In most cases, the homepage is the first experience a visitor will
have on your website. Therefore, it needs to be a good one. To ensure
that it is, you need to have a layout that is stylish and simple to
navigate. If not, you need to change your homepage.
Luckily, WordPress is highly customizable, and changing up your
homepage is pretty simple to do. That said, depending on what theme you
use and any already existing customizations you might have in place, the
process can get complex.
Today, I will demonstrate how to alter the appearance of your homepage’s layout in WordPress.
Why A Great Homepage Matters
A homepage is similar to the front of a business. You look through
the windows to see if it has anything that is interesting. If not, you
walk away to the next store. But if something catches your eye, you’re
interested enough to walk inside and take a look.
That’s exactly how a homepage works.
A truly great homepage can get visitors to further explore your
website and even help set the tone of your website. For instance, if
your homepage is oozing professionalism, that might help encourage
visitors to trust any other information you may have within.
However, there is one factor of every homepage that matters the most – the call to action.
This is the message that really entices visitors to look around and
interact with your website. They may even be inclined to make a purchase
if the rest of your site is as compelling. Whereas on the flip side, if
your homepage is generic or not that great, visitors are likely to
leave.
Thus, you need to change your homepage to stand out and entice customers.
You can see this metric in Google Analytics by looking at the bounce rate of your homepage.
How to Change the Layout of Your Homepage
Method 1: Change Your Theme
One of the simplest ways is to change the actual theme of your
website. This might sound extreme, but in many cases, the layout of your
dreams already exists on a different theme. Thus, switching to the
desired theme is less work than trying to replicate the results with
code.
Granted, this can be problematic for websites that have been around
for a while. Thus, if your not comfortable changing themes, check out
the next method.