Define HomePage

How to define a home page in WordPress:

Per the WordPress Codex http://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_a_Static_Front_Page:

“By default, WordPress shows your most recent posts on the front page of your site. But many WordPress users 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.”

“When you create a static front page for your site, you must also create a way for WordPress to show your most recent posts in a “virtual directory” called blog, news, or whatever else you choose to call it. This is true whether or not you are actually using Posts in WordPress. ”

“The static front page is a customized Page that displays static content. It can be customized to direct people to featured content, or highlight posts, articles, categories, or contributors. ”

1. Create two WordPress Pages from the “Add New Page” panel. If you will not be using WordPress blogging functionality, you can skip the second page.

• Title the first page “Home” (or another name) 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.
• Title the second page “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 add content to the Blog Page. Leave it blank. Any content here will be ignored — only the Title is used.
  2. Publish the Page.

2. Go to Administration > Settings > Reading panel.

• Set ‘Front page displays:’ to ‘a static page’ and choose the first page you created above for ‘Front page.’ If your WordPress site will contain a blog section, set ‘Posts page’ to the page you created for this above. Otherwise, leave this blank.
• Click 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.

• By default WordPress uses web URLs which have question marks and lots of numbers in them; however, WordPress offers you the ability to create a custom URL structure for your permalinks and archives. This can improve the aesthetics, usability, and forward-compatibility of your links.
• In your WordPress Administration Panels go to Settings > Permalinks > Permalink Settings
  1. Under Common Settings select “Post name”
  2. Click Save Changes

4. Create a Primary Menu. By default if you do not set up a menu, all of the pages you’ve created will show in you Navigation Menu. To have more control and to prevent any issues it’s recommended that you create your own menu.

• In your WordPress Administration Panels go to Settings > Appearance > Menus
  1. To the left you should see “Pages”, “Links”, “Categories”, “Tags”, and possibly other options depending on your theme like “Slides”, “Portfolio”, “Carousel”, etc.
  2. At the top you should see two tabs. “Edit Menus” and “Manage Locations”. The options in “Manage Locations” depends on the theme you are using. If you are using iFeature Pro, you will probably have two Theme Locations. “Primary Menu” and “Footer Menu”.
  3. To the right of that is where you create and edit your custom menus. If you haven’t created a custom menu, you should just see a plus “+” symbol.
  4. Click the “+” plus symbol or find the click-able text “create a new menu” to the right of the “Select a menu to edit” option at the top.
  5. Enter a name for your new menu. Something like “Main Menu” will suffice.
  6. Click Create Menu
• Now you’ll customize your menu.
  1. To the left Look for the “Pages” option. Select “View All”.
  2. Look for any page that you may have created earlier.
  3. Select it and click “Add to Menu”
  4. Look for any other “Pages” that you’ve created like “Blog” and add them to the menu.
  5. Arrange them anyway you like, by dragging and dropping them into the desired location. You can create sub-menu items where needed by dragging the menu item slightly to the right forming a menu hierarchy.
  6. Click “Save Menu”

Please note:

• Now, the “Home” page settings will be configurable only from editing the actual “Home” page settings from under Pages.
• Now, the “Blog” page settings will be configurable only from editing the Blog options in your theme options.
• This is also the root cause of “Slider Not Working” issues. In your theme options, this ONLY controls the blog/posts page slider. If you you’ve setup a slider on any Page, this is only configurable by editing that page.