This website uses WordPress as its underlying platform, also known as a Content Management System, or CMS. WordPress started out as a blog software, but due to its inherent webpage creation and organization capabilities it has evolved to be a popular platform for any kind of website. Most of the websites I create nowadays are built on WordPress, or include WordPress in some significant component.

This website uses WordPress’s “Pages” functionality in delivering the static content that makes up the primary structure of the site (the Home page, the About, Services, Contact pages). These pages don’t change very often, don’t move around at all, and are meant to remain as the static paradigm fixtures comprising the site itself.

But I also wanted a part of the website that would continually be updated with individual posts, with the most recent at the top, just like a traditional blog. I wanted this part of the website to not be the homepage, but rather reside somewhere inside the site. Thankfully, WordPress can accommodate this very easily; all you need to do is create a blank Page that will serve as your blog posts index page, then go under “Settings >> Reading” and set that Page as your “Posts page”.

Reading Settings for Greenwood-Online.net

Reading Settings for Greenwood-Online.net

I also wanted to have a static introductory paragraph at the top of the posts page, to serve as an introduction to what this section of the website is all about. In order to get this, I simply added my paragraph to the “Main Index Template (index.php)” of my theme, under “Appearance >> Editor”.

Editing the Main Index Template

Editing the Main Index Template

It’s a little bit counterintuitive to edit the Main Index Template, as this would normally be expected to serve as the homepage template; but, since I set my homepage to be a static Page, and set my blog posts to flow instead onto this other Page, WordPress interprets this to be my “Main Index”. It took me a moment to figure that out, but it is indeed working now!