How to Create a Private Post in WordPress (In-Depth Guide)

After 15 years as a webmaster, I‘ve helped hundreds of sites use private posts to control access to premium content.

Take it from my experience – private posts are a powerful tool for any WordPress site.

In this comprehensive guide, you‘ll learn how to expertly create and manage private posts to boost security, create member sites, and more.

By the end, you‘ll be a private post pro ready to use them strategically on your site. Let‘s dive in!

What are Private Posts in WordPress?

Private posts in WordPress allow you to create content that is hidden from public view.

These posts are only visible to logged-in users with specific permissions – aka subscriber roles that let them access private content.

For example, you may want to:

• Share premium members-only content
• Limit internal communications to employees
• Allow clients to preview drafts before publication
• Keep unfinished work or documentation private while developing your site

According to statistics from Alexa ranking data, over 42% of the top 10,000 WordPress sites use some form of premium membership and private content functionality.

This shows just how popular private content is on WordPress blogs and sites.

Core Differences Between Public and Private Posts

Public posts on your WordPress site are visible to all visitors by default.

On the other hand, private posts:

• Are only visible to logged-in users with private content permissions
• Do not appear in public archives, feeds, listings, related posts, etc.
• Cannot be accessed by search engines or bots
• Require user roles and capabilities to be configured for access

Public Posts	Private Posts
Visible to all visitors	Only visible to permitted users
Accessible by search engines	Not indexed or accessible publicly
Appear in archives and feeds	Do not appear anywhere public
No restrictions	Requires configured user roles

So in summary:

• Public = Openly accessible
• Private = Restricted based on user permissions

This allows private posts to become powerful tools for controlling access.

Why Use Private Posts on Your Website?

Here are some of the most common and effective ways sites utilize private posts:

1. Paid and Premium Content

One of the most popular uses for private posts is to offer premium content to paying members.

For example, you can use private posts to:

• Put some blog content behind a paywall
• Create premium courses and ebooks
• Share subscriber-only tutorials or podcasts
• Offer members-only discounts and deals

According to Forbes, over 98% of leading publishers have implemented some form of paid or gated content model to diversify revenue.

So whether you want to offer high-value posts, sell digital products, or build a full membership site – private posts are perfect.

Popular WordPress plugins like MemberPress and Restrict Content Pro make monetizing private content easy.

2. Internal Communication

Company intranets and internal communications are another excellent use of private posts.

For example, you can:

• Share news, updates, or documents privately across teams
• Create knowledge bases, wikis, or databases for employees
• Post internal company directories or contact lists
• Build private forums, groups, or social networks

According to a McKinsey study, effective internal communications can improve productivity up to 25% in global enterprises.

With multi-author permissions, private posts help companies communicate across remote teams and offices. No more forwarding emails with attachments!

3. Development and Testing

As a webmaster, I use private posts all the time while developing sites.

You can leverage them to:

• Test new features or theme/plugin functionality
• Review work-in-progress posts before going live
• Share sandbox sites with clients or beta testers
• Maintain internal documentation and knowledge bases

Keeping development and testing behind-the-scenes improves security and avoids exposing half-baked features before they‘re ready.

4. Improve SEO Optimization

According to Google, creating high-quality content consistently is one of the top 3 ranking factors.

But what happens if you need to take content down or if it goes stale?

By making outdated or underperforming posts private instead of deleting them, you can:

• Preserve the value it already provided for SEO
• Avoid 404 errors and dead links
• Keep internal links intact
• Repurpose or improve the content later

This on-demand content pruning allows you to optimize your site‘s content without hurting its SEO.

5. Enhanced Security

Private posts strengthen WordPress security in several ways:

• Reduce your public attack surface by hiding content
• Obscure development sites from crawlers
• Limit visibility to protect sensitive information
• Prevent proprietary or confidential data from leaking

According to Sucuri Secuirty, over 70% of WordPress sites get hacked due to poor security practices.

Leveraging private posts and pages is a smart way to improve security through obscurity.

The use cases above demonstrate the tremendous flexibility of private posts for all types of sites.

Now let‘s look at how WordPress controls access to this powerful functionality.

How Private Post Permissions Work in WordPress

To understand private posts, you need to know how WordPress handles user roles and capabilities:

• Roles – These are labels like ‘administrator‘, ‘editor‘, ‘author‘, etc. that define permissions for users

• Capabilities – Specific permissions attached to roles that allow certain actions

For example, the ‘administrator‘ role has the ‘read_private_posts‘ capability by default.

This capability grants admins access to read and view all private posts.

When you make a post private, only roles with capabilities like ‘read_private_posts‘ can access it.

Here are the default private posts permissions:

Role	Private Post Capabilities
Administrator	read_private_posts, edit_posts, edit_others_posts, etc.
Editor	read_private_posts, edit_posts, etc.
Author	read_private_posts, edit_posts, etc. (own posts only)
Subscriber	None

So in summary:

• Admins can access all private posts
• Editors can access all private posts
• Authors can only access their own private posts
• Subscribers cannot access any private posts

This allows granular control over private content visibility.

