How to edit your site with WordPress block themes—Easy Guide

WordPress is an ever-evolving platform that continues to evolve. With its introduction in early 2022, the concept of ‘full site editing’ and block themes has been going on in the WordPress market for quite a while.

WordPress block themes now offer full-site editing features without requiring any code changes. From headers to footers and to the entire page layouts, they allow users to edit everything. With the latest WordPress updates in WordPress version 6.5, block themes make customization easier than ever.

Similarly, with so many talk themes on the block, you’ve probably heard them and want to explore them for your website. Since the topics are new concepts, you might have little to no idea of this topic. Well, in this blog we’ll be covering how to use the concept of full site editing and WordPress block themes on your website.

But first, let’s learn about them.

What is Full site editing in WordPress

Full Site Editing (FSE) is a concept that allows you to edit your site by adding elements known as blocks over all of your site. It encompasses every section on your site, from headers all the way to footers.

Traditional themes would only allow you to change your contents and employ available layouts for your website. But with FSE, you can easily customize your own layouts, add your own styles, and make changes as per your preference. This concept was introduced to provide to the users when editing their sites.

What are block themes in WordPress?

Block themes are newly introduced themes that feature blocks as their core elements for editing any site. Blocks are like small elements that you can just drag and drop to your website. Headings, Image and embeds are some of the prime examples of the blocks.

Furthermore, if you have used the Gutenberg editor to write or edit your post or page, editing your site with block themes is quite similar to that.

Learn more about WordPress block themes and find out which are the best of them: Best WordPress Block themes for year 2025

Key things you have to note before getting started

Before getting started with the editing of the themes, you have to know some basics of them. This will help you understand what you are looking for and where it can be found in your editor.

1. Blocks: Small elements that you can drag-and-drop onto your site for editing (we’ll learn how to do it later on)
2. Patterns: Consists of multiple blocks grouped together for easy implementation
3. Templates: Templates are the predefined files for the structure and layout of specific types of content or pages on a site. Example: Pages, Posts, Archives
4. Template Parts: They define a particular section of a site but can be reused in various templates. Example: Headers and Footers
5. Global Styles: Global styles are predefined styles that can be implemented throughout the site. They are specially used for typographies, colors, and other elements in the site.

It’s all about using these elements and playing around with them to perfectly design your site from WordPress block themes.

Getting started with WordPress block-based themes

The first of many easy things that you have to do to edit your site is to install and activate your site.

Install and activate your new block theme

Before getting your new block theme, don’t forget to back up your site. And the block themes generally function better when you have the latest version of WordPress for your site. So, be sure to update your site.

After that, choose a theme appropriate for your niche. For this blog, I have chosen BlogHive as my go-to theme. I chose this theme because I believe in simplicity, and there are various templates and patterns that I can easily access and configure.

Now, to install and activate a new block theme, follow these simple steps

Step 1: Go to your WordPress Dashboard and look for Appearance in the side-panel

Step 2: Click or hover over the Appearance tab and click on Themes > Add New.

Step 3: Choose the theme of your desire, or if you’re just exploring, go to the Block themes tab and choose the best one you like.

(You can also activate the default theme (if you have changed it) of the WordPress, Twenty Twenty-Five.)

There are other ways of installing the themes; you can refer to this website to learn more: How to Install a WordPress Theme.

After you’ve activated your theme, go to Appearance > Editor, which will redirect you to the editor page.

There are various approaches to moving forward when it comes to editing a site using the WordPress block theme. Even the approaches among the themes are different.

So, after eons of consideration (from my point of view), I have decided to go with the more generalized version of the method for editing a site.

In the Site Editor page, you’ll see a Design panel at the left side of your screen, where there are a bunch of things like Navigations, Templates, Patterns, and Pages. You can click on each section you want to customize.

Design Tab in block themes

Navigation: From this tab, you can add navigation options for the site much like the Primary Menu section.

Styles: You can implement site-wide styles or global styles from this section.

Pages: Pages section will assist you in editing, removing or adding new pages in your site

Templates: This section will give you various templates that you can implement on your archive, 404, or other important pages. The availability of the templates can depend on the theme you choose.

Patterns: As the name suggests, the Pattern section allows you to implement various patterns available for various sections in your site.

You can use this tab to quickly access various elements that you’d like from your WordPress block theme.

Block Themes vs. Classic Themes: What’s different in site editing?

WordPress offers two main ways to build and customize your site, i.e., Block Themes, which let you design everything with blocks, and Classic Themes, which rely on the customizer, widgets, and code edits. The table below contains a quick comparison to help you understand how each approach handles editing and customization.

Editing your site with Block themes

Choose your templates

Determine where you want to edit your site; you can choose and place templates on that page.

Let’s see how to do it

• First of all, go to Pages from the Design tab. For this case I chose one of the sample pages.

• Then, I go to the Templates tab to choose the templates available to me. For this example, let’s choose the “Index” template available from Bloghive.

You’ll then be redirected to that page where you can further customize your page imported from the template.

Access your template parts

Template parts are sections within the templates that can be easily accessed to enhance and make changes to your templates. They are reusable sections, like headers and footers.

Go to the Design tab and choose Template Parts, and select the parts available to you from the theme.

Employ it as needed as necessary to your templates.

Add Blocks/Patterns

After you’ve chosen your template, it’s time to make certain changes around the page.

You can either go to the block you want to edit and make changes, or you can just add new blocks into the page.

Let’s add a call to action to the page.

• Click on available white space on the page and select the blue ‘+’ sign that appears.
• Go to the Patterns section tab and select the Call-to-Action option.
• Choose your desired patterns and select them.
• Edit the text in the patterns to complete the changes

Style your pages

Styling your WordPress website is another important set of tasks when customizing it. With the help of block themes, you can either configure it globally with Global Style or you can click on individual blocks to customize them.

Go to the Design tab by clicking on the “W” button at the top left of your editor page and choose your preferred styles from the given options.

Or, if you want to design your blocks and other elements individually, click on the respective block and then click on the “palette icon” at the top left side of your screen.

Explore each segment and customize according to your preference to get the right style for your blocks.

Preview and Refine

After you make changes to your website, ensure that it looks good and every block functions as expected.

Wrapping Up!

Block themes are the future of WordPress. It still has a long way to go, but it isn’t far. Before even attempting to edit your site using these types of themes, please make sure that you and your website are absolutely in need and are ready to make changes.

Traditional themes are still best when it comes to utilizing a theme to its fullest. But with block themes, you’ll be granted total freedom to customize your website and maneuver as per your choice. Just make sure that you’re choosing the right theme that has every template, pattern, template part, and style as per your preference before choosing it.

Happy editing!