static front page for blogger

you might have noticed that your blogspot home page defaults to the recent posts. blogs look different from standard websites, as their front page continuosly changes displaying the latest blog posts.

i had a requirement for a static front page, for my blog to mimic a website. this is not too difficult. but not too obvious either.

wordpress provides a simple way to specify a static front page, and also to specify a page for your blog posts.
http://support.wordpress.com/pages/front-page

the following steps are for Google Blogger hosted blogs.

our first step is to create our static front page. we call it Home.

[Pages] -> [New Page] -> [Blank Page] -> [Page Title] -> [Home] -> [Save]

the default home page of a blog is the list of recent posts. we hide this default home page.

[Layout] -> [Pages] -> [Edit] -> untick default Home -> [Save]

[Pages] -> [Show pages as] -> [Top tabs]
_ notice (default) Home is Hidden

next, we redirect the default home to our new front page.

[Settings] -> [Search preferences] -> [Custom Redirects] -> [Edit] -> [New Redirect] ->
_ From: /
_ To: /p/home.html (verify page name)
_ Permanent: yes
[Save] -> [Save Changes]

we will lose our blog by redirecting the home page, since our blog was the default home page. so we create another page and link it to our blog.

[Pages] -> [New Page] -> [Web address] ->
_ Page title: Blog
_ URL: /index.html
[Save]

finally, reorder all pages

[Pages] -> [Show pages as] -> [Top tabs]
_ notice (default) Home is Hidden
_ drag (new) Home to top of list
_ drag Blog to required

don't forget to save!

[Save Arrangement]

Apparently, blogger on mobile works funny with redirects. Test it: http://{blog}.blogspot.com/?m=1

Till blogger resolves these issues, the best that we can do is disable the mobile template.

[Template] -> [Mobile] -> [No] -> [Save]