Give a specific example of what you would like to do or a site you would like to emulate.
for instance:
http://www.yoyomama.ca/
I assume the main content block is the “latest email” at the top. The advertisement beside it, would that be a widget in a special homepage side bar. Or is it maybe a custom field on the page? or is that maybe html give to the client to paste in there?
What is the best way to have multitple content blocks on the page?
I would suggest taking a look at the code for other themes that do this type of thing. Try looking at the Magazeen Theme from We Function.
The Query Posts function will be your friend on this one.
For instance, if you have a category called “Featured Posts”, and you want your first five posts from this category to show up somewhere on the home page, you could put this code somewhere in your index.php file:
<div class="featured-articles">
<h3>Featured Articles</h3>
<?php query_posts("category_name=Featured Articles&orderby=desc&showposts=5"); ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div>
<h3><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"></a></h3>
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>
</div>
