So you’ve installed WordPress and plan to use it for your small business website. Now what?
The first step to making your website look like a website for your business instead of a blog is to create a static front page and configure WordPress to use this as your home page.
Normally, when someone visits your WordPress website they will see a list of your latest blog posts. If you are using this for your business website, that may not be what you want on your home page.
Luckily, this is easy to change. Don’t worry, you can still have a page that lists all your blog posts too, if you want to have blog entries or articles on your website.
Create a Static Home Page in WordPress – Step By Step:
After you log into your WordPress Admin, create two WordPress pages.
1) Go to Pages -> Add New. Name the page ‘Welcome’ and Publish it. (Note: Do NOT name it ‘Home’)
I also like to turn off Comments and Pings in the settings at the bottom of this page before publishing it.
2) Go to Pages -> Add New one more time. Name this page ‘Blog’ and Publish it.
3) Now go to Settings -> Reading in your WordPress Admin panel.
4) Change the “Front page displays:” settings to look like this:
A Video Walkthrough
Here is a short video from WordPress.org that walks through these steps:
The End Result – More Like a Website Than a Blog
Once you save these settings with the button at the bottom of the page, you’ll see the page called “Welcome” as the main page of your blog. You can edit this page to have anything you want in it. You’ll also notice there is a page on the site called ‘Blog’ that shows your blog posts still.
That’s all there is to it! Now you have a custom web page for your website, and you can still link to your blog posts if you want to.
Further Customize Your Home Page With Page Templates
The only problem with the screen above, is that the page title (Welcome in this case) and the Sidebar still show up on your website. You can remove those also, but you’ll need to create a WordPress ‘custom page template’ to do that. It’s not hard – read this article to see how: How to Create a Custom Page Template in WordPress.
See an Example WordPress Website
See an example of a complete small business website in WordPress with a customized home page – the SmallBiz WordPress Theme. Click here to watch the video!
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Hey Don
Great tip re: the static page and just what I needed, however I can’t seem to get rid of the comments box on the home page? So it still looks like a blog, can you please give me instructions on how to do this.
Many thanks, Kaori
Kaori,
You can turn off comments easily – while editing your page in WordPress, scroll down below your text and you’ll see a checkbox in the Discussion section labeled “Allow Comments”. Just uncheck that box and the comments box will disappear. (see screenshot here.)
I followed your directions but don’t see the Discussion section “Allow Comments”
Just found it in screen options
Thanks, nice help.
Please share more.
Please help, i done exactly what you said above but for some reason, the header dissappears when i change the static page to “home”
Any help will be apreciated
thanks
Hi Don, Great post but I’m still not sure what to do! I think I may have boxed myself into a corner. I want my hosted wordpress blog to look like a website (not wordpress) so I stickied a post and it’s the only post on my entire site.
All of the other pages on the site are just that “pages”.
So here’s the dilemma, I was going to add new pages but the theme I am using automatically puts those new pages into my header as links! So if I keep adding pages then my header will look awful.
I have limited the number of posts per page to 1, and stickied what I want to be my main page, but when I added another post, the main content I want on my home page disappeared!
So what the heck do I do now? My site is already ranking very high in a very competitive market so I cannot afford to mess this up.
Thanks for your help.
Scott
No problem Scott, you just need to set up a custom menu in WordPress then you’ll have total control over what shows up in your header nav bar. This video shows you how: WordPress Custom Menus
hello man!
good blog, i liked))
welcome to my blog
(ukraine love WP
Hi
I have follow your given step but I am unable to create a blog page .
Please provode me a suitable solution for this query .
Thanks
Hey Don, Thanks!
Its a very useful information for me.
Hi Don,
Your article has been very useful to get me going on a my own site, and I thank you!
For SEO is it advisable to give your home page title ( static page) the same name as your domain name?
i.e “mydomain.com” shows as “My Domain” in the header.
