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You’re now ready to replace the placeholder content with your own. You can click on and edit each piece of content within your homepage template.
If you worked through our Plan Your Homepage lesson, this is where your hard work will really pay off, because you’ll mostly copy and paste the text you’ve already written, and insert (or search for) the images you’ve already decided on.
If the patterns you selected in the Design your own feature have extra elements that you don’t need, you can remove them. If they’re missing a piece you want, you can add it.
Each block comes with its own unique set of options in the toolbar and the settings sidebar on the right. Select any block to explore these options and further customize your content.
Every block has its own block toolbar with a variety of settings to choose from.
Each block also has additional options available in the Settings sidebar to apply further customizations.
Be sure to explore the additional menus for each setting option as well!
If this is your first website, we recommend keeping advanced editing to a minimum. While placing the patterns was a simple click, if you change the structure of those patterns significantly you might run into some challenges. This is because WordPress is extremely powerful. With other site builders, once you place their patterns there’s very little you can do with them. With WordPress you can do pretty much anything you want, which includes breaking them.
That said, you also don’t need to stress about it, because all of the patterns that you chose in the Design your own feature are also available in the editor by clicking the block inserter icon, which is the + symbol in the top left corner, and going to the Patterns section. You browse them and add them the same way as you did for your homepage layout, with a simple click.
There is also the convenient Undo arrow in the top left corner. So if you make a change that makes you gasp, just click that undo arrow to reverse the change. You can keep clicking undo to reverse multiple changes too.
And in dire situations, if you’ve saved the template more than once, you can also access Revisions from the Template tab of the Settings sidebar on the right.
Note:
You need to have saved some changes before the revision history will be available. You can make a minor change, save, and repeat until you see the Revisions option display.
The number of available Revisions will display here when available. Make a minor change and save the template until you see this option displayed. That will confirm that your revision history will be available moving forward.
The links included below will cover more detailed how-to steps for editing your content.
As mentioned you can remove blocks from the patterns you’ve selected, the delete option is found in the 3 dots menu of the block toolbar. You can also add blocks anywhere within an existing pattern.
Pro-tip:
Select an existing block adjacent to where you want to add a new block. Click the 3 dots menu in the block toolbar and choose Add before or Add after to place the new block exactly where you want it. You can do the same thing to add new patterns before or after existing patterns.
To replace placeholder images, click on the image and then click Replace in the toolbar.
You can either upload your own image from your computer or search for images directly within the block.
Our Working With Images support guide is a comprehensive resource regarding all things related to images.
If you included a Blog Posts pattern in your layout, you’ll want to review our support guide for the Query Loop block. This is a powerful, dynamic block, with many options.
The full process of editing the content for your homepage is going to depend on the specific blocks included in the patterns you chose. The List View on the left, the block toolbar, and the Settings sidebar on the right will be extremely helpful for understanding which blocks you’re working with and how to customize them.
Our full list of blocks will also be beneficial in understanding how to use specific blocks, and for finding additional blocks that you may want to add to your layout.
You’re welcome to click blocks and explore to discover the abilities of the blocks in your patterns, but keep the resources above in mind if you happen to get stuck on anything.
Every single block has its own set of options available, and while our support guides will detail them for you, the best way to understand them is to experience them. This is another reason we encourage you to practice.
Select a block, and click on every option in the toolbar and Settings sidebar to see what’s available and what they do. This exploration will help bring to mind what’s possible when you’re making specific edits.
When you want to customize your website’s site-wide colors and fonts, the Explorer (Premium) plan or higher provides the advanced customization options you need. You can access these options using Styles in the Site Editor by clicking the half-moon icon in the top right corner. You can customize site-wide options and set defaults for specific blocks. Styles offer extremely powerful customization options for your site so that you can really make it your own in a way that is convenient and provides consistency throughout your site.
If you selected premium colors or fonts in the Design your own feature, this Styles section is where you’ll be able to further edit and customize them.
