Sticky posts

A sticky post stays at the top of the blog home, above the newest post, however old it is. It is a core WordPress feature.

Making a post sticky

In the block editor: Post tab in the sidebar → Summary → tick Stick to the top of the blog.

In the classic editor: Publish box → Visibility → Edit → Stick this post to the front page.

What the theme does

A sticky post in a listing carries a Pinned post label above its content, in your heading font.

The label matters. Without it, a reader who visits weekly sees the same post at the top and concludes you have stopped publishing. With it, they know it is deliberate and scroll past.

The label appears in all three display modes. In the list and grid displays it sits inside the card’s text block, so it does not stretch into a full-width bar across the row.

Where sticky applies

The blog home only. Category, tag, author, date and search results ignore stickiness and list posts in date order — which is what you want, since a pinned “start here” post is not the most relevant result for every search.

What to pin

One post. Two at most.

• A Start here post for new readers.
• An announcement with a shelf life — a book launch, a move, a hiatus notice.
• Your best post, if you have one that is obviously the door into everything else.

Unpin it when it stops being true. A pinned post from three years ago is worse than no pinned post, because it is the first thing every visitor reads.

Alternatives

If what you actually want is a permanent introduction rather than a post, consider a static front page instead: Settings → Reading → Your homepage displays → A static page, with your blog on a separate posts page. The theme handles that arrangement — the posts page shows its own title above the listing rather than a generic “Archives”.