How to Customize Moodle Homepage (to make your site look good)
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is a website homepage for you? 11. It should be 11! 😀
Any Stranger Things fans out there? 😛
Okay, so… the point is – A homepage is the first page a student or a teacher visits. Now, most people are soon to judge! And the overall look can create a positive or negative impression about your website. Improving the front page along with the rest of your site can make your brand look professional.
Hence, the appearance of your site home is extremely important for the success and efficiency of your e-Learning venture.
What A Traditional Moodle Site Offers You:
- Basic Appearance.
- A limited number of elements to display.
- Unstructured layout.
- Limited customization options.
Now if your plans are to go one-above, which you ideally should after looking at how important the homepage is, even you’d know a traditional Moodle site would never be enough!
So what can you do about it? You have some options. You can work on getting down to code, choosing a perfect theme, or using a homepage builder. While we’re not going to get down to code, we will be looking at some themes, and of course some plugins, that could help you.
Moodles Themes with Custom Homepages
Several Moodle themes offer exquisitely designed front-pages to change the look of your website. They are also flexible enough to let you do your own modifications. You can check out the complete list of themes here. Some notable mentions include:
- #1 Edwiser RemUI – by far the most popular when it comes to custom homepage layouts because of its homepage builder, Live customizer, and the demo importer
- #2 Adaptable – a completely customizable Moodle theme to help you tweak the colors and font on your website.
- #3 Edumy – offers custom blocks for easy and quick page design and development
- #4 evolve-D – the emphasis here is on a simple and clean look and a custom homepage for users.
In a hurry? Grab the hot-to-trot Make your Homepage Look Good guide that outlines the steps and go through it whenever you get time.
Customizing the Homepage with a Custom Builder
The Edwiser RemUI Homepage Builder offers a unique homepage development experience. You can drag and drop elements to create a personalized page. Let us share some cool tips for the same…
The ‘Header’ is the first thing your users will see when they land on your website. Now, here you can introduce ‘Sliders’ with content to describe your website. You can add an image, change the color of the text, and add a button to important pages on your site.
This is how it will look after editing the ‘Slider section’:
The next fold can introduce the ‘About Us’ section that conveys what your site is about and a bit about you and your company. From spacing, to adding images in the background, to adding a title, description, you can create a short and sweet ‘About’ section.
This is how the section will look like on your homepage:
Next, you can add a ‘Course Section’ and a ‘Feature section’ customizing it in every possible way and giving it a completely different look with options the homepage builder provides. A course overview section should be present on a Moodle homepage to give a fair idea of your courses. A features section can give users an overview of what else your site can offer or how you can help them.
This is how it will appear to users.
Last but not the least, you can build more trust by adding a ‘Team Section’, ‘Testimonial Section’ and a ‘Contact us’ section to make your site look complete…
Is Customizing Moodle still a task???
YES, it could be! For some moodlers, their theme might not offer them a complete solution!
This post clearly explains how complex and costly customizing Moodle is!
So, it’s always better to invest in plugins that stay updated with changing times. This way you don’t have to spend more when Moodle comes out with newer versions.
Even better – Find that one plugin that single-handedly does the job for you!
Moodle Customization Made Easy with Edwiser RemUI
For simpler customization, we’ve recently updated Edwiser RemUI with two new features:
- Live customizer – The live customizer lets you execute and preview changes in Moodle in real-time. There are 100+ customization options for you to personalize and change up how your Moodle looks. You can easily tweak your main body, header, footer, colors, sidebars, font with zero coding and CCS knowledge. Check out the demo to see how it works!
Note – Login as an ‘Admin’ to use the live customizer
- Demo importer – If you don’t have the time to create your Moodle site from scratch, just replicate the layouts and designs of the demo. The demo importer in the theme offers readymade templates for your homepage and course pages. You simply have to pick your favorite template, pull the content you need, and there you have it, a professional homepage/course page is ready to create the impact.
Summing Up
There are some things that might not seem important at first glance but are. Small improvements can make your site look modern, professional and look engaging. And it all starts with the homepage.
You can use a good theme, pick some additional plugins, or go with the homepage builder to do the same. And if you’re confident enough, get under the hood and do some code customization yourself! Let us know your preferred method of customization or leave our readers additional suggestions in the comments section below!
