Building a Static Front Page with WordPress

Written by Pixel Theme Studio Thursday, 23 September 2010 Category: WordPress Tutorials

static-front-pageI've been asked how I made my home pages on some of my theme demos' while many believe this is part of the theme a person downloads. Actually, it's only partially related whereas the rest is done with WordPress settings. For this to work, the theme should have at least one different "page template" included because it doesn't make sense to use the default page template that comes with WordPress as your home page. In most cases, the page template to be used is often designed in a way that it's unique in one way or another.

By default, WordPress shows your most recent Posts on the front page of your site - which basically means it's an instant blog layout for your front page. But many WordPress users do not realize that you can change that while others already know this ability exists and they want to have a static front page or splash page as the front page instead. This "static front page" look is common for those who wish to not have a "blog" look to their site, giving it a more CMS (content management system) feel.

Creating a Static Front Page

It's actually not a complicated process and does not require any html coding on your part, but you do have a couple things to perform before you can benefit from this nice feature. To help you out, I've pasted the exact step-by-step guide from the WordPress web site:

  1. Create two WordPress Pages from the "Add New Page" panel.
    1. Title one as "Home" (or another name) as your "static" front page.
      1. Set the "Home" template to the default template or any custom template.
      2. Add content you would like to see within the content area of the "Home" page.
      3. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Enable "Permalinks" to show the "page title" in the address, since /index.php?p=423 defeats the purpose of making a static front page.

While we are calling this a "static front page," you can change the content on that web page at any time by editing the Page.

Comments 

1. seo montreal Posted: Saturday, 26 February 2011
Valuable content and excellent design you got here! I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts and time into the stuff you post!! Thumbs up
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aboutptsPixel Theme Studio is focused on designing professional WordPress themes and premium Joomla Templates (this site is in Joomla). The goal is to design real world concepts for individual bloggers and business owners with themes that are not bloated with scripts and code.  We create the best WordPress themes and Joomla templates possible by keeping the designs simple and clean.

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