A Static WordPress Homepage
A typical website mostly has a page termed static which could also be considered a shop front. This is the page that the visitor lands on when they get to your website.
This page is must be given priority regarding impression because it is the first thing that the visitors sees upon arrival on your page. A visitor types your domain name into a web browser and lands of this page. On the other hand a visitor could navigate to this page through a search engine or directory listing.
The static page can also serve as a landing page to attract your visitors’ attention, let your visitors know who you are, what you do and also to help them find their way to important areas on the site.
In a static page, the page and its content are normally intrinsically part of the home page file (e.g. www.mywebsite.com/index.html), so if you want visitors to see different content on your homepage when they arrive on your site via the main URL (i.e. www.mywebsite.com/), you would normally have to edit the content of the page itself, or log into your server and change file names around.
WordPress makes everything easier for users, especially if you don’t want to mess around with stuff like editing web page code in server files.
By default, WordPress acts as a “blog” and presents a changing list of recently-published posts, with the headlines and an excerpt of the content displayed for each article published, and links pointing to separate pages which contain the full article (e.g. “click here to learn more” …).
With WordPress, however, you are given the flexibility to create as many pages as you want and then specify which of these pages you want to designate as static WordPress Homepage for your site.
Better still, you can also replace the static WordPress Homepage of your website as often as you like, without having to edit any of its content, simply by creating a number of different pages you can point to as the site’s static page, and then selecting the page you want to show as your static WordPress Homepage.
This feature can be very useful. For example, you may want visitors arriving on your site’s home page to:
- Watch a video presentation
- Read an important announcement on a separate page before navigating to the rest of your site
- Promote a different “book of the month” each month, or “product of the month”
- Promote seasonal information (e.g. a “Season’s Greetings” themed offer as the new year approaches)
- View different sections of your e-commerce catalog at regularly-spaced intervals (e.g. daily), or special occasions (e.g. sports events in your region)
- View information on “split-test” sales pages (create two or more sales pages with similar content to test different page elements, e.g. pages with or without a sales video, price points, different font sizes, etc., then display one version as the home page for a specific period of time and then replace with the other version for the same period of time to see which page ultimately converts better)
- Or even land on a “pre-launch” page if your site hasn’t officially launched yet!
This tutorial shows you how to easily create a static home page in WordPress.
How to create a static WordPress Homepage: Step-By-Step Tutorial
To set any page in your site to display as the Home Page, go to your admin menu and select Settings > Reading
In the Reading Settings screen, do the following:
- Front page displays: select “A static page …”
- Front page: Click on the drop down menu and choose the page you want to set as the Home Page (you can choose any of the pages showing in the dropdown menu)
Click the Save button after selecting your options to update the settings and set your new home page
After saving, click on Visit Site (tip: right-click and open the link in a new tab to open the homepage in a new browser window without leaving your WP dashboard) …
The page you have specified in Front page displays > A static page should now show as your site’s home page
You can specify a different home page for your website as many times as you want, just by repeating the above process and selecting another page …
Your newly-selected page will become the new home page immediately …
When you select any page to become the homepage of your site, WordPress reassigns the domain root to the URL of the page.
What this means is that if you select the page with the following URL your site’s home page:
http://yourdomain.com/grandmas-favorite-chicken-recipes
The above page will automatically be given the following URL for as long as it remains the site’s home page:
http://yourdomain.com/
Notes:
If you type the “old” URL of the page you have specified as the new home page into your browser, WordPress will direct you to the home page.
Also, if you select another page as the home page, WordPress reassigns your old home page back to its original URL …
Congratulations! Now you know how to show any WordPress page as the home page.
Has this tutorial helped you? Did we leave something important out? Feel free to add your thoughts below and share this tutorial with your friends.
WordPress is huge and can sometimes be overwhelming about where to start. As you move on to the next Page, you will have a clearer picture of where to start and progress to building a professional WordPress Site.
