Adding a Wix blog to your site and customizing it to complement your own, unique brand is
easy, even if you are a total beginner who has never blogged or designed a website before.
To access your blog, you can either click on ‘my blog’ from the left-hand-side panel,
or go to the pages menu up top and click on blog.
First, let’s customize your blog feed by clicking on my blog from the left-hand-side
panel, selecting blog pages, and clicking on blog.
The blog feed is where all of your recent posts appear.
If you click on the blog layout, you will notice that an individual blog editor appears
on the top.
There are a number of things you can do from here:
Manage Posts: where you can view and edit each of the posts you have written, or add
a new one.
Add New Post: where you can start writing a new post for your blog.
Settings: where you can modify the number of posts that appear per page, the date format,
the word that precedes author, the maximum number of characters in the post text preview,
the width and height of the read more button, and the text of the ‘next’ and ‘previous’
pagination buttons.
Layouts: where you can edit the blog layout that you chose before, the text alignment
to be from left to right or from right to left, the post padding, the space between
posts, the date, title, post body, read more button, and read more button text alignment,
and the read more button text margin.
Design: where you can customize the theme, font, size, appearance, color and highlight
of text elements such as the title, post body, and date and author, change categories, read
more and pagination buttons, edit the image frame, and background color.
Stretch: where you can choose whether you want your blog feed to stretch to full width
or not.
Help: where you can learn about each of these features in more detail if you are encountering
difficulties.
Now if you click again on the ‘My Blog’ button from the left-hand side editor, select
‘Blog Pages’ and click on ‘Single Post’ instead, you will be able to edit the appearance
of an individual post, after your site’s visitor selects it from the blog feed.
If you click on your single post layout, you will notice that a single post editor toolbar,
very similar to the blog feed editor from before, appears on the top.
Let’s go over each of the options that pop up:
Edit This Post: where you can make changes to your most recent blog post.
Manage Posts: where you can access your blog manager and modify and view all of the posts
you have written.
Settings: where you can change the date format, the word that precedes author, the social
buttons that appear at the end of the post (share on Facebook, Share on Twitter, share
on LinkedIn, share on Pinterest, share on Google+, and like this post), the size of
those social buttons, whether a popup menu appears when visitors highlight sections of
text within blog posts providing options to share that highlighted text on Facebook, Twitter
or via e-mail, whether social counters appear or not, and the text that appears for tags.
Layouts: where you can edit the layout of your single posts with regard to alignment
from left to right or from right to left, post padding, date alignment, title alignment,
and button alignment.
Design: where you can modify the theme, font, size, appearance, color, and highlight of
the title, date and author, post body, and tags, change the categories button, as well
as the color of the background.
This does not have to be the same as in the blog feed.
Help: where you can watch a video and clarify your doubts on what the single post page offers.
On to your site’s sidebar.
This is the biggest place where a Wix blog differs from a blog in WordPress, for instance.
Whereas on WordPress you need to search for individual widgets to suit your needs, know
how to customize CSS or where to enter a line of code so that your sidebar looks the way
you want, and even have limitations regarding where you can include each of those element,
in Wix, you can profit from the pure drag-and-drop editor to include any kind of element to any
section of your website that you so desire.
For instance, on both my blog feed and single post sidebar, I included some text and an
image enticing my site’s visitors to ‘Enroll in this FREE COURSE!
>>’. I did not have to find a widget to do that.
I did not need to learn how to code.
And I was not restricted as to where I could add those elements.
All I did was click ‘+’ from the left-hand side panel, add and customize the text, add
an image from my image library, and drag it to my sidebar in the exact place that I wished.
If I want to move it up or down ever so slightly, I can.
If I want to change it to something else, or delete it completely, I also can.
The options are endless.
With Wix’s drag-and-drop editor, you can add images and text that link to your own
products, to your affiliate offers, your freebies, your free e-mail course, and to your live
webinar registration page.
You can even include clickable icons for each of your categories, for instance, instead
of have them as text.
All with just the click of a button.
If you wish to include one ore more of the blog elements that Wix offers instead
of your own, all you have to do is either click on ‘+’ from the left-hand side panel,
select ‘Blog’, and add blog elements from the options that show up, or click on ‘My
Blog’ from the left-hand side panel, and click on ‘Add Blog Elements’.
From there, you can choose to add:
Your featured posts and/or recent posts.
An archive.
Your categories.
A tag cloud.
A RSS button.
A custom feed.
A ticker.
A posts gallery.
Related posts.
A posts list.
Facebook comments.
Disqus comments.
And even any related apps that you wish from the Wix App Market.
All you have to do is click on the element that you want to add, and drag-and-drop it
to the desired location.
Always remember to click save after you make a new change, and to click on publish in the
top, right-hand side corner to make your changes live on your site.
I now have an action item for you.
Play around with the different settings on Wix to customize both the blog feed and the
single post pages so that they complement your brand.
And then go ahead and start blogging.
To help you with this process, I created the How To Blog On Wix Guide, which is a printable,
step-by-step version of what we just went through, so you always have on-hand all the
ingredients you need to create your own blog on Wix effortlessly.
Just click the link below to download it.
I’ll see you in the next lesson.