Setting your homepage
Learn how to choose which page appears as your WordPress homepage, and how to set up a separate blog page.
- Time
- 5 minutes
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- You’ll need
- Administrator access · A page created to serve as your homepage
By default, WordPress shows your latest blog posts on the homepage. Most business websites need a custom homepage instead — a designed landing page that introduces the company. This guide shows you how to change that.
Quick summary
Go to Settings → Reading. Under "Your homepage displays," choose A static page. Select your homepage page from the "Homepage" dropdown, and optionally a separate "Posts page" for your blog. Click Save Changes.
What you'll need
- Administrator access to your WordPress site
- A page already created to serve as your homepage (like a page titled "Home")
How WordPress handles the homepage
WordPress gives you two homepage options:
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Your latest posts | Shows a list of your most recent blog posts as the homepage — the traditional blog layout |
| A static page | Shows a specific page you've designed as your homepage |
Most business websites use "A static page."
Setting a static homepage
Go to Settings → Reading in your WordPress dashboard sidebar.
Find the "Your homepage displays" section near the top of the page.
Select "A static page." The two dropdowns below it (Homepage and Posts page) become available. If you don't see this choice at all, your site has no published pages yet (see the questions below).
Choose your homepage. In the Homepage dropdown, select the page you want as your homepage. This is typically a page named "Home."
Choose your blog page (optional). If you have a blog section, select the page for it in the Posts page dropdown. This tells WordPress to display your blog posts on that page automatically. If you don't have a blog, leave this blank.
Click Save Changes. Visit your website to confirm the right page appears.
You're done
Your homepage is now set. The page you selected will appear at your domain root (e.g., https://yoursite.com).
Setting up a blog page
If you want your blog posts to appear at a URL like yoursite.com/news or yoursite.com/blog:
Create a blank page — go to Pages → Add Page, give it a title like "Blog" or "News," and publish it. Leave the content empty. WordPress will fill it with your posts automatically.
Go back to Settings → Reading.
In the "Posts page" dropdown, select the page you just created.
Save Changes. Your blog posts will now appear on that page.
Don't add content to the Posts page
WordPress completely replaces the content of your "Posts page" with the list of blog posts. Anything you add in the editor won't be visible — this page is controlled automatically.
Other settings on this page
The Reading Settings page has a few other options:
- Number of recent posts shown on archive pages (called Blog pages show at most before WordPress 7.1) — How many posts appear on each page of your blog, and of your category and tag lists. 10 is the default. Some themes override this.
- For each post in a feed, include — Controls what appears in your RSS feed. Most sites can leave this at the default.
- Search engine visibility — The checkbox that says "Discourage search engines from indexing this site." This should be unchecked on a live website. If it's checked, Google won't index your site. (It's sometimes left checked after development.)
Check the search engine visibility setting
If your site isn't appearing on Google, this is one of the first things to check. Make sure "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unchecked.
Common questions
I don't have a page to use as my homepage — what do I do?
Create one first. Go to Pages → Add Page, give the page a title (like "Home"), and publish it. Then come back to Settings → Reading and select it. See How to create a new page for step-by-step instructions.
My homepage is set correctly but it still shows blog posts — why?
Check that you've selected "A static page" (not "Your latest posts") and that you've chosen a page in the Homepage dropdown. Also make sure you clicked Save Changes.
Can I use a page builder (like Elementor) for my homepage?
Yes. Set the homepage using the steps above, then open the page in Elementor to edit it. The homepage setting in Reading Settings just tells WordPress which page to display — how the page is designed is separate.
What's the difference between 'Homepage' and 'Posts page'?
Homepage is the page visitors see at your main URL (yoursite.com). Posts page is where blog posts are listed. They should be two different pages.
Related guides
- WordPress general settings explained
- Permalinks & URL structure
- How to create a new page
- How to write & publish a blog post
- Editing SEO titles & descriptions
- My changes aren't showing up
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