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Thanks for joining me on my “Blogging Series” and today, we’ll be looking at theme customization. You have several options when setting up your theme, but it’s important to choose one that has the highest conversions. You want to make sure you choose a theme that represents your brand, and that people feel comfortable navigating through. WordPress offers thousands of free and premium themes to choose from so it’s important you go through to find one you’re happy with. Let’s go through some of the theme selection fundamentals.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Let’s jump right in. And remember, the easiest way to start a blog is with our free WordPress installation service.
WordPress themes are kept within the left column in the “Appearance” menu. You can then go to Theme>Add New. Here, you will find thousands of free themes available to you. You can go through each one, finding one that fits your brand. Remember, the rule of thumb is to find a theme that is easy to customize and navigate. Next,
If you guys want premium themes, you have thousands of options. You can start by going to Themeforest.net and skimming through the different templates. These are more advanced WordPress themes, and offer a greater selection. With the premium themes, you might get a drag & drop interface, additional plug-ins, etc.
When choosing your WordPress template, it’s important to understand how your layout will affect your conversion rate. For example, many people have said they prefer a website with a right sidebar, however, others prefer no side bar at all. You have to think about how one will perform compared to the other. Research has shown that the right-sidebar layout has the highest ROI so I would encourage all of you to focus your attention on this layout. Next,
If you feel you want to try different layout, that’s fine, but make sure you have an analytical tool installed to ensure you can test which one is performing the best.
When choosing theme colors, I like to go with those that reflect my logo. However, remember, WordPress templates can completely be customized so you can change colors at a later time. I encourage all of you to know what design and colors you are looking for before choosing because many of you don’t have .CSS experience so will want a theme that does reflect your current color scheme.
WordPress allows you to customize your theme in “2” ways.
First, you can customize using your .CSS files, which are located within Appearance>Editor. At this point, you are looking for the Style.css file and can go through, making unique changes. You need experience if you are going to make changes to the .CSS file because errors can destroy your entire template. I recommend that you create a backup before you start messing around with your .CSS file. Next,
Many of the advance themes come customized with a customizer that makes it easy for you to select colors, etc. These themes are newer and mobile optimized so very easy to tweak. You have to go into Appearance>Theme Options, then start adjusting what you need from various options you have available. I am using various themes that allow me to easily fix:
Again, if you run into a problem, doing a quick search within Google will provide walkthroughs on how you can customize your theme using the .CSS file available.
One important thing to keep in mind when customizing your website is that you have to ensure your menu is in the right place. This is an important design element because the menu will reflect how many people visit your website while navigating through. I believe by having the menu in the right place, you’ll encourage people to go through and read other content or pages. The menu can be adjusted by going to Appearance>Menu.
There are many resources on how to set your menu the right way.
Now that you have installed WordPress, it’s time to get familiar with the interface. WordPress has a lot of options in the backend so it’s important to understand which ones will be vital in your blog growth. For example, you have the “Appearance” menu, which will control the customizations, and then you have “Permalinks”, which will control how your URLs are displayed. The “Plug-Ins” menu option is also very important because it controls all your plug-ins, and how your blog will function.
Even though WordPress is very easy to use, it’s still important to know which items are the MOST important so you can customize your blog when you need to. Let’s jump in and explore WordPress a bit further before getting into theme customization, plugins, and marketing. Your feedback is appreciated so please let me know if I have missed anything.
This is where your theme installation, and customization is controlled. Through here, you’ll be able to select new themes and even tweak the little options you have. All themes come with different tweak functions so you’ll be able to control the customization through .CSS files or even drag + drop elements. This is located within the left menu under “Appearance”.
The Plug-Ins menu is located within the left panel and allows you to add awesome functionality to your WordPress blog. Through this column, you’ll be able to add cool plugins that will streamline how fast you grow your blog. For example, you’ll be able to add plug-ins for:
I believe knowing how to install plug-ins is very important because it will show you how you can tweak your blog to give you even greater functionality.
