How to set the homepage in WordPress

WordPress gives you two separate concepts that both sound like “homepage” and that is where most of the confusion starts. The front page is what visitors see when they land on your domain. The posts page is the reverse-chronological feed of blog posts. You can configure them independently, and you have to if you want a real landing page instead of a stream of blog posts at the root of your site. Here is how to set each one, where to edit them, and how to fix the conflicts that come up when the two settings disagree.

The two modes: posts or a static page#

Open Settings > Reading in the WordPress admin. The first option, “Your homepage displays,” controls everything:

• Your latest posts – the default. The root of your domain shows the blog feed. Newest post first, paginated. Most themes render this as a list of cards or excerpts.
• A static page – the root of your domain shows a specific page you pick. Blog posts, if you have any, live on a separate URL.

Once you switch to “A static page,” two dropdowns unlock:

• Homepage – the page shown at the root of your domain ( https://yoursite.com/ ).
• Posts page – the page used as the blog archive ( https://yoursite.com/blog or whatever slug you give it).

The posts page is a page you create, but WordPress ignores whatever content you put in it. The moment you assign a page as the posts page, its body text is discarded in favor of the blog feed. This is why the page you use as the posts page should be left empty – anything you write there is invisible.

Setting a static homepage#

1. Create the page you want to use as your homepage. Pages > Add New in the admin. Give it a title, add your content, save it as a draft or publish it.
2. Create a second empty page for the blog archive. Call it “Blog” or “News” or whatever you prefer. Leave the body empty.
3. Go to Settings > Reading.
4. Select “A static page” under “Your homepage displays.”
5. Choose your homepage from the Homepage dropdown.
6. Choose your empty blog page from the Posts page dropdown.
7. Click Save Changes.

Visit your site. The root domain now shows the homepage you built, and /blog/ (or whatever slug the posts page has) shows your blog feed.

If you switch back to “Your latest posts” later, the root of your domain reverts to showing posts. The static pages you created still exist – they just no longer have the homepage role assigned.

The homepage blog title settings conflict#

This error appears in SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math, and sometimes in theme builders. It means your homepage and posts page are set to the same page, or WordPress cannot determine which role a page is playing.

The fix: go to Settings > Reading and make sure the Homepage and Posts page dropdowns point to two different pages. If they point to the same page, change one of them.

The conflict usually happens one of three ways:

• You created one page and assigned it as both the homepage and the posts page. WordPress tolerates this but SEO plugins flag it because the page’s meta description and title tags become ambiguous.
• You deleted the page that was assigned as the posts page. WordPress silently falls back to using the homepage, which produces the same conflict.
• A page builder template overrides the reading settings. Elementor and Divi templates with a “home” condition can display on the root URL even when WordPress’s own settings point elsewhere. The browser shows the builder’s template, but WordPress internally reports a different page as the homepage.

To diagnose, hover over the admin bar on the front page. The “Edit Page” link tells you which page WordPress thinks you are looking at. If it does not match the page you expected, check your page builder’s template conditions and your reading settings.

Editing the homepage in the block editor#

If you are using the classic block editor (Gutenberg without Full Site Editing), your homepage is a regular page with blocks. Edit it like any other page: Pages > All Pages, find your homepage, click Edit.

The block editor is where most new homepages get built today. Common patterns:

• Cover block at the top for a hero section with a background image and headline text.
• Columns block for feature grids, pricing tables, or service summaries.
• Query Loop block to pull in recent posts or products without turning the page into the full blog feed.
• Group block to create consistent background colors and padding across sections.
• Buttons block for calls to action.

The native block editor has gotten capable enough that most sites do not need a page builder for a standard marketing homepage. Blocks render fast because they output plain HTML – no layout JavaScript runs on the visitor’s browser. That affects page speed in a way that matters both for user experience and search rankings. Theme choice matters too – a heavy theme with dozens of fonts and inline scripts slows the homepage down even if the content is light. If you are picking a theme around the time you build your homepage, install and customize a WordPress theme walks through what to evaluate.

