How to Customize Your Blog as a Beginner
Yay! Okay, so it’s time to paint the walls and hang the curtains! Here we’re going to talk about how to customize your blog, things to think about, and I’ll link to a few free (and paid) resources for you.
We just finished the beginning action steps for How to start a blog.
So, to recap we already did the following steps in the previous post How to start a blog:
Step 1 – Decide on the topic for your website.
Step 2 – Choose a CMS platform for your blog.
Step 3 – Choose a host for your website.
Step 4 – Choose your hosting plan
Step 5 – Choosing your domain name.
Step 6 – Set up your account with Bluehost
In this post, How to Customize Your Blog as a beginner, we will be looking at Steps 7-14:
Step 7 – Log In and Start Securing and Creating
Step 8 – Pick Out Your Theme
Step 9 – Decide on the Customization of Your Site
Step 10 – Organizing Your Accounts and Resources
Now, we’re going to bring to life a platform that will have a positive impact on so many lives and help solve problems and give solutions to your audience!
Step 7 – Login and start securing and creating!
Login to your Bluehost account with the domain/user name and password you set up.
You’ll need to answer a few questions about your site and purpose. (but don’t worry, if you’re not 100% sure yet you can skip these questions)
***In your Bluehost account be sure to go to Security and see that your SSL certificate is installed. It usually does it automatically but I suggest double checking to begin with. If you need any help with this, I’ve used Bluehost chat to verify it for me and they taught me how to get to the screen as well. The instructions are on Bluehost’s blog as well.
Step 8 – Pick out your Theme.
Your theme is literally how you paint the walls and hang the curtains so to speak.
I suggest skipping the theme selection screen because I recommend Divi by Elegant Themes (check out the demo here) and you get that directly from the Elegant Themes website.
Yes, I signed up to be an affiliate for Elegant Themes after creating this site and 2 others. If I’m going to promote a product to everyone because I love it so much, why not earn a commission? That’s just good business practices 🙂
I mean, we tell everyone about our favorite dish at the restaurant or how much us spoonies love our doctor when we finally find the ‘one’, right??
Why do you recommend Divi?
It’s a drag and drop style making it super simple for newbie bloggers and you don’t need any coding experience! Elegant Themes provide a TON of tutorial videos embedded (we’ll learn about that later) in their blog posts that will walk you through everything you can imagine wanting to do with your site!
Divi walks you through how to customize your blog as a beginner into a beautiful and professional website, even as a newbie with no coding knowledge. Can you say, “Total stress remover!” ?
What if I want a ‘ready for me’ style theme?
If you don’t want to spend the time to figure it out to begin with, there are plenty of solutions.
– You can visit Creative Market and purchase a Divi child theme. Once you’ve activated the Divi theme simply upload the child theme and activate.
– You can use a template from the Divi library that comes with the theme.
Either way, you can still make a ton of changes and customize your site how you want.
Why don’t you recommend a free theme?
You want to make sure whatever theme you choose is built securely and kept up-to-date. Many free themes lack in the building or updating or both. This can leave your site’s security compromised due to the gaps.
What if I want to change later?
I changed to Divi from Optimize Press. I just did a backup on my site and activated my new theme. I personally didn’t have much to adjust with the new theme and what I needed to adjust I was deleting or removing anyway for personal preference and was not needed any longer. But I feel if I had to “delete and re-create” those items I could have done it painlessly with Divi.
What about the cost?
So, one thing I loved about Divi that grabbed my attention was the ability to use it on multiple sites, mine and clients. At the time I was creating websites for people who had seen mine and I wanted a theme that allowed me to create multiple. I also wanted a theme that my clients and friends could easily learn to use and not need me forever…I’m moving more towards passive income instead of active income and I’m a strong believer in “teaching people how to fish” instead of “handing them a fish” every time they’re hungry.
Once you select ‘later’ on the WordPress theme page you’ll see a screen showing WordPress is being installed.
After it’s done you can either ‘Start Building’ or ‘Go to my Bluehost Account’.
Step 9 – Decide on the customization of your site.
If you haven’t figured out your direction yet, I suggest you take some time to decide on your next steps.
For example, deciding if you’ll be having a shop on your blog, what products you might be offering (physical vs printables/digitals), color pallette, font pairings, menu set ups, etc. are what gives you a direction in your design.
The ‘feel‘ of your site is what we’re talking about here. We want to create a custom blog, that’s a beautiful and professional website, even as a beginner without coding experience!
Do you have any suggestions on fonts and colors?
Yes, I do!
For colors:
Check out this article for information on color psychology in marketing. Make sure you’re attracting your audience visually!
Also, this website will help you blend the colors you choose to create your own brand.
