Setting a static front page

If you are a service provider, shop, or selling something, you may wish to set a static front page for your WordPress site, instead of showing users the blog home page.

By doing this, when a user navigates to your main site URL (e.g. "myshop.com"), they would see a static page of information instead of the traditional blog home page. You can then create a separate URL that directs users to the blog Home Page associated with your theme.

This Help Desk article walks you through how to set up a static page for the Home Page, as well as create a separate URL for your blog.

SETTING A STATIC FRONT HOME PAGE

1. Start by creating a new page, and design it as you like. If you already have a page in mind that you wish to display as your static front home page, you can move on to Step 2, below.

• Create a new page, and show/hide sidebars on pages
• Difference between posts and pages

2. Next, set your new page as the static home page. From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to General > Reading to access your site Reading Settings. Look for the setting Your homepage displays:. Then, change the setting from latest posts to a static page, and select the page of your choice. 

3. Now, when users navigate to your main site URL (e.g. myshop.com), they'd see your new static front page.

CREATING A URL FOR YOUR BLOG HOME PAGE

If you have a blog on your site, and wish to house the default blog home page of your theme on a URL that's not your main site URL, you'll need to assign a page for WordPress to link to your latest posts.

1. As before, create a new page, and name it something simple, like Blog. The name you assign this page is what will attach to the end of your main site URL, i.e. myshop.com/pagename (or myshop.com/blog). With the page created, hit publish. You do not need any content on the page, other than a page title.

2. From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to General > Reading, and set the Posts Page dropdown to the new page you just created. Here's an example of how this setting might look:

In this example, the user has set a page named "Shop" to display when customers navigate to their main website URL (e.g. "myshop.com"). When their customers navigate to the /blog page (i.e. "myshop.com/blog"), they'd see the theme's default blog home page.

3. Be sure to save the settings on the Reading page, and you're all set.

Please note: setting up your blog URL in the manner described above is different from creating a sub-domain for your blog. An example of a sub-domain would be blog.myshop.com. Sub-domains must be created through your domain registrar. Most plans will offer them for free. If you wish to set up a sub-domain, please work with your hosting company and/or domain registrar for more information on where to manage these settings.