This menu item is very important because it gives you control over some very important aspects. For example, it will give you authority over who leaves comments or if they should be moderated before publishing. These settings will also give you control over how your URLs will be displayed. It’s always a good idea to change your permalinks settings to Post Name so your keywords show within the URL, which is amazing for indexing and optimization.
Within this menu, you have other options like media settings, ping settings, and even setting your avatar. I would suggest you leave most of them as default, but make sure you change the permalinks to “Post Name”.
The media menu will be on the left hand side with all the other menus. This menu is in charge of all your images and videos, making sure they are indexed and optimize so they can be viewed correctly by your visitors. However, you have to make sure you keep a few things in mind. First, you might want to crop each one individually to make sure they look good on your blog. The file “type” is very important because the higher the quality, the more weight on your server. I like to save images as .gif, .jpg, and .png because they preserve the quality, and visitors engage with them more than others.
Here’s something that is cool…
You have several plugins that will do the trick for you as far as optimizing your images. For example, you have plug-ins that will compress images, change file name, or even adjust the colors so there is less weight on the server. Play around finding out what works for you.
Pages and Posts
These are self-explanatory and are important menu options when you are adding content, etc. When you are ready to add content, you can go to Posts>Add New. To add “about us” or contact us” pages, you go to Pages>Add New. This part of WordPress is very simple and these two sections will be utilized once you’re set up.
It’s time to familiarize yourself with the menu by logging into your backend, and playing around with the different options. Don’t change anything because you simply want to become accustomed to where certain elements are going forward. After, you’ll know what sections are important to tweak every day, and what menu items are important once in a while. Go ahead right now and log in, then go through each menu until you know what each menu item does to your blog.
In this video, I show you what you can learn about internet marketing from a Princess Cruise ship. Yes, the cruise ship business and making money onlie are very related.
We have covered a lot of ground, and will be looking at installing WordPress within your hosting backend. Many of these hosting providers have made it very easy to streamline the entire process, For example, hosting now provides a 1-click interface, which allows you to get the job done quickly and with very little experience. However, it’s still important that we go through the steps so you know what to expect when it comes time to get things moving in the right direction.
Here’s what we’ll be looking at in detail:
Let’s get started and jump right in:
When choosing a hosting provider, it is important that you select one that has a complete CMS interface installed within the backend. This will allow you to install WordPress and others with the click of a mouse so you can get to work much faster. In the end, it’s important you spend very little time learning how to install the CMS platform, and more time able to customize the site going forward. With that said, let’s go through the process quickly so you know where to look for the application.
First, you’ll log into your hosting provider, and your cPanel. In the backend, you’ll see an “Application” heading, where all of them will be listed from top to bottom. As a matter of fact, WordPress will be listed as the first because it is the MOST popular among all of the others. You can click on WordPress and fill in the required information.
If you have registered your domain with the same hosting provider, then you’ll be able to select it from within the drop-down, which makes the process much faster. If you have your domain registered at another provider, then you’ll have to change the DNS settings, which can be done through the registrar. Search for their tutorials on how you can get this done, which should NOT take more than a few minutes.
You will be required to fill in the following details before installation can begin:
After installation, you can explore the interface, which I’ll discuss next.
WordPress has one of the best interfaces ever because they make finding things so simple. Once you have installed your website, head over by going to www.example.com/wp-admin. This will bring you to the control panel, where you can login with the username and password you selected. Once you have logged in, you can start scrolling through the left menu, where all the features and settings are placed. Pay close attention to:
Having a site with the right theme is very important because this is what matters when people arrive on your website. It’s stated that 80% of people make a decision to stay on your website as soon as they arrive on your page. This means you need a theme that is attractive, and that keeps people on the site long enough so they read content. If you head over to “Appearance” then “Themes”, you’ll be able to browse what they have in their selection. There are many premium themes available that have to be purchased, but the free options will do the trick for now. When figuring out your theme, you have to understand the following:
Once you have answered theme questions, you can head over to “Appearance”, and click “Add New” before scrolling through the FREE selection you have available. Having a good idea of what you’re looking for will help streamline the selection process.