However, if you’re not ready to upgrade, there are still plenty of color and font options that you can customize on a per block basis through the settings for each block.
If you’re uncertain about the colors or fonts you want to use, we recommend sticking with the default options to launch your homepage. You can always edit it more later. You can also upgrade↗︎ at any time.
A website is a journey, not a destination. Any decision you make today, can be changed tomorrow. WordPress.com is designed to grow with you, so you’re never stuck.
Click Save in the top right corner to review which components of your site will be saved, then click save again.
You can go to the main dashboard of your site by clicking the site icon in the top left corner to exit the Site Editor and then again to go to the dashboard.
If you’d like to explore other areas of the Site Editor, our support guide for Use the Site Editor is an excellent companion. We also have an introductory lesson for the Site Editor in our Getting Started course, and the Create Your Site course will further explore additional options.
If you added additional pages within the Design your own feature you’ll find them under the Pages section from your main dashboard↗︎.
You can click on the title of any page to open the Page Editor and then edit the page layouts the same way as you edited your homepage content above.
You’ll notice that the Header and Footer appear to be missing from this editor, but don’t fret. By default, all of your pages are using the “Pages” template which was created automatically when you activated your new theme and is using the same Header and Footer as your homepage.
If you’d like to edit the structural layout of the default “Pages” template you can do so from the Site Editor, which you can get back to at any time by going to Appearance > Editor > Templates. For example, you might want to change the header so it looks different on the inside pages compared to your home page. We have a detailed approach to this here but here’s how you can do it quickly.
In the list view, click on the “header” and then click on “replace” (see below). You’ll see it comes up with a new set of choices. Choose the one you want by clicking on it and it will replace the look of your header on your internal pages.
Select the list view
Select the header by clicking on it and click the 3 dots that appear
Select replace to change the header
If you’re not ready to edit these pages, but you want to launch your homepage, you can switch these pages to drafts for now and come back to them later. When you switch a page to draft it will also be removed from your Navigation menu for the site. If you’re not planning to launch the site and set it public yet, you can leave these pages as they are. No one but you has access to them.
If you’d like to add more pages you can click on the Add new page button from your Pages↗︎ section. Be sure to try out the Page Layouts offered by WordPress.com and don’t forget to explore Block Patterns within the block inserter section. These patterns can be added with a click and edited in the exact same way as the patterns you selected for your homepage. For a hands-on exploration of adding additional pages, we recommend our Creating Pages lesson in the Create Your Site course.
If you do add additional pages, you may want to also update your site’s menu. In most cases, the Navigation block for the site’s menu will be using the Page List block by default, and your pages will be added automatically. But if they’re not, or you want to change the order of the items in your menu, you can do this within the Site Editor. Within any template, edit your Header pattern, select the Navigation block, and then add, remove, rename, or reorder your menu items as desired. If your Navigation block is using the Page List block, you’ll need to detach the items first, which you’ll be prompted to do.
Pro-tip:
Any time you’re working in one of the editors, utilize the List View by clicking the 3 horizontal lines in the top left corner. This view makes it much easier to see what blocks you have and what is selected.
You are now ready to launch your Homepage!
In some cases, you may be presented with a Launchpad screen, which will give you the option to Launch your site. If not, from the main dashboard↗︎ of your site go to Settings > General↗︎, and you’ll find the button to “Launch site”. Once launched, this section will provide you with privacy settings for your site.
If you’re starting with a brand new site, you can launch just your homepage to provide a glimpse of the exciting content and features that visitors can anticipate coming soon. You don’t have to build the entire site before you launch. A well-crafted homepage is all it takes to establish your online presence in a meaningful way, even before the rest of your site is developed.
But even if you launch the site and then change your mind about it being public, you can set it to the Coming Soon option in the privacy settings mentioned above.
Take a moment to appreciate the work you’ve done so far, no matter how far along you got. These initial steps are a huge accomplishment toward achieving your website goals!
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