginner Support says
You can use child pages for that permalink style and it should be in that organization, if you do it with posts you can use categories. For customizing the permalink structure, we would recommend taking a look at our article below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-create-custom-permalinks-in-wordpress/
Admin
Ian Jackson says
Why do you have to set the child page in the editor? Can’t you just create your page and then using Menu set it as a submenu? Is there a reason for having to assign a parent page in the editor that I’m missing?
Justine says
Thank you. This was very useful to structure my blog like a website. I appreciate the free content.
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome, glad our guide could assist
Admin
Jaime says
This option seems to be gone now, or was it moved somewhere else? I can’t find it.
WPBeginner Support says
In the block editor, it would be under the document settings under Page Attributes
Admin
Jaime says
It’s no longer an option for me after updating to WordPress 5. I had it on 4.99 though
WPBeginner Support says
You may want to try disabling your plugins to see if you have a possible plugin conflict that is preventing that section from appearing in the document settings.
Darien says
Where has this feature gone now that the Guttenburg Block Editor is in use? Child Page no longer shows as an option under Page Attributes in this new editor. Does anyone have any tips on where it’s now located?
WPBeginner Support says
From taking a look it should still be an option in page attributes for pages. Just to be sure, are you editing a post rather than a page with the most recent WordPress?
Admin
Aniela Lucian says
Thank you for this very useful post! I tried for YEARS to figure out how may be possible to create a good structure for my website, and never knew what the hack is ‘child page’ in WordPress (although I am new to make myself the website….). Your brief and very clear explanations make everything so clear and easy!
Thanks again for your wonderful work!