For those of you new to WordPress, there are many features available that make it easy to get information across to your audience. In the case of organization blogs, it is beneficial to make it easy to navigate, have relevant information, and keep visitors coming back through frequent updates.

This tutorial will teach you how to “Add New” pages, change the appearance of themes, and customize your sidebar full of widgets.

First, log in to your blog’s “Dashboard” by going to “yourorganization.ksuclubs.com/wp-admin” (Note that the URL will be different for different organizations, so do not copy it word for word…) On your left hand side, you will see a sidebar full of options for your blog. Look for “Pages” and click on it. Click “Add New” and a screen will show a title input box and room to type content.

Before you begin typing away, note that organization is an important aspect in a website. Organization helps keep navigation clean and lets visitors easily find what they are looking for. Off the top of my head, an organization should always have an “About Page,” “Contact Us,” and maybe even “Roster.” The importance of the “About Page” is even shown when there is already an “About” page made for you!

After you have created your pages, we need to change the theme to make your blog unique. This can be easily done in one of two ways.

  1. On the very top bar, hover over “My Blogs” > “YourOrganization” > “Switch Theme”
  2. In the Dashboard, click on “Appearance” > “Themes”

The “Manage Themes” page displays your “Current Theme” and “Available Themes” to choose from. Picking a theme is up to you, but if you require a theme that has a custom front page… let that be a lesson for another day.

Once you have decided on a theme, click on “Activate” to replace your current theme. On the left hand side, you will notice new menus in the “Appearance” menu. Make sure to look through those to utilize the theme to its utmost potential. There will be menu items such as “Custom Header” which allows you to place your own banner.

Lastly, we have to add the widgets to the sidebar! There are many different kinds of widgets available. I will only be going over how to add and edit them for this tutorial. Click on the “Widgets” page under “Appearance.” To the left you should see “Available Widgets” and to the right you should also see “Sidebar.”

To add widgets, all you have to do is click and drag one of the items on the left side over to the box on the right side. Configure each item, save, and close. Repeat again to add more! Once you get all the widgets you like, rearrange them the way you want it to look (I also place Pages first because a user needs to immediately navigate the website, regardless if there is a top navigation).

If you want to install your Google Calendar, (like the one on my sidebar), stay tuned for the next tutorial!