Previewing before publishing

When you are editing the page that is assigned as your homepage, the Preview button at the top right opens the page in a new tab exactly as a visitor would see it, including the theme’s header, footer, and any wrappers. This is different from the editor preview, which shows blocks in isolation.

If the preview shows something different from what you see in the editor, the difference is usually the theme’s page template. Full-width templates strip the sidebar. Transparent header templates change the navbar behavior on the homepage specifically. The Preview button is always more accurate than the editor’s visual representation.

Editing the homepage with Elementor#

Elementor overrides the block editor on any page you edit with it. The page’s content becomes “Edited with Elementor” and WordPress stops using the native editor for that page until you disconnect Elementor from it.

To edit an Elementor homepage:

1. Go to Pages > All Pages and find the page assigned as your homepage.
2. Click Edit with Elementor (not the regular Edit link).
3. The Elementor interface loads with your homepage content.
4. Make changes. Click Update to publish them live.

Elementor also has a “theme builder” feature in the Pro version that lets you build a homepage template that displays on the front page regardless of what page WordPress has assigned. This is convenient but can cause the homepage blog title conflict – the URL shows the Elementor template, but WordPress still reports the assigned page as the homepage.

If you want Elementor to edit your homepage cleanly, use the page editor, not the theme builder. The theme builder is better suited for templates that apply across many pages (like all single posts or all products) rather than one-off homepages.

Common Elementor problems on the homepage

• White screen or spinner that never loads. Elementor’s editor sometimes fails to load due to JavaScript errors from other plugins or theme conflicts. Disable plugins one at a time to find the conflict, or temporarily switch to a default theme to test.
• Changes not appearing live. Elementor caches its compiled CSS. Go to Elementor > Tools > Regenerate Files & Data to clear it.
• The Elementor canvas template conflicts with the theme. The Elementor Canvas template removes the theme’s header and footer entirely, which is useful for landing pages but not for a homepage that should use the site’s normal navigation menu. Use the “Elementor Full Width” template instead, which keeps the theme’s header and footer but removes the sidebar.

Editing the homepage in the Customizer#

The Customizer is the older WordPress interface for theme settings: Appearance > Customize. Themes expose colors, fonts, header images, widgets, and sometimes front-page-specific options here.

The Customizer does not let you build a homepage from scratch. What it does let you do is configure theme-level settings that affect how the homepage looks:

• Header image for themes that support one.
• Site identity – the logo, site title, and tagline (the same site title and tagline settings from the General page).
• Colors and background on themes that expose these.
• Homepage settings – the same “static page vs posts page” selector that lives in Settings > Reading.
• Widgets in sidebars or footer areas that appear on the homepage.

On older classic themes, the Customizer is still the main way to change visual details. On newer block themes, the Customizer shrinks to a handful of options because the Full Site Editor replaces it.

Editing the homepage with Full Site Editing#

Full Site Editing (FSE) is the newer approach built into block themes like Twenty Twenty-Four, Twenty Twenty-Five, and any theme that declares block template support. Instead of a Customizer, you get Appearance > Editor in the admin.

The FSE editor is a complete visual editor for every template in your theme: home, single post, page, archive, 404, header, footer. You edit the template that applies to the front page, not a specific page’s content.

To edit the homepage in an FSE theme:

1. Make sure your Reading settings point to either “Your latest posts” or “A static page,” depending on what you want.
2. Go to Appearance > Editor.
3. Click Templates in the sidebar.
4. If your homepage is the posts page (latest posts), edit the Home or Index template.
5. If your homepage is a static page, edit either the Front Page template or the page’s own template.

This is where FSE gets confusing. A block theme can have a Front Page template that takes priority over the static page you assigned in Settings > Reading. If you configure a Front Page template in FSE and also assign a static page, visitors see the Front Page template, not your page’s content. The static page assignment still exists in the database but is shadowed by the template.

