Blog Static Homepage Tutorial

Posted on Apr 5, 2010

By default, WordPress has the homepage set to show a summary of your blogs in order from newest to oldest. If you want to set up a static homepage – like I did, these are the steps you need to take.

1. Enable “Permalinks” to show the “page title” in the address, since

   /index.php?p=123

   defeats the purpose of making a static front page. (Do this before making any pages, otherwise, you’ll have to go back and edit the Permalinks later.)

2. Create two WordPress Pages from the “Add New Page” panel.
   1. Title one as “Welcome” (or anything besides “Home”) as your “static” front page.
      1. Add content you would like to see within the content area of the “Home” page.
      2. Publish the Page.
   2. Title the second one as “Blog” (or you could call it “News”, “Articles”, etc.). This page will be a place-holder for showing the Posts on your site.
      1. Do not use a custom Page template for this page!
      2. DO NOT add content to the Blog Page. Leave it blank. Any content here will be ignored — only the Title is used.
      3. Publish the Page.
3. Go to Settings > Reading panel.
   1. Set which page will be designated the “front” page. Choose from display your latest blog posts on the “Blog” Page and “static page” for the “Home” Page.
   2. Save changes.

For more general information on using the WordPress blog installation, see the [cref blog-basics-tutorial] Post.