Typepad 101: Creating a Landing or Welcome Page

A lot of folks ask us how they can use Typepad to create a more traditional website. One way is to use the Pages feature to create a welcome or landing page. Readers will see this page first when visiting your site and then they can click around to other content.

An example of a Typepad site with a landing page is recent Typepad Services client Darcy Daniels - she uses a Page to welcome folks to her site and direct them to important content.

Darcy's site uses the new Responsive feature for the Theme Builder

This is a really easy way to give your site the look and feel of a traditional website without a lot of extra work.

To create your landing page, simply click on the down arrow on the Compose button and choose New Page. You'll see an editor that's exactly like what you use when creating blog posts.

You can add in anything you wish from there! Here are some suggestions:

Include a welcome message that greets your readers and tells them a little about the site or you, the author. You can include an image of yourself or your business.

Provide direct links to pages or other sites you want to draw to their attention - that could be your "about" page, contact info, social media profiles, or anything else you think is important.

If your site is for a business, be sure to include contact and location information right on the landing page so it's easy to find. You can include it again on a separate page but folks will appreciate if you make that info easily accessible.

If you're using blog posts as part of the site, you'll want to make sure to include a link to that on the landing page and/or in your Navigation Bar so readers can find your blog easily. The URL for the blog posts landing page always looks like:

http://example.typepad.com/blog-folder/blog_index.html

Or if you're using a domain that's mapped to a specific blog:

http://www.yoursite.com/blog_index.html

After your landing/welcome page is ready for the world, just go to Blogs > Posts > Settings and look for the Front Page section. There you can choose to show your new landing page as the main page of the blog and then click Save at the bottom of that page.

That's it! You should see your new page when you visit your site. For even more tips and ideas, check out our Knowledge Base article on creating a landing page.

Do you use a landing or welcome page on your blog? Tell us about it in the comments for this post. We'd love to hear how you're using the Pages feature!