For fonts:
Here is a great article to get you started on understanding font pairings with visual examples.
This website has a great tool to select a font you like for a heading, click the lock to hold it and then generate to give you the pairing.
How do I build pages in Divi?
You can purchase additional layouts, build from scratch, or use the layouts in Divi’s library that are available to you. The free ones are still customizable. In fact, I used a Divi page template for my Resources page and just customized it to my needs. It was originally a moving company’s style page lol.
Check out the Divi website, YouTube Channel or blog for full tutorials on anything you’re wanting to do!
Now, we’ve done a LOT and I’m sure you’ve got some crazy notes, log ins, and ideas scratched down all over the place.
We need to fix this before it gets out of hand! It will also prepare you for the next Phase…Getting your Blog Launched…the less stressful way!
Step 10 – Organizing your accounts and resources
By now you probably have quite a few accounts/access credentials, websites you’ve found resources on, videos that have helped you, free downloads or printables, and maybe even a few courses, whether paid or free.
It’s time to organize it so you don’t lose your mind trying to find something later!
I created a folder in my Google drive (I created a google account and email for my website) so I can keep things separate. I also have this same folder on my computer that I’ll be moving to an external drive or passport like this one, so I’ll have a copy on a cloud platform and physical platform)
***If you work on-the-go, or are clumsey like me, I’d suggest getting a shockproof case for that external drive!***
I named that folder Support and then in subfolders I have the following:
- Access/Account Info:
I created a Google Sheet with the following tabs:
~ Website -this is where I list the name of the company and a link to the login page. Places like Bluehost, WordPress, Elegant Themes, Creative Market, A Self Guru, email automation provider, Trello, etc. that I use to operate my website as a customer/client. No passwords, just the list of places and links to the login page.
~ Affiliate – Kind of self explanatory. The login page link, affiliate link, and company names for all the programs I am partnered with as their Affiliate.(again, no passwords)
Keeping the links on a spreadsheet do for me a couple things:
1. I see where all I have accounts so I don’t forget about them and
2. It acts as a bookmarking system so my web browser doesn’t get so bogged down….I had 74 bookmarks before fully transitioning to the spreadsheet and had at least 20 on the spreadsheet as well. (of course this is in combination with all the articles I had bookmarked as well that were good reads or resources I wanted to reference later in blog posts)
- Free Resources –
In this folder I uploaded all the free downloads and resources I had accumulated and sub categorized by topic.
Like Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, Planners/Strategy, Email Marketing, etc.
- Courses –
In this folder I uploaded all the resources I had gotten from courses I took, regardless if they were free or paid for.
I subcategorized here as well and noted “free” or “paid” in the folder name. Example: Pinterest Primer – Free, Pinterest Avalanche – Paid, etc.
In this folder I also created a google doc with the list and link to the website/log in for any of the courses. And I made note of my own personal star rating 1-5.
- Affiliate Partners –
In this folder I created subfolders with each affiliate program I’m a member of. Then, I uploaded all of the resources given to me by the businesses I’m an Affiliate Partner with.
For Example: in the folder named Bluehost I uploaded the guide, copied and pasted any emails that were helpful onto a google sheet and named it the topic it helped me with, usable logos and screenshots shared with me, etc. So, anytime I need anything for my Bluehost Affiliate partnership, I know exactly where to go to find it.
Is this amount of organization really vital?
Nope. It’s probably not. BUT then again, once you start accumulating the amount of resources I did, accounts to remember, affiliate links, etc. You’ll be glad to know everything is organized in a way you don’t have to hunt for something longer than 5 minutes, in general, so that you can dedicate your time to growing your business and helping your audience instead of “Where the heck did I go for that bit of info I want to link in the reply to that comment on my post from Sally?”
Another thought for my spoonies…that brain fog is REAL!
Also, if your goal is to scale your business, that means one day you’ll have at least an assistant, if not a team of people, that may need some of this information. Having it organized puts you in the groove and habit of organizing and will be easier later when you’re growing like crazy and need to hand something off quickly.
Phew, take a deep breathe in and exhale the crazy! Feels good to be organized and prepared to move forward instead of a little lost and overwhelmed.
Starting to feel like you’ve got a business in the making or yours is expanding yet? It should! You’re in prep stages or growing pains of any entrepreneur…just in the digital world!
So, now we’ve talked about how to customize your blog, as a beginner without coding experience, and creating a beautiful and professional website.
Let’s go on to How to Set Up A Blogging System & Launch Your Blog. We’ll cover these final steps:
Step 11 – Creating Content & Organizing a System to Publishing It
Step 12 – Legalities & the Uglies of Operating Your Website
Step 13 – Analytics & Search Consoles
Step 14 – Social Media Platform Thoughts
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