So in WordPress should the page title be “My Domain” as well ? Or would that hurt SEO ?
RLRowe,
No, the HTML title does not need to be the same as the domain name. It should be a descriptive title that includes the keywords you want to rank for, and it should be different for each page on your site.
How do I put multiple short articles or commentaries on one page that can be condensed under headings that expand to show the contents when the cursor is placed over it and collapse when the cursor is removed, similar to a FAQ plugin? Are there plugins that will do this or something similar?
Hi Thomas,
This plugin looks like it will do the trick: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/jquery-collapse-o-matic/
Hey Don, i want to install WordPress blog. Please Guide me how to instal.
Hi 9seos – this video shows you how to install WordPress in less than 5 minutes.
Thanks Don, this video is very helpfull for me while installing WordPress blog.
“i want to install WordPress blog. Please Guide me…”
9seos: You specialize in SEO, but don’t know how to Google this?
Great guide if people need some quick help to start with Wordpress. – I love that CMS system!
Let say, I already have existing webpage that have 5 subpages using same HTML/CSS/Jquery codes… Until then, I added WP blog as sixth subpage (i.e. http://www.mydomain.com/blog). would it be possible for blog to appear in HTML/CSS/Jquery page just like other Instead of use twentyten or other WP templates?
Hi APrather,
You could certainly link to it from your navigation, is that what you mean?
Yes, but just I discovered that I could do almost everything in WP as I could do in Static HTML. Thanks for replying anyway.
Guess I need more training to build a decent website Don. Can you advise me to anyone who can do this (so I can skip the training
) A double, like you suggest here, would be great!
An Peters
Hello An,
Certainly, here are a few WordPress experts who have been through my training and can help you: http://members.expand2web.com/expert-member-consultants
Thank you so much to everyone with all your helpful tips. I’m new to all of this and wish I could find more straightforward guides like this! =))
Amy
Hey I just wanted to say thank you for your article. I always knew that i needed to start to learn how to use Word Press but it just scares me for some reason. I’m using your instruction to build a Military Wife Membership website that will help the wives of active Military servicemen while they are away.
I hope you will check it out.
Thanks again and keep the good information coming!
Military Martha! I checked out your site and think it’s a great idea. I went to the site to reach out to you but there’s no way to contact you on the site anywhere.
Just thought you’d want to know.
G’Day Don!
Thanks for your great blog and instructions for designing a basic website using WordPress. I have created a Start page as per your instructions but I can’t find anywhere where I can remove the comment box that appears at the bottom of the page. I am using Twenty Eleven Theme 1.3
Also I’d like to change the url of my website to be something like http://www.mydomain.net/offers but I am not sure if I can do this and/or if I need to delete WordPress and start over?
Cheers….Craig
Hi Craig,
You’re welcome!
You can turn off comments for any page or post while editing that page or post. The checkbox to turn off comments might be hidden however. I made a video about WordPress 3.3. and in that video I show you where to turn those back on again – here’s a link to the video: What’s New in WordPress 3.3.
To answer your other question, you can move WordPress to a new folder without reinstalling it. Here’s a video that walks you through how to do that: Hove to Move WordPress.
Thanks Don,
Managed the first part and all is good!
The second part is a whole other story! I have left a post on the Hove to Move WordPress blog that I hope you can help me with?
Cheers ….. Craig
Thanks so much for this. Very helpful
I am using the same theme and am hoping that you can help me, as I am new to blogging and Wordpress and the like.
I am wanting to have my drop down menu, go up instead of down, do you know how to make it do that?
Having a welcome page does make your blog look more of a real website rather than just a simple blog. Just make sure that if you’re going to design it, you’re not going to stick to the most generic design. You have to make people become interested by making your design look awesome. Let’s say you’re going to promote businesses that resell SEO services. You have to show them that your site is following the standards, especially in a field like that which is focused on website development tactics that will bring you to the top of search results.
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