To check which template is actually rendering, open the front page in an incognito window and look at the page source. WordPress adds a body class like home page-template-front-page or home blog that tells you which template won.

When the homepage shows posts and you want a page#

This is the most common complaint. You built a beautiful About page or a marketing page and assigned it as your homepage, but visitors still see blog posts at the root URL. The fix is almost always one of four things:

1. Reading settings never saved. Go back to Settings > Reading, confirm “A static page” is selected and the correct page is in the Homepage dropdown, and click Save Changes again. WordPress sometimes silently drops the setting if the page was a draft when you saved.
2. Caching is serving the old version. If your hosting has a page cache or you use a caching plugin, the root URL might still be cached as the blog feed. Clear the cache and try again. On Hostney, the Hostney Cache plugin purges the homepage automatically when you change the Reading settings, so you should not have to clear it manually. On other hosts you may need to flush the cache after every Reading-settings change.
3. A plugin or theme is intercepting the front page. Some themes include a “demo homepage” feature that auto-renders posts on the front page regardless of Reading settings. Check your theme’s documentation or look in Appearance for a “Homepage Settings” subpage.
4. A page builder front-page template is active. Elementor’s theme builder, Divi’s theme builder, and similar tools can override the native homepage. Go into the builder’s theme settings and disable the front-page template, or make sure it points to the page you want.

When the homepage shows a page and you want posts#

Less common, but happens after migrations or theme changes. The fix is the reverse:

1. Settings > Reading and select “Your latest posts.” Save.
2. Clear your cache.
3. If still showing a static page, check whether a page builder template is intercepting the front page and disable it.

Preview-publish cycle#

WordPress does not have a dedicated “preview the homepage” button because the homepage is just a page or the blog feed – both of which have their own preview mechanisms. The workflow:

• If your homepage is a static page: edit the page, click Preview, and the page renders with your theme. This is your homepage preview.
• If your homepage is the posts page: there is no single-page preview. Publish a draft post, view the root URL (which shows the post feed), and unpublish if needed.
• If you use FSE, the Site Editor has its own preview that shows the entire page within the selected template.

For bigger changes, the right workflow is a staging site. Push your changes to a staging copy, test them there, and then promote to production. If your hosting supports staging environments, use them. If not, the pragmatic alternative is a second WordPress install on a subdomain (for example, staging.yoursite.com ) where you clone your production content with a migration plugin or manual copy, iterate on the homepage there, then apply the same changes to production once you are happy.

Permalinks and the homepage URL#

The homepage always lives at the root of your domain: https://yoursite.com/ . Nothing in Settings > Permalinks changes that. What permalinks affect is the URL of the page you assigned as the homepage, which is only visible if you ever unassign it.

For example, if you assign a page called “Welcome” as your homepage, visitors see it at / . But the page itself also has a URL like /welcome/ based on your permalink structure. If you ever switch your homepage to “Your latest posts,” the Welcome page becomes accessible at /welcome/ again.

This is worth knowing because it means you do not lose the page when you switch homepage modes – you just change what URL serves it.

Troubleshooting checklist#

If something is wrong with your homepage, walk through these in order:

1. Reading settings. Open Settings > Reading, confirm Homepage and Posts page are set correctly, save again.
2. Clear cache. Both your hosting cache and any caching plugin.
3. Page builder templates. Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder theme builder features. Disable any active front-page templates.
4. Theme front-page template. If using an FSE theme, check Appearance > Editor > Templates > Front Page or Home.
5. Plugin conflicts. Disable plugins one at a time, especially SEO plugins and page builders.
6. Preview in incognito. Rules out browser caching and login-only views.
7. Check the admin bar. The “Edit Page” link on the front page shows WordPress’s idea of which page you are viewing. If it does not match, a builder or template is intercepting.

Most homepage problems come down to three sources: reading settings, caching, and builder templates. Check those first before going deeper. If the homepage is not the only thing broken – if the rest of the admin also misbehaves or pages fail to load – the issue is probably bigger than just the homepage. The general WordPress errors guide covers the broader patterns.