You can use plugins like User Role Editor to customize roles and capabilities further.

Now let‘s see how to actually create private posts using this system.

Step 1: Creating a Private Post in the Block Editor

The new WordPress block editor makes creating private posts easy and intuitive:

1. Go to Posts > Add New to start a new post as usual.

2. Add a title and create the content blocks for your private post.

3. In the right sidebar, navigate to Settings > Visibility:

   

4. Select the Private option to make it a private post.

5. Publish or update the post to make it live as a private post.

That‘s all there is to it! All users who lack permission to see private content will not have access.

The block editor is the easiest way to create private posts in WordPress.

Step 2: Making Posts Private in the Classic Editor

The previous classic editor requires a couple more steps to make posts private:

1. On the post edit screen, click on Edit next to Visibility under Publish:

   

2. In the Visibility window, select the Private radio button:

   

3. Click OK to apply the private visibility.

4. Publish or update to make the post live privately.

While not as streamlined, the classic editor still enables simple private post creation.

Step 3: Permit User Access to Private Content

By default, private posts are restricted to admins, editors, and authors (own posts only) as covered earlier.

To grant wider private content access, you can:

1. Change user roles – Upgrade users to editor role or higher to allow them to see all private posts.

2. Create custom roles – Use a plugin like User Role Editor to configure advanced custom roles with granular private post capabilities.

For example, you may create a ‘Premium Member‘ role that grants access to certain private blog categories only.

3. Install membership plugins – Tools like MemberPress add flexible membership levels with complete private content access control.

With the right approach, you can selectively permit users to see exactly the private content you want.

Next, let‘s look at some best practices for managing private posts.

5 Best Practices for Managing Private Posts

After helping hundreds of WordPress sites implement private content over the years, I‘ve identified tips and practices that work:

1. Use Private Categories to Organize Membership Content

Creating private post categories allows you to segment content by access level.

For example, paid ‘Gold‘ members may get access to the private ‘Tutorials‘ category. ‘Silver‘ members only see the ‘Support‘ category.

This simplifies managing permissions compared to individual posts.

2. Prevent Image Leaks from Private Posts

Attachments like images uploaded to a private post can still be publicly accessible from the media library.

Use a membership plugin or Disable Image Hotlinking to restrict direct access and prevent leaks.

3. Rename the wp-login.php Page

Obscuring your login page by renaming wp-login.php with a plugin improves security. This hides private content access points from unauthorized discovery.

4. Back Up Your Private Posts

Your private posts are as critical as other content. Include them in your regular WordPress backups to avoid losing access due to data loss.

5. Limit Author Privileges to the Necessary Minimum

Don‘t grant all authors permission to see others‘ private posts by default. Limit capabilities to only what they need.

Following these tips will help you build a more secure and better managed private post implementation.

Now let‘s cover some common questions that come up.

Frequently Asked Questions About Private Posts

Here are answers to some frequently asked questions I encounter around private posts:

Can search engines or the public access private posts?

No. Private posts are completely inaccessible to search engines, feeds, APIs, or any public visitors. Only users with required capabilities can see your private content.

Is there a limit to how many private posts I can have?

Nope! You can have as many private posts as you need without hitting any limits. WordPress does not restrict or quota private post creation.

Can I change published posts to private?

Absolutely! You can easily change any existing published post to private at any time. Just edit and update the visibility as covered earlier.

What happens if I lose access accidentally?

As long as you have another admin user account, you can still regain access to private content by assigning the admin role again. Hence having a backup admin is crucial.

Can private posts expire or be scheduled?

Yes, you can use plugins like Post Expirator to set expiration dates or scheduled publishing on private posts as well.

Can private posts be accessed through the REST API?

By default the REST API requires valid authentication to access any private posts or info. So the privacy is maintained.

This covers some common private post questions that come up. Feel free to ask in the comments if you have any others!

Now let‘s wrap up everything we covered…

Conclusion and Next Steps

In this complete guide, you learned:

• What private posts are – Hidden posts visible only to permitted users
• Why they are useful – Paid content, communications, security, testing, etc.
• How WordPress permissions work – Through user roles and capabilities
• Steps to create private posts – Using block editor or classic editor
• Best practices to follow – Category organization, preventing leaks, backups, etc.

The key takeaway is that private posts enable granular access control to boost security, monetization, and more.

To recap, here is a simple workflow for using private posts effectively:

1. Identify why you need private content (paid members, internal use, etc.)
2. Organize private posts into categories or sites
3. Create private content restricted to certain user roles
4. Limit author and media library privileges carefully
5. Follow best practices like backups and hiding login page

Done right, private posts can transform what you can achieve with your WordPress site. You now have all the knowledge to utilize them successfully.

Some next steps to consider:

• Install a membership plugin like MemberPress for advanced paid private content
• Audit existing content and evaluate what can be made private
• Create private landing pages as content upgrades for email subscribers
• Document your private post strategy for consistency across teams

I hope this guide helps you tap into the full power of private posts in WordPress. Let me know if you have any other questions!