Every website shares a common feature: they all feature a homepage. Your homepage is, in fact, often considered the most crucial page on your site. It typically receives the highest amount of traffic and establishes the overall vibe of your website. It’s the initial impression visitors receive, and it’s your opportunity to reassure them that they’ve come to the right place.
Considering this perspective, it’s understandable that the design and management of your homepage might differ from other pages on your site. Just like each theme has its distinct characteristics, the functionality and configuration of your homepage present unique possibilities as well.
In this lesson, we explore the specifics of your homepage. Given that there’s often a connection between a website’s homepage and its Posts Page, we also discuss this significant page.
Homepage
There are two base scenarios when it comes to the homepage of any site using a Block theme within WordPress.com:
Default Homepage: The content is built in a specific template as set by the theme. Under Settings > Reading↗︎ the Homepage option is set to: – Default –
Custom Homepage: The content is built in a regular page, it will be assigned a multi-use template (for a new page, it will be assigned the Pages template automatically), and the page needs to be assigned as the homepage under Settings > Reading↗︎. (A Custom Homepage is the same as any other regular page.)
The primary homepage for any theme will exclusively utilize one of three distinct layouts:
Index
Blog Home (also known as Home)
Front Page
These unique layouts are arranged in a hierarchy. Every theme is required to incorporate the Index layout, and it is typically found in your list of Templates under Appearance > Editor > Templates. However, it might not always be active.
If your theme also includes the Blog Home (sometimes referred to as Home) layout, then this layout will supersede the Index layout, making the Index layout essentially inactive.
For the moment, let’s concentrate on these two layouts, as they function similarly, whereas the Front Page layout operates differently.
Whether your theme is currently using the Index or Blog Home layout, the creator of your theme has developed a Default Homepage layout within the template. This layout is set to appear as your website’s homepage by default and allows for direct content management through the Site Editor.
To make changes to the content of a Default Homepage, navigate to Appearance > Editor. The preview that appears is your homepage, which you can edit. Additionally, you can access this special homepage template from your main dashboard, located in the Pages section, at the top.
The design of the Default Homepage template may vary depending on the theme you selected, ranging from a blog page to a static website homepage. You have the freedom to modify this template as you wish. You can keep it similar to the original design by updating certain elements, or you can completely transform the template with new patterns of your choice. Homepage and Posts Page