Video: Make WordPress Look Like a Website

by Don Campbell on January 2, 2009 · 63 comments

This video walk-through is a follow-on to my recent post How To Create a Custom Page Template in WordPress. In the video, we’ll walk through how to create a WordPress Page to show up as the default for your website (instead of the standard list of blog posts.)

Then we’ll take it to the next level and customize that start page by removing the title and sidebar so that you can completely control what shows up on the home page of your website.

Check it out and let me know if you have any questions in the comments below!

Update: watch this video to see how to create a custom page template that is editable from the visual WordPress editor!

See my WordPress Powered Websites series for more Wordpress articles, tips and tricks for small business websites!

{ 7 trackbacks }

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1 George July 2, 2010 at 8:59 am: Hi,

I like your tutorial and just started understanding Wordpress.
I have created a test website first as a static website for business.
What I like to do now is create a Gallery where I can post pictures and videos but at the same time have a Blog.

Basically my menus are like this:
Home | About Us| News | Blog | Gallery |Contact Us

I can’t seem to create a Gallery for my photos and videos that acts like a blog and a Blog at the same time.

I wonder if this is possible for wordpress themes

Reply
2 Don Campbell July 2, 2010 at 10:09 am: George,
Thank you! WordPress has a nice photo gallery feature built in that allows you to post pictures. Here is a video tutorial – How to Create an Image Gallery . And here is a video that shows you how to add a video to your home page.

Reply
3 mark compton July 16, 2010 at 4:18 pm: Hi,

Thanks for your video on adjusting the page templates for pages.
I think I got most of it, but didn’t have any luck in it working.

I’m assuming it’s something minor with my code transcription, as aspects of yours didn’t show clearly in the video when I viewed it and I’m unfamiliar with what might be common to others. The result was the option to change templates didn’t show in the page theme window.

Here’s what I copied down from you:
<?php
/*
?Template Name: Cover Page
*/
?=

I think I got all the other steps. If you could give a quick tip that would be great.
Thanks,
Mark

Reply
4 Don Campbell July 18, 2010 at 5:01 pm: Hi Mark,
Take a look at this post – WordPress Custom Page Template with No Sidebars – it includes some actual code for a page template. If you compare that to what you’ve got that should help.

Reply