Step 4: Blog Customization

If WordPress isn’t installed yet, please return to Step 2 for guidance.

Now that you’re familiar with the basics of your blog, we can dive into more details. WordPress is an incredibly powerful tool that enables you to build your blog in virtually any way you can envision.

You might be feeling that your blog design looks a bit dull right now, but don’t worry! In this step, I’ll guide you on how to change your design and layout, along with several other useful tips and tricks for personalizing your blog.

Basic Blog Design

Everyone has their own vision for how they want their blog to appear. One of the fantastic features of WordPress is that you can alter the entire layout and design of your site with just a few clicks. Here are a few examples of completely free WordPress designs (click on an image to view it larger):


In WordPress, site layouts are known as “Themes”. Themes control the entire design of your blog. To change your theme you are going to click on the “Appearance” tab on the left menu. 

You will notice that several themes are already installed on your blog, such as Twenty Fifteen, Twenty Fourteen, and others. These are simple, clean themes that can suit just about any type of blog. In fact, many of the world’s top bloggers use one of these themes.

Unless you have a very specific design in mind for your blog, I recommend starting with one of these pre-installed themes. For our example, let’s use the “Twenty Twelve” theme. To activate the theme on your blog, hover over it and click the “Activate” button. That’s it! You’ve just changed the entire design of your blog with just one click!

If you are not a fan of the themes that come pre-installed with your blog, don’t worry. There are thousands of other free themes that you can easily install.

To install a new theme, click on the “Appearance” tab on the left menu. On the screen that comes up you are going to click on the button at the top that says “Add New”.

You will then be taken to the theme search screen. There are lots of different ways to find a theme you like. You can search by color, layout, and more by clicking “Feature Filter”. In the Feature Filter, check the boxes that you want and then click “Apply Filters”. 

Now you can browse the themes that have the characteristics that you want. When you find one that you like, hover over it with your mouse and click the blue “Install” button. 

Once the theme is installed click “Activate” to activate the theme on your blog. To see your new theme in action, go to your site and take a look! 

Creating Menus

The next step is to create a basic navigation menu, allowing your readers to easily find important sections of your site by clicking on the links in the menu.

To do this, click on the “Appearance” tab in the left menu of your blog administrator area, and then select “Menus.”

We are going to create a new menu called “Main Menu”. Go ahead and enter that name in the “Menu Name” box and then click “Create Menu”. 

Now we can start adding items to this menu. For our example, I’ll begin by adding a link to my blog's homepage.

To do this, click on “Custom Links.” Then, enter the URL of your blog’s homepage, which is simply your domain name prefixed with “http://” (without quotes). For this example, I’ll use *http://scottchow.com*.

Next, you need to enter the “Link Text,” which is the text that will appear in the menu for the link to your homepage. I’ll label this link “Home.”

After entering your URL and link text, click “Add to Menu.”

Let’s add one more item to the navigation menu for now. I am going add a link to a page that I created previously.

To start, click on the “Pages” section of the menu editor.

This will display all the pages you have created so far. If you haven’t created any pages yet, this area may be blank or may show a “Sample Page.” To create a new page, go to “Pages” in the left menu of your blog administrator area and click “Add New.”

The page I want to add to the menu is called “Contact Me,” so I’ll check the box next to that page and then click “Add to Menu.” After that, I’ll click “Save Menu” to save the changes I just made.

Now that I have created my menu I need to add the menu to my blog. To do this, click on the “Manage Locations” tab. In this example I want to add the menu we created (“Main Menu”) to the “Primary Menu” area. Just use the drop-down box to do this and click “Save Changes”. 

Customizing Your Blog Design

Now that you have your basic blog design and navigation set up, you can further customize everything to your liking. To do this, go to the “Appearance” tab in the left menu of your blog administrator area and click on “Customize.”

This will bring you to a screen that displays your blog’s homepage on the right, along with the customization menu on the left. Important: If you are using a different theme than the one I’m using for this example, your customization options may vary slightly.

