Hi Pete,
Great job putting together a site for your walking club, it sounds like you’ve built something really engaging for your visitors.
For your setup, I’d recommend using a dedicated template. That way, all the layout elements (query loops, columns, etc.) stay separate from the page content, making it cleaner to maintain and easier to adjust in the future. If you expect to change the layout often in the editor, a standard page could still work, but for a structured homepage like yours, a custom template is a solid, future-proof choice.
Here’s how you can create custom templates: https://ww.wp.xz.cn/documentation/article/template-editor/#new-template
Thanks Neha, I really appreciate your comments.
I think it depends on what you’re expecting to do with these sections in the future and what the display is.
I don’t disagree that this could be a separate template, but these sound somewhat reusable as well. For example, you may want to feature those upcoming walks elsewhere on your site as well. In that case, the query block could be created as a pattern for reuse elsewhere. Same with the others.
If your front page is expected to be very different from other pages (not just patterns and blocks, but the entire format) then I say you should use a template. However if it follows most of your other pages but with different content creating a template is not needed and you may be better off creating patterns for the things you reuse and use the standard page template.
In my opinion, templates are best for large scale differences that you either need to stand out or want to reuse.
Thanks very much for your comments. You’ve raised some really good points for me to think about.
