Skip to content
Support Center > Startup Blog Support Center

Getting Started with Startup Blog

Ready to get started?

Follow along with this guide to get Startup Blog installed and fully customized on your site. Every step is explained in detail, so you'll have no trouble even if you're new to WordPress.

Table of Contents

Install Startup Blog

If you don't have Startup Blog installed on your site already, this is the first step before you can begin customizing.

Follow this tutorial to learn how to install & activate Startup Blog on your site:

Tutorial: Install & Activate Startup Blog

Import the demo site data

Are you launching a brand new site?

Importing the content from the Startup Blog demo site is a great way to jumpstart your customizations. It can be much easier to customize and tweak the design of the site after you've got some content to work with.

Follow this tutorial to access the demo data download and learn how to import it into your site:

Tutorial: Import the Demo Site Data

By default, the primary menu will contain all of the published Pages on your site, listed in alphabetical order.

As you publish new Pages, they will simply be added to the menu. You can create a custom menu to change this.

With a custom menu, you get full control over which Pages are included, and in what order. In fact, you can even add links to Categories, Posts, or anything else you'd like.

While creating your menu, you will also be able to create a second menu and assign it to the secondary menu position.

The tutorial below will show you how to:

  • create a custom menu
  • reorder menu items
  • add submenus
  • and more...

Tutorial: How to Customize Your Menu

When you installed WordPress, you were asked to provide a "site title". That same site title is displayed at the top of your site, in the header.

With Startup Blog, you can replace the site title with your logo instead. If you don't have a logo, you can skip to the next section. Otherwise, follow this tutorial to learn how to upload, position, and resize your logo:

Tutorial: How to Add Your Logo

Note: You can edit your site title any time from the General Settings menu, or in the "Site Identity" section in the Customizer.

Add Your Social Icons

There are two types of social icons:

  1. Icons that link to your profile
  2. Icons/buttons that share your content

Most themes, including Startup Blog, have a way to add social icons that link to your social profiles. This provides a stylish way to link to your profiles, so your visitors can find and follow you on your social networks. These icons are usually included in the header or in a widget.

Social sharing icons/buttons are added to make it easier to share your content. They are typically added with plugins, like Simple Share Buttons Adder . These icons are usually included before and/or after Post content.

As mentioned, Startup Blog provides a simple way to add icons in the header linking to your social profiles. Follow this tutorial to add yours:

Tutorial: How to Add Your Social Icons

Customize the Slider

Startup Blog's stand-out feature is its responsive and colorful slider.

The slider lets you choose a set of pages or your latest posts for the content. The titles, excerpts, and images are all sourced from the posts/pages.

You can also choose to show/hide the arrows and dot navigation, as well as change the button text and where the slider displays on the site.

Tutorial: How to Customize the Slider

Customize Your Colors

Now that your slider is setup, you may want to update the blue and green colors used throughout your site.

Startup Blog gives you color controls for the primary, secondary, and background color used on the site.

Tutorial: How to Change Your Colors

Add a Header Image

If you want a unique way to introduce visitors to your site, you can add a header image to the top of your site.

You can upload a new image or use an existing image in your Media Library. You can optionally crop the image to fit Startup Blog's suggested header dimensions.

Tutorial: How to Add a Header Image

Change Your Layout

By default, Startup Blog places your main content on the left, and your sidebar on the right. You can easily swap the sidebar to the left side in the Customizer.

Tutorial: How to Change Layouts

Show/Hide Site Elements

Startup Blog has a lot of content and design elements included by default, but you can hide many of them via the Customizer. For instance, you can hide the post author name and dates, the category and tag links after posts, and more.

Tutorial: How to Show/Hide Elements

Choose Posts Per Page

When customizing the blog, you may want to change how many posts are displayed per page on your blog. This option is set to 10 by default, but can be increased or decreased from the settings menu.

Follow this tutorial to learn how to change the post count per page on the blog:

Tutorial: How to Change the Number of Posts on Your Front Page

In WordPress, every Post and Page can have a Featured Image. It's simply a way of assigning one image as the primary image for the Post/Page.

Startup Blog places Featured Images neatly below the Post titles on the Blog and Post pages, and also reuses them in the slider.

Tutorial: How to Add Featured Images

This option is also compatible with all layouts added in Startup Blog Pro.

Customize the Author Avatars

Startup Blog displays avatars for the post authors at the top of each post.

If your authors are already using Gravatar, the images will display automatically. If not, you can signup for Gravatar or follow the tutorial below for additional options.

Tutorial: How to Customize Author Avatars

Customize Your Post Excerpts

When you first install WordPress, all of your Posts will show on the homepage. The page with your Posts can also be referred to as the Blog or Posts Page.

With Startup Blog, each Post on the Blog will include a 30 word excerpt using the first 30 words in the Post.

Startup Blog gives you a lot of control over what text you want shown in the excerpts. To learn how to fully customize your Post excerpts, check out this tutorial:

Tutorial: How to Customize Post Excerpts

Conclusion

You're finished customizing Startup Blog!

If there's anything else you want to change about your site that wasn't covered, check for an article about it in the sidebar to the left. Otherwise, check out Startup Blog Pro for additional options.

Visit our WordPress Resources page to find awesome plugins and tools we recommend, and if you want to try using CSS to customize Startup Blog, we've got some pre-written snippets for you to get started with in the Startup Blog CSS Snippets Collection.

Upgrade Today: Want even more features and flexibility for your site? Upgrade instantly with Startup Blog Pro.

Return to Startup Blog Support Center

Copyright © 2021 Compete Themes LLC.