Your header and footer appear on every page, so they’re usually the first thing to make your own. In Ollie they’re template parts — reusable sections shared across all your templates — which means you edit them once and the change applies everywhere, instantly.
Editing Your Header or Footer
- Go to Appearance → Editor, then Patterns → All Template Parts, and select your header or footer. (Shortcut: double-click the header or footer right on the canvas while editing any template, or press ⌘K / Ctrl+K and type “header.”)
- Edit it like any block content: click the site logo to swap it, edit the site title, adjust the navigation, change colors and spacing from the block sidebar.
- Click Save — the change is live across your whole site.
Swapping In a New Design
Don’t customize block-by-block if a whole new look is what you want. Open the pattern inserter and filter by the Header or Footer category — Ollie includes multiple professionally designed header and footer patterns, and Ollie Pro’s library adds many more (including WooCommerce-ready headers with cart integration).
One thing to know: inserting a pattern adds it alongside your existing design rather than replacing it. Insert the new one, then select the old header or footer group — List View makes this easy — click the three-dot Options menu, and Delete. New design in, old design out.
Making It Yours
- Navigation — select the Navigation block in your header to manage menu items, or go further with Menu Designer for designed dropdowns, mega menus, and a custom mobile menu.
- Sticky headers — make your header stick to the top of the viewport with the Group block’s Position setting, and see Advanced Group Controls for the polished version: hide-on-scroll-down, mobile unsticking, and offset control.
- Different headers for different templates — because template parts attach per template, a landing page template can use a minimal header while the rest of your site uses the full one. Create a second header part and assign it in the template’s List View.
Good to Know
- Template part changes propagate to every template using that part — that’s the feature, but it also means “just testing” edits go live everywhere when you save. The editor’s revision history has your back.
- Everything here applies to any template part, not just headers and footers — sidebars and call-to-action sections work exactly the same way.
For the deeper story on templates and template parts, read How to Use WordPress Block Templates and Template Parts.