One Page WordPress Website with Separate Blog Section

In a nutshell, this is a single page website. But it’s much more than that. It’s a complete WordPress website with a separate blog section. Meaning, this simple, elegant, and easy to follow front-end methodology can be implemented to create a fully functioning online store, magazine, or blog. Pretty cool, huh?

Let’s have a closer look.

Live Preview

One of the cool things about this tutorial is that you’ll get to see how it all comes together almost immediately. Because we’re using the amazing services of Squarespace, we can upload our completed website to a live preview stage, where you can click through and interact with our web content, make changes, or even add/remove content as you see fit.

Now, you might be wondering, “how is this such a quick and easy tutorial when there’s so much to do?” Let me answer that by saying that we’re going to do everything manually, from setting up the basic structure of the site to adding images and content. So, while there’s a lot to it, there’s not a lot of automation involved. It’s more of a “cut and paste” job. Which means, if you know what you’re doing, you can knock this out in a day or two. Or less!

Full Functioning Website

Once we’ve got our live preview ready, it’s time to take a deep breath, and finally launch our completed website. Let’s take a look at what we’ve accomplished so far.

Here’s the home page, where we’ve implemented a simple blog layout. Meaning, everything from the blog posts to the website footer is presented in the blog format, with a few other bits of content here and there.

Here are the blog posts, which can be found alongside the other content.

And here’s the thing about this website. From the very beginning, we knew that we wanted to create something a little bit different. Something that’s a cross between a blog and a magazine. So, while the layout is simple, it’s not completely lacking in features. For example, each blog post has an archive link at the end, which takes you to a list of all the previous blog posts. So, if you ever wanted to go back and read previous content, you could easily do so. Similarly, by clicking on each blog post, you’ll be taken to a page with all the metadata associated with that particular post. There’s also a nifty search bar at the top of the page, which does a decent job of searching all the content as you type. As for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), we opted for the standard Yoast SEO option built into WordPress. Meaning, all the blog posts and the home page content are listed in the correct order of importance to search engines. To learn more, check out the Yoast SEO blog post about the advantages of utilizing their free tool. It’s a great read, and will teach you everything you need to know about SEO for websites.

Separate Blog Section

As we’ve mentioned, this is a WordPress website with a separate blog section. To begin with, let’s take a quick look at how the blog section of our completed website appears.

Here’s the blog header, which gives you an idea of what the blog looks like.

And here’s the most crucial part. The actual blog post, which you can click through to read more.

As you can see, everything about the blog is contained within its own block, with the exception of the homepage content. So, in essence, the blog page can be seen as a mini-website in its own right. One that might even be a little bit more detailed than the rest of the site, given its special nature.

Online Store

Another thing you’ll notice about this website is that we’ve implemented an online store. It’s a pretty basic e-commerce store, where you can buy a range of products from our blog posts. For instance, if you click on the “Products” page, you’ll be taken to a product detail page.

Here’s the product page for the blue floral-print dress.

As you can see, we’ve presented all the necessary information regarding the product, including its price, shipping & taxes. In addition, there’s a handy “add to cart” button, which allows you to quickly add the product to your shopping cart, once you’ve made the purchase. This way you avoid the hassle of entering your shipping and billing information each time you want to make a purchase. Of course, you could also create an account for easier shopping in the future.

Magazine Style Blog

Now, while we’ve presented what is essentially a blog, with posts and archives accessible through a simple navigation bar at the top, it is not a typical blog. Meaning, it’s not just a list of posts. It’s much more than that. Because we wanted to keep this blog section separate from the rest of the site, we gave it its own unique navigation bar at the top. Meaning, if you were to enter the site through one of the blog posts, you would be directed to the top of the magazine-styled blog, where you’ll find all the essential content, including the search bar, navigation, and archives.

Here’s what the magazine blog section of our completed website looks like.

As you can see, we’ve implemented a magazine blog layout. It’s more of a “portfolio” style blog, where you can read all the latest news, features, and even take a look at what previous contributors have been up to. So, in other words, it’s not completely devoid of content. Meaning, even if you weren’t to click on any of the individual blog posts, you’d still have something of value to read on the whole website.

Static Homepage

Another thing we wanted to do with this tutorial is build a fully functioning static homepage. Meaning, the homepage of our website does not change. No matter what page you’re on, or what changes you make throughout the rest of the site, the homepage will always display the same content. This allows us to save a ton of time in the long run.

Here’s what our static homepage looks like.

As you can see, we’ve presented all the necessary information regarding the products we offer, as well as the services we provide. In addition, there’s a search bar, and a handy “shop now” button, which allows you to go directly to our online store, without having to navigate to another page. In case you want to read more about the products we sell, you can click through to the dedicated product pages, or visit our online store, where you’ll find a wide variety of t-shirts, sweatshirts, and accessories, in addition to what we’ve presented so far on the homepage.

So there you have it. A quick overview of how to put together a complete WordPress website, with dedicated blog, magazine, and e-commerce sections. In case you found this particular tutorial valuable, here are a few pointers for where to go from here: