To load override WordPress’ choice of template you can use template_include
filter and then use the locate_template
to return the the template file path (if it finds it).
The file-name passed to locate_template
must be the name of the template file name (which should be in you theme/child-theme directory).
//Loads template customtemplate.php from your theme folder on page 2+ of the 'main page'
function my_second_main_template($template){
if (is_home() && is_paged()){
$alternate_template = locate_template( 'customtemplate.php');
if(!empty($alternate_template))
$template =$alternate_template;
}
return $template;
}
add_filter('template_include','my_second_main_template');