There are various customizations you can make from this screen. Let’s go through them one by one.

Site Title & Tagline

This section allows you to change the title and subtitle that appear at the top of your blog. You also have the option to remove these entirely by unchecking the “Display Header Text” box.

Colors 

Here, you can modify the text color of your header as well as the background color.

Header Image 

This option lets you add an image to your header. Please note that each theme will have different recommended image sizes for the header.

Background Image

If you prefer to use an image as your background instead of a solid color, this section allows you to do so by uploading the image you want to use.

Navigation

You can select which of your navigation menus you want to use here. The menu must have been created already, which I explained how to do in an earlier step on this page.

Widgets

Widgets are various items you can add to your blog’s sidebar menus. This section lets you add and remove widgets from your sidebar menu(s). This option is a bit more complex than the previous ones, so let’s look at an example.

To start, click on “Widgets” and then select “Main Sidebar.” This will display a list of the widgets currently being used in the “Main Sidebar” area.

You can see we have 3 widgets: Search, Archives, and Meta.
You can also see how those 3 widgets appear on your site, by looking in the right sidebar area. You can see that the Search widget creates a search box, the Archives widget shows a monthly archive of my posts, and the Meta widget shows a variety of links related to my blog.

I don’t want to keep any of these, so I am going to delete them one-by-one. To do that I just click the arrow next to the widget name and then click “Remove” to delete it.

Now that I have removed all of those widgets I am going to add a few that I do like. To do this I click the “Add a Widget” button and select the widget I want.

To start with I am going to add the “Recent Posts” widget which will create links to my most recent posts in the sidebar area.

Then I am also going to add the “Calendar” widget which will show the current month’s calendar with the dates that I wrote posts on highlighted. Once that has been added, click the “Save & Publish” button. 

There are a variety of other widgets you can add if you wish, so feel free to explore. 

Adding Plugins

Plugins are additional tools you can integrate into your WordPress blog from third-party developers. There are hundreds of free plugins available that can perform a wide range of functions on your blog.

You can find plugins for creating contact forms, adding social media buttons, and enhancing your site’s visibility to search engines.

While there are too many plugins to list here, one free plugin that I recommend every new blogger should start with is JetPack.

JetPack offers a variety of user-friendly features for WordPress, such as the ability to easily add images to your sidebar menus, publish your posts to Facebook, and track how many visitors have accessed your blog.

Like all plugins, JetPack is optional, and you can certainly blog without it. However, I have found that most bloggers benefit from the additional features it provides. Here’s how to install it: How to Install Jetpack.

Changing Your User Details

When first starting your blog it is important that you change your user details so that people know who is writing your blog.

To do this, click on “Users” tab on the left menu. Then click on “Edit” under your username.

On the user details page you will want to at least change your Nickname and E-mail. Your nickname is the public name that will appear on all the posts you make, so keep this in mind when selecting it.

Simply type whatever you like in the “Nickname” box and then choose that same name in the drop-down box next to “Display name publicly as”. You can also change your email address if necessary.

Once you have made all the necessary changes be sure to click the “Update Profile” button at the bottom of the screen to save the changes. 

Changing Your URLs

Every time you publish a new post on your blog you are creating a new page with a unique URL. The settings for your URL names are known as “Permalinks”.

The default permalinks setting is not optimal in my opinion, as it gives you URLs with a bunch of numbers that look like this: https://www.theblogstarter.com/?p=123

To change that setting you need to scroll over the “Settings” tab on the left menu and then click on “Permalinks”. Then you can choose one of the options listed there.

I am using the “Post name” setting on theblogstarter.com, but any of the options are perfectly fine and will not affect the usability of your site in any way. I just happen to think that the default permalinks setting looks kind of ugly. 

What next?

After completing this step you should have a functioning and attractive blog. Again, you can always go back and make additional changes later. There is no need to have everything perfect right away.

Now let’s get to the fun part – writing your blog!