How to Design your WordPress Site
10 simple steps to design your WordPress Site: Pages, Menus, Widgets, and more.
So you purchased your domain and site hosting, and now you are sitting on an empty site. Trust me, I’ve been there. WordPress is pretty intimidating at first. It is not a simple interface, and it definitely takes some time to get used to. While mastering all of the ins and outs would probably take years, here’s some tips to get your website ready for the public.
(p.s open up WordPress and follow along or this will probably be super complicated!)
oh and if you don’t have a website yet, check out this article on how to start a blog and get your own domain and hosting.
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OK LETS GET STARTED...
Side Bar: the left side bar is where you navigate to different functions within WordPress. The main ones you will use are posts, pages, appearance, and plugins.
Theme: if you scroll over the appearance tab, you will see “themes.” This is where you can change the look of your whole site. There are TONS of free themes, so don’t worry about paying for one. The theme I am using on my site is Kale.
To find a new theme, click ‘add new.” you can search blog in the upper right hand corner, and browse through all of the blog themes. When you find one you like, click install and then activate to apply it to your site.
Widgets: This is also found under Appearance. Widgets are the about me snippets, advertisements, recent posts, etc that you will see pinned to the side bar or bottom of a site. When you open up the widgets tab, you will see all of the available widgets on the left, and all of the location options on the right. All you have to do is drag the widget you want to the location you want.
Categories: Now it’s time to add some categories- this is how you will organize your posts and will act as the titles on the header menu as well. My categories are fitness, finance, health, and business. Scroll over posts and click “categories,” and then add whichever ones you’d like. Each of these categories will essentially act as “landing pages” for your posts.
Pages: Pages are different than posts. Pages are for static content- this could be an about me page, a contact page, or a resource page. Go ahead and create any pages you would like on your blog. Don’t worry about configuring the whole page for now, all you need to do is add the title of the page.
Menus: Now that you have your categories and pages, you can make your header menu. Click on Appearance > Menu. Create a menu and then use the side bar on the left to add your pages and categories. You will also want to add a home tab- for this one use “custom link” and just link it to your website.
Elementor: This is a drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress. This will make creating blog posts sooooo much easier. Go to plugins > add new. Search for Elementor and click Install Now.
Posts: This is where you will make your actual blog posts. To create a blog post, navigate to the “posts” tab on the left menu bar and click “add new.” On the right you will see a place to choose which category you want that blog post to hang out in. Choosing a category will automatically put that post on that categories landing page.
Be sure to add a featured image as well, this is the image that will show with the title on your blog’s homepage. click “publish” to add it to your site.
If you scroll over your site title in the top left, you can view your homepage and see the blog post you just added. Now let’s actually write out the post!
Customizing a Post: Since you downloaded Elementor, creating post is actually pretty easy. Once you add the post, click “Edit with Elementor.” This will open up a simple drag and drop page builder. The left menu will show all of the elements you can add to your page.
Start by clicking the pink plus sign and choosing which configuration you’d like.
Click on the box you just created to open up the menu of elements. Choose which one you’d like, and drag it into the box.
Use the “text editor” option for simple text. You can type your content using the content tab, and then change the font, font size, font colors, and more under the style tab.
Social Sharing Buttons: So I Saved the best for last. If someone really loves your post, you want them to be able to share it, right? Adding those little social sharing buttons on the side & bottom of your post is actually super easy! Just scroll over plugins > add new. Search for the Social Warfare Plugin, install it and activate it.
That’s it! Now you have the start to a beautiful website! Just keep adding posts, and you’ll be good to go. After you have a few posts up, don’t forget to start advertising your blog to the world (I mean, this is how you’ll make money!)
If you don’t know where to start with this, Pinterest is a great option for beginner bloggers. For more information on using Pinterest for marketing, check out this article on using Pinterest to make your blog go viral!
