There is a box at the bottom of each of your service pages: a heading, a sentence about getting in touch, a call button and a WhatsApp button. It appears on nine pages. Then your phone number changes, and you are opening nine pages one by one, hoping you have not missed one.
WordPress block patterns exist for exactly this. A pattern is a saved arrangement of blocks you can drop into any page. A synced pattern, which older versions of WordPress called a reusable block, goes further: change it once and every page that uses it updates. Below are both kinds, how to make your own, and how to edit, detach and tidy them up.
WordPress block patterns: two kinds, and why the difference matters
- Regular patterns are starting points. When you insert one, WordPress copies its blocks into your page. From then on, those blocks are ordinary page content, and editing them changes only that page. Themes, WordPress itself and you can all provide them.
- Synced patterns are shared content. The page holds a reference to the pattern rather than a copy. Edit the pattern and the change shows on every page that uses it.
So the question to ask for any repeated section is: when this changes, should it change everywhere? A call-to-action box with your phone number, opening hours, or a delivery notice: yes, make it synced. A layout for a testimonial or a service introduction, where the words differ on every page: no, keep it as a regular pattern.
Inserting a ready-made pattern
- In the editor, open the block inserter (the blue + at the top left, described in our block editor guide) and switch to the Patterns tab.
- Browse by category, or search for words like “call to action”, “pricing” or “team”. Your theme decides much of what appears here.
- Click a pattern to insert it after the block you had selected.
- Replace the placeholder text and images with your own. Patterns often use sample photos and text that look finished at a glance, so read every line.
WordPress.org also runs a public Pattern Directory. You can copy a pattern there and paste it straight into the editor. Patterns made for one theme can look different in another, because they take on your theme’s fonts and colours.
Saving your own section as a pattern
Build the section once on a page, exactly as you want it, for example a heading and a pair of call and WhatsApp buttons. It helps to wrap it in a single Group block first, so the pattern has one clear outer container.
- Select the Group (or select several blocks together by dragging across them or Shift-clicking in List View).
- Open the three-dot menu on the block toolbar and choose Create pattern. Older versions call this “Add to reusable blocks” or “Create reusable block”.
- Give it a name you will recognise later, such as “Service page – contact box”.
- Choose a category if offered, and set the Synced toggle according to the question above.
- Confirm. If you chose synced, the blocks on your page are replaced with the synced pattern, shown with a different colour in List View. Save the page.
Your patterns then appear in the inserter’s Patterns tab, usually under a “My patterns” category, ready for other pages.
Editing a synced pattern in one place
This is the whole point of syncing, and it is also where people make accidental site-wide changes.
- On any page that uses the pattern, select it. The toolbar shows an Edit original button (wording can vary slightly by version).
- Click it. The pattern opens on its own, outside the page.
- Make the change, such as the new phone number, and save.
- Visit two or three pages that use the pattern to confirm the change appears. If it does not, a page cache may be serving an old copy, so clear it.
Before editing, remember who else is affected. If the pattern is on twenty pages, an edit meant for one of them changes all twenty. Recent versions of WordPress let synced patterns allow certain content, such as a heading or an image, to be changed on each page while the layout stays shared. That option, called overrides, has to be set up inside the pattern, and not every block supports it.
Detaching a pattern from one page
Sometimes one page needs a slightly different version. Detaching turns the synced pattern on that page back into ordinary blocks, which you can then edit freely.
- Select the synced pattern on the page.
- Choose Detach on its toolbar or in its three-dot menu. Older versions call it “Convert to regular blocks”.
- Edit the blocks and save the page.
The pattern itself and every other page using it stay as they were. The detached page will no longer receive future changes to the pattern, so you are now maintaining that copy by hand.
Where to find, rename and delete patterns
- Block themes: Appearance → Editor → Patterns. It lists your own patterns, the theme’s patterns and, in recent versions, template parts such as the header and footer.
- Classic themes: recent versions add an item under Appearance called Patterns or Design, depending on the theme. On any theme, the editor’s three-dot Options menu has a link to manage patterns.
From that screen you can rename a pattern, edit it, delete it, and in many versions export it as a file to import on another site.
Be careful with deleting. If you delete a synced pattern that pages still use, those pages show a notice that the block is missing, and the content disappears from the live site. Detach it on the pages where you want to keep the content first, then delete the pattern.
Headers and footers in block themes look similar to synced patterns but are template parts, edited in the Site Editor. How those behave, and how to edit them without breaking the layout, is covered in our post on Site Editor template parts.
Things that trip people up
- Theme patterns disappear after a theme change. Pages where you already inserted them keep their blocks, but the patterns themselves leave the inserter. Patterns you saved yourself are stored in your site’s database and stay.
- A synced pattern used for a one-off. If something appears on only one page, there is nothing to sync. A regular pattern, or no pattern, is simpler.
- Copying a whole page instead. If every new service page starts from the same layout, a regular pattern of that layout is often tidier than copying an old page, which drags along its SEO settings and history. When you do need a full copy, our post on duplicating a page safely covers the clean-up.
- Page builder templates. Elementor and other builders have their own saved sections and global widgets. They work inside the builder and are separate from block patterns.
Patterns are one of several habits that make upkeep lighter. The others are gathered in our notes on managing your WordPress site.
Frequently asked questions
Are reusable blocks gone from WordPress?
No, they were renamed. Reusable blocks became synced patterns, and they work the same way: one saved section shared across pages. Any reusable blocks created on your site before the change now appear as synced patterns, and pages that used them keep working as before.
Can other people on my team use my patterns?
Yes. Patterns you create are saved to the site, not to your user account, so anyone who can edit pages will find them in the inserter. Editing or deleting a synced pattern also depends on their role, so editors and administrators can usually change them while lower roles may not.
Can I copy my patterns to another WordPress site?
In recent versions, yes. On the Patterns screen, open the pattern’s menu and choose Export as JSON, then use the import option on the other site’s Patterns screen. Images inside the pattern still point to the first site’s Media Library, so upload them on the new site and swap them in.
Can I use a synced pattern inside another synced pattern?
Yes, WordPress allows a synced pattern to contain another one. It works, but it makes edits harder to follow, because a change in the inner pattern reaches every page using either one. For a small business site, one level of synced patterns is easier to manage.
Replacing a section that was pasted by hand across dozens of pages with one synced pattern is slow but routine work. Our WordPress support service can go through the pages one at a time, leaving the rest of each page as it was.
Next in this series: How to Duplicate a Page in WordPress (and Tidy the Copy)
