Hand Coded Custom Home Page Sidebar For Genesis

I’ve already shown you how to add a custom sidebar to the front page of any Genesis child theme using the Genesis Simple Sidebars plugin.

But what if you’re a child theme Developer for Genesis or simply want to cut down on using plugins?

In this tutorial, i’ll show you how to hand code a custom home page sidebar.

The code removes the default primary sidebar from your front-page.php or home.php file and replaces it with a new custom sidebar widget area.

Code Installation

There’s 2 simple steps you need to follow:

1. Add 1 line of PHP code to the very beginning of your front-page.php or home.php file in your child theme. Make sure your file only contains 1 opening php tag.
2. Paste the 2nd code snippet for the widget at the end of your child themes functions.php file.

If you would also like to keep the default primary sidebar on your front page, you can simply by NOT adding the 1 line of code in the first step.