SharePoint page design and web parts
Modern SharePoint pages are built from web parts. Here's the kit and how to compose a good page.
Modern SharePoint pages are assembled in the browser from a library of web parts. The classic SharePoint Designer / publishing model is gone for new sites; pages are now blocks of structured content arranged in sections, designed to look right on any device.
The page model
A page is a stack of sections. Each section has a column layout (one to three columns, plus full-width). Sections contain web parts — pre-built building blocks that pull in content of various kinds.
The web parts most pages use
- Text — rich text with headings, lists, links.
- Image — single image with alt text, captions, and basic styling.
- Hero — large image/news tile cluster, ideal for a landing page.
- Quick links — a grid of links with icons, used heavily on intranets.
- News — pulls in news posts from this site, the hub, or selected sites.
- People — a profile card grid.
- File and media — embed a document or video viewer.
- Highlighted content — query-driven roll-up of files or pages matching filters.
- Embed — paste any embeddable URL (YouTube, Power BI, Forms, Stream).
- Code snippet — for documentation pages.
Beyond these, the marketplace and custom SPFx (SharePoint Framework) web parts extend further.
Sections, columns, and layouts
A typical landing page layout:
- Full-width hero section with site navigation and a call to action.
- Two-column section with a news roll-up beside quick links.
- Full-width events or embed section (calendar or Power BI dashboard).
- Three-column people or link grid.
- A footer with contacts and important documents.
Use section backgrounds to break up the page visually; use vertical sections for sidebars that float on the right.
News, pages, and articles
A news post is a page with the "News" template — it appears in the site's News rollup and the hub's news feed. A regular page doesn't. Both have the same authoring experience. News digest lets a site owner email a curated roundup of news.
Brand and theming
A communication site can be themed at the site level (colours, fonts) and inherits from a hub if associated. Tenant-wide branding (logo, app launcher header, browser tab favicon) lives in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Keep pages simple. The hard part isn't picking web parts — it's keeping content fresh enough to be worth reading.