Setting your homepage
Learn how to choose which page appears as your WordPress homepage, and how to set up a separate blog page.
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
Beginner 5 minutes- 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 |
Almost all 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." Two dropdowns appear 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 New, 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:
- Blog pages show at most X posts — How many posts appear on the blog page before a "Next page" link appears. 10 is the default.
- 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 box
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
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
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