We went over a few quick things today:
First, make sure you choose a hosting provider that has quick WordPress installation. This will streamline installation so you don’t have to download the application. Secondly, install application within the right directory, and choose a safe username + password. Third, you want to think about your theme and layout so your selection process will be more streamlined. If you have a good idea of your layout and colors, you can start to narrow down themes quickly.
Welcome to Part 6 of my awesome blogging series. We have covered a lot of ground, and encourage all of you to go back and read other sections before going forward. Today, we’ll be jumping into the actual setup of your blogging site, and explore the various options you have available. At one point, you would have to code your entire website, however, now, you can install a content management platform to get you set up right away. For example, I have set up an entire website in under 4 minutes, and have a tutorial to prove it to you. Even when you have to customize your website, you can now install plug-ins to get the job done for you. This is why so many new websites are popping up every day because they are so easy to publish.
Let’s jump right in and look at the various options you have available when choosing your blogging platform. I’ll go over some cool features of each.
In my experience, you have 3-4 solid options when choosing a CMS provider, and they all bring something unique to the table. I have worked with many and have been able to use them for different types of sites. Instead of me recommending you choose all of them, depending on your purpose, why not have “1” that does it all for you…right? With that said,
Let’s explore some of the awesome options you have available when choosing your CMS provider. Keep in mind, some have partnerships with hosting providers so can be installed with a click of a mouse whereas others, you’ll have to download, unzip, and install using FTP. I’ll go in order from the MOST popular to least in my experience.
Let’s get started…
WordPress –
The ultimate blogging platform, and has built its popularity by providing the best plugins, interface, security, and more. I use WordPress for all my designing because of the simplicity it provides to all my projects. I can use this CMS when building an eCommerce site, general blog, directory, etc. Over the years, their popularity has led to enormous development in themes and plugins, which give you complete customization control. Even after Google rolled out their mobile update, WordPress was the first to introduce responsive themes that can be installed from the backend of your admin panel. Next,
You can buy, and own, premium themes from sites like Themeforest.net. They have mastered theme creation and selling, allowing others to upload to their marketplace. Finally, they have just gone into the hosting avenue, which is proving to be very lucrative for them.
Weebly.com –
This is my favorite drag & drop builder because everything is so easy. It’s perfect for those who don’t want to learn a new interface, and don’t need anything too sophisticated. If you need a simple 5-6 page website, then Weebly.com should be your choice. I love it because they offer all the main features like video, text, headlines, themes, and contact forms, which can be added with drag & drop.
Drupal –
I don’t have too much experience with Drupal, however, there are some avid users. These people have stated Drupal is an awesome CMS, however, I find it to be very limited. If you are looking for a variety of themes and plugins, then I would stick to WordPress. Because I don’t have experience with Drupal, I can’t really discuss their interface, plugins, security, etc.; however, from the reviews I’ve read, I would stick to WordPress as your all-in-one solution.
Joomla –
This is another CMS platform that is similar to WordPress and Drupal. It offers a solid interface and plugins, however, reviews say WordPress is much better in getting the job done. I would encourage you to test it out for yourself before making your final choice. If you head over to Google, and do a quick search using “Joomla + reviews”, you’ll be able to get authentic reviews from users who have experience with every different CMS platform.
Each person is different and you should try each one before making your final choice. You might find one CMS platform works better for you compared to the others, however, you’ll only know after you play with the interface. I know you’ll find WordPress your number one choice because the ease at which it can be used. You can also head over to Google and do a quick search to read reviews on all of these platforms.
In the next section, we’ll be going over WordPress and installing the platform on your hosting. You have two ways that this can be done: 1-click through hosting or by downloading the application.
