How to Show Comments on the Homepage of Your WordPress Theme

Do you want to show comments on the homepage of your WordPress theme?

By adding comments to this important page, you can make a great first impression with new visitors, while also encouraging users to join in the conversion.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to add comments to the homepage of any WordPress theme, even if your theme doesn’t support it by default.

Why Show Comments on Your Homepage?

Comments are the easiest way for visitors to communicate with you and each other. They allow visitors to send feedback, ask questions, and offer their point of view.

If your posts are getting lots of comments, then it’s a sign that you’re building an active community around your WordPress blog. With that in mind, you may want to make these comments more visible and prominent by displaying them on your homepage.

The homepage is often the first thing that new visitors see, so comments can be a form of social proof that encourages first-time users to check out more of your site. It also makes it easier for users to see the latest conversations and get involved in the discussion.

If your theme lets you add widgets to your homepage, then you can simply add comments in the sidebar area. However, not all themes support homepage widgets.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to add comments to the homepage, no matter what WordPress theme you are using. You can use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you prefer.

Method 1: Showing Comments on Your Homepage Using the Latest Comments Widget

WordPress comes with a built-in Latest Comments widget that you can add to any widget-ready area. To learn more, please see our complete guide on how to add WordPress widgets.

If your theme doesn’t support homepage widgets, then we recommend creating your own homepage design using a page builder plugin.

SeedProd is the best landing page builder on the market and makes it easy to create a fully custom WordPress theme, including a custom homepage. For more information, please see our guide on how to edit a WordPress homepage.

After creating your homepage design, simply scroll to the ‘Widgets’ section in SeedProd’s left-hand menu.

Here, just find the Recent Comments widget and add it to your layout using drag and drop.

With that done, click to select the widget in the page preview.

You can now change how many comments appear on your homepage, using the ‘Number of comments to show’ field.

You can also add an optional title, which will appear above the latest comments.

When you’re happy with how the widget is set up, you can change how it looks by clicking on the ‘Advanced’ tab.

Here, you can change the text color, font, spacing, and more.

You can even draw attention to the recent comments by adding CSS animations.

As you make changes, you can click on the ‘Apply’ button to see those changes in the live preview. This allows you to try different settings to see what looks the best.

When you’re happy with how the custom homepage looks, it’s time to publish it by clicking on the ‘Save’ button.

Then, choose ‘Publish.’

After publishing your design, you’ll need to tell WordPress to use it as your new homepage.

To do that, simply go to Settings » Reading in the WordPress dashboard.

Here, scroll to ‘Your homepage settings’ and select ‘A static page.’

You can now open the ‘Homepage’ dropdown and choose the page that you want to use as the new homepage.

Another option is to use Full Site Editing (FSE) and the block editor.

This method doesn’t work with every theme, but if you’re using a block theme, then you can add the widget to your homepage by going to Appearance » Editor.

This should launch the full site editor with your theme’s homepage template already selected.

In the top-left corner, click on the blue ‘+’ button.

Start typing ‘Latest Comments’ into the search bar.

When the right block appears, simply drag and drop it onto your layout.

After adding this block, you can configure the Latest Comments widget using the settings in the left-hand menu.

For example, you can change how many comments the widget displays, hide visitor avatars, and more.

When you’re happy with how the comment section is set up, simply click on the ‘Save’ button. Your WordPress website will now be showing the latest comments on the homepage.

Method 2: Showing Comments on Your Homepage Using Code

If you are not using a block-based theme, then you can add comments to the homepage using a code snippet.

This does involve editing your theme files, so it isn’t the most beginner-friendly method. Adding code to your site can also cause problems, including common WordPress errors.

With that being said, it’s a good idea to create a backup so that you have something to restore in case you get any errors.

If you don’t already have a backup plugin installed on your site, then see our expert pick of the best WordPress backup plugins.

Pro Tip: Instead of modifying files inside a theme, we recommend creating a child theme and then adding the code snippet there. This is safer because there’s no risk of breaking the parent theme, and you won’t lose your changes the next time you update the parent theme.

If this is your first time adding code to your WordPress files, then you can check out our guide on how to copy-paste code snippets in WordPress.

To add the comments to your homepage, you’ll need to edit the index.php file. To access this file, you’ll use an FTP client such as FileZilla, or you can use the file manager of your WordPress hosting cPanel.

If this is your first time using FTP, then you can see our complete guide on how to connect to your site using FTP.

Inside the FTP client, go to wp-content/themes.

You can then open the folder for your current theme and find the index.php file.

Now, open the index.php file in a text editor such as Notepad.

After that, go ahead and add the following code snippet inside the WordPress Loop. This will typically be either right before the endwhile statement or the else statement:

<?php
$withcomments = "1";
comments_template(); // Get wp-comments.php template ?>

For example, in the TwentyTwenty-One theme, you’ll need to add the code snippet after twenty_twenty_one_the_posts_navigation(); and before the } else { statement, as you can see in the following image:

After that, simply save the index.php file. Now if visit your WordPress site, you’ll see the comments displayed on the homepage.

If you created a child theme and don’t see comments on the homepage after adding the code snippet, then you may need to add an extra line of code.

If this is the case, then copy and paste the following code into your theme’s index.php file:

global $withcomments;
$withcomments = 1;
comments_template(); // Get wp-comments.php template

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to add comments to your WordPress theme’s homepage. You may also want to learn how to create a free business email address or check out our list of must have plugins to grow your site.

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