The WordPress Site Editor Explained: Templates, Styles and Navigation

The WordPress Site Editor is the part of WordPress that lets you design your whole site with blocks: the header, footer, page templates, navigation menus and global styles such as colors and typography. It lives under Appearance > Editor, and it is only available when a block theme is active. If your site uses a classic theme, you will not see it, though you can still use some of its pieces.

The Site Editor arrived with block themes in WordPress 5.9 and is often described as "full site editing." As of October 2026, with WordPress 7.1.2 current, it covers site identity, styles, pages, navigation, patterns and templates in one place, and WordPress 7.1 added responsive styling per screen size and kept the admin bar visible across all editors.

This guide walks through each area of the Site Editor, what you can safely change, how it differs between block and classic themes, and the mistakes we see most often when business owners start editing templates.

What the Site Editor does (and does not do)

The block editor edits content: a single post or page. The Site Editor uses the same blocks to edit the frame around that content. With it you can:

• change the layout of your blog index, single posts, archives, search results and 404 page,
• edit the header and footer once and have the change apply sitewide,
• build and manage navigation menus with the Navigation block,
• set global colors, fonts, spacing and per-block defaults in Styles,
• create custom templates for specific pages,
• manage pages and patterns without leaving the editor.

It does not replace your hosting, SEO settings, forms or plugin configuration. It also does not do Google Docs style co-editing: real-time collaboration is not in WordPress core as of October 2026. Notes, the block-level comment feature, are available in the post and page editors but not in the Site Editor's templates or template parts.

A tour of the Site Editor menu

When you open Appearance > Editor, the official Site Editor documentation lists these sections in the left navigation:

Inside an editing view, the top toolbar has the block inserter, undo and redo, List View, the Command Palette, Preview, the Settings sidebar, Styles and Save. Since WordPress 7.1, the WordPress admin bar stays visible above every Site Editor screen (it hides in distraction free mode).

Templates: the layout for each page type

A template is the layout WordPress uses for a type of page. A typical block theme ships templates such as Index (the required fallback), Home or Blog, Single, Page, Archive, Search and 404. Each template is just blocks: a header template part, a Query Loop or Post Content block, maybe a sidebar, and a footer template part.

To edit one, go to Templates, pick the template and click the pencil (edit) icon. To create a custom template, for example a landing page layout without the usual header, use the add option in the Templates screen, then assign it to a page from the page's settings. Common uses:

• a full-width landing page template without a sidebar,
• a category archive template with a different intro and grid,
• a custom 404 page that points to popular services,
• a single post template that adds an author box and related posts.

Keep in mind that your edits are saved in the database, not in the theme files. That is why exporting (covered below) matters if you ever switch or rebuild the theme.

Template parts: headers, footers and other shared areas

A template part is a reusable area included inside templates, most often the header and footer. You manage them under Patterns > Template Parts. Edit the header once and every template that includes it changes too.

When you save, the Site Editor lists every template, template part, synced pattern and navigation menu you changed and lets you choose which ones to save. Read that list. The official documentation warns that changes to header and footer parts "will apply to all pages of your site that use those templates, and not just the page you were working on."

Styles and global design settings

Styles is where you set the design system for the whole site. Depending on your theme, you can:

• switch between style variations bundled with the theme,
• set the color palette and typography,
• adjust layout widths and spacing,
• change the default look of individual block types (for example every Button or every Quote),
• browse the Style Book, which previews how every block looks with your current styles,
• review style revisions and reset changes.

WordPress 7.1 added responsive styling, so you can set styles per screen size "without custom CSS," according to the release announcement. You can also apply a single block's custom design to all blocks of that type from the block's Advanced settings, and WordPress 7.0 added a dedicated font management page for installing, uploading and managing fonts.

Under the hood, these settings come from the theme's theme.json file, and your changes are stored as a user layer on top of it. That is why a theme can lock down options (for example, disabling custom colors) so editors cannot drift away from brand guidelines.

Navigation menus in a block theme

In a block theme, menus are built with the Navigation block rather than the classic Appearance > Menus screen. The Navigation section of the Site Editor lets you browse existing menus and make basic changes; for deeper edits, you open the Navigation block inside the header template part.

WordPress 7.0 added the ability to design the mobile menu overlay with blocks and patterns, so the "hamburger" menu can include contact details, a call to action or social links. Keep menus short: the same navigation usually appears on every page, so it carries a lot of internal linking weight for SEO and usability.

Block themes vs classic themes: what works where

The official block themes documentation is direct about it: "Classic themes do not work with the Site Editor." Classic themes rely on PHP templates, the Customizer, widgets and the Menus screen. In block themes, the Customizer is not available unless a plugin or theme requires it.

The line is blurrier than it used to be, because classic themes can opt into individual block features. The WordPress theme handbook calls these hybrid themes: "classic themes that have adopted some modern block-related features, such as global settings and styles or block template parts."

For a deeper comparison and migration advice, see our guide to block themes vs classic themes.

Exporting, backups and safe editing

Because Site Editor changes live in the database, a theme update does not overwrite them, but a database problem or a careless "reset" can. Good habits:

• Export before big changes. In the Site Editor, open the three-dot menu, go to Tools and choose Export. You get a zip of your theme including the edited templates, template parts and styles.
• Use style revisions. Styles keeps revisions, so you can roll back a palette change that looked fine on desktop but not on mobile.
• Work on staging. Template edits are sitewide. Test them on a staging copy first, especially on stores and lead-generation sites.
• Limit who can edit. Access to the Site Editor depends mainly on the edit_theme_options capability, which Administrators have by default. Our guide to WordPress user roles explains how to give designers access without full admin rights.
• Back up regularly. Our guide to automating website backups covers schedules and retention.

Common Site Editor mistakes

• Editing the wrong template. The blog page may use Home, Index or a custom template depending on your Reading settings. Check which template a page uses before editing.
• Hard-coding content into templates. Text added directly to a template appears on every page using it. Put page-specific content in the page itself.
• Overriding theme styles block by block. If you change colors on 40 individual blocks, a future rebrand means 40 edits. Set it once in Styles.
• Breaking heading structure. A site title marked up as an H1 in the header, plus an H1 page title, gives every page two H1s. Check the heading levels in your template parts.
• Forgetting performance. Large hero images and video backgrounds in a header template load on every page. Our guide to improving Core Web Vitals on WordPress covers what to watch.

Conclusion

The Site Editor gives business owners real control over headers, footers, templates and design without touching code, as long as the site runs a block theme. Treat templates and template parts as sitewide changes, export before big edits and keep design decisions in Styles rather than on individual blocks. For more WordPress guides, see the WordPress resource hub, and if you want a block theme built and configured for your team, eSEOspace provides WordPress website development.

Frequently asked questions