There are a couple of ways this can be done.

Block Configuration

All Drupal blocks are capable of having some very basic configurations applied to them.  One of these basic configurations is the Page Visibility Setting.  This setting, which is found in every block configuration panel, will allow you to place blocks on a node, or nodes, of your choice.

To configure your block to show only on the front page, do the following:

  1. Go to Admin menu > Site building > Blocks.
  2. Locate your block of choice in the blocks management table.
  3. Click on that block's configure link to open it's configuration panel.
  4. Once inside the configuration panel, scroll down the page to the Page Specific Visibility Settings field group.
  5. Click the Show on only the listed pages option
  6. Inside of the Pages field, type <front>. Enter this exactly as shown here with the lowercase and the arrows around it.
  7. Click the Save block button.

Your block will now only show on your front page.

This method works fine for small sites. For large, complex sites that will have multiple groups and multiple varied layouts, you will want to use the following method to do your layout.

Contexts Module

The Contexts module is what we use for complex layouts.