Are you wondering what the WordPress customizer is and how to use it? Le customizer WordPress could be a touchy subject for a lot of people, especially newbies.

It comes with plenty of options for customizing and modifying your WordPress website. But for beginners it can turn out to be a bit complicated and confusing. Here is an article that will help you get to know the WordPress Customizer better. This article contains a complete guide on how to use the latter.

MBut before, if you have never installed WordPress, let's find out How to Install a WordPress Blog in 7 Steps et How to search, install and activate a WordPress theme on your blog 

Then back to why we are here. 

1. What is the WordPress Customizer?

The customizer is where you go to customize your WordPress website. The customization options found in the customizer are different depending on the themes.

The WordPress Customizer allows you to customize many elements such as:

  • Website title and slogan : Customize the title and slogan of your website
  • Change website color : Change the color of your header text and your background color.
  • Header Support : Add header image or video, depending on your preference.
  • Background image : Edit your background images.
  • Widgets : Add widgets like sidebar and footer.
  • Home page settings : Add your personalized home page, the one your visitors will see first.
  • Additional CSS : Add additional CSS to improve your website
These options are explained in detail below along with other additional WordPress customization options.
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2. How to access the WordPress Customizer ?

First, we'll show you how to access the WordPress Customizer. Go to your WordPress dashboard. Then go to Appearance> Customize. You will be taken directly to the Customizer interface, with a preview of your WordPress theme on the right, and on the left, there will be a custom menu.

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There is another way to access the WordPress Customizer. Go to
AppearenceThemes:. Then go to your active WordPress theme and click 'Personalize their campaigns'.
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3. The cCustomizer controls 

The Customizer controls are just buttons you can click to hide customizer.

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Pencil icon

Some customizer preview items have a pencil icon next to the items to customize. These are shortcuts to the customizer options. You can edit this specific item by clicking on the pencil icon. 

How to manage updates to your WordPress blog? To discover absolutely

However, these icons may only be seen by the owners or administrator of the website, but not by visitors.

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4. How to use the WordPress Customizer ?

You already know how to access the page of your Customizer. Now, let's take a look at how to quickly customize a website.

Before we start, note one thing that Customizer functionality differs depending on the WordPress theme you have activated on your website. However, the basic Customizer options will be available on almost all WordPress themes.

Discover more What You Need to Know About WordPress Caching

Apart from that, the availability of the other useful options largely depends on how much effort the developers of the active WordPress theme put in. In this article, we will talk about WordPress theme Twenty twenty, which makes excellent use of the Customizer.

Let's see now step by step how to customize a WordPress website using the Theme customizer.

i. Configure website identity and design

It is best that you start with the website identity first before further customization. WordPress website identity gives you control over its name and tagline. To get started, navigate to the website identity.

See also our 10 WordPress plugins to create and manage events

You can fill in both fields under Site Title et Slogan. A website title is what your visitor will use to search for it. And a tagline is a brief rough description of what your website is all about.

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You can also download a favicon from this interface, you can even add your website logo. A favicon is the image that appears with the title of your site in a web browser.

When finished, click on Save and Publish. You can see the results on the preview window on the right before posting.

ii. Change website colors

The colors of your WordPress theme can be changed, which will have a huge impact on your website design. To do so, go to 'Colors' in the Customizer menu.

Read also: How to add a WooCommerce store on Facebook

There you will have two options that you can change - Header Text Color and Background Color.

Text Header Color allows you to change the color of your website title and tagline. Likewise, the background color allows you to change the color of the background.

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Depending on how many colors your theme uses, you can freely change them to your preference.

iii. Background image

To change your background image, click 'Background image' to begin. You can change your background image and also configure a range of display options from the same small interface.

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You can edit and remove the background image. Another option is to apply a preset on the image. You can change this option according to your preferences. The options other than "Default" that you can choose from are as follows:

  • Fill screen
  • Fit the screen
  • Repeat
  • custom

You can also select the position of the image as well as the size of the image. Also, you can choose whether you want your background image to repeat or not. And lastly, you can configure your image so that it can scroll with the page or keep it there finally to create a parallax effect.

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iv. Manage menus

Another thing that the WordPress Customizer allows you to do is configure your website menus. To do so, just click on "Menus».

Discover also our tutorial on How to hide a WordPress widget on mobile

To create the first menu for your website, click on "Create a new menu" and type the name of your menu. Then click on Following. Now that your menu has been created, you can adjust its settings.

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There are a number of things you can do with WordPress customization with your new menu. You can change the name, add new options, adjust the order of menu options, configure its location. You can also specify if you want WordPress to automatically update it when creating future top-level pages.

v. Widgets

A widget is a small application or block of content that allows you to add useful content to the sidebars and footers of your website.

See also our 10 WooCommerce plugins to create dynamic pricing

Click on ' Widgets'in the Customizer menu to add the footer. You will have options like 'Footer # 1', 'Footer # 2', and when you go to select one of those footers, you will find widgets of search bar, Recent publications as well as Recent Comments, or Archives, Categories et Meta that will appear.

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You can only add three options at a time, each on a footer. 

Which WordPress hosting plan should you use? Discover it by clicking on this link.

Please note: All the widgets provided by the theme may not appear on specific Customizer pages. But, if you want to access all sidebars you have to go to Appearance> Widgets.

saw. Home page settings

By default, your home page is set to display the latest posts and comments from your website. In the settings menu on the home page, you can change what visitors can see when they first access your website.

Your latest articles:

It's a classic blogging style, where your latest posts are displayed in reverse chronological order (newest to oldest).

A static page: 

This is a fixed or static page. You can use this option if you don't want to have a blog page to display as your home page.

Also read our guide on How to moderate comments in WordPress

You can define your own home page. To do this, go to your dashboard, select "Pages"And click on the"Add". You can create as many pages as you want. Then select one of these pages as your home page.

You can also just select the Articles page if you want to have a page that displays blog posts.

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viii. Additional CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is a language that controls the appearance of HTML elements on a web page.

You can add your own CSS in the additional CSS panel finally to customize the look and layout of your website. This will allow you to make changes to it and make changes to your website, while having a real-time preview on the right side of your screen.

When you start writing certain CSS codes, WordPress will automatically suggest attributes to you based on the letters you are going to type. Also, it will show error messages if you haven't written a proper CSS instruction.

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5. Additional WordPress Customizer Options

There are other additional features that you can use to improve your WordPress website.

Preview your website on different resolutions

One of the important things that a website owner should do is make sure their website is responsive and looks great on all screens.

At the bottom of your Customizer menu, you will find three icons next to the "Hide controls". These icons allow you to test your website on different screen resolutions like desktops, tablets and mobile devices.

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Publish, save or schedule Customizer settings

Once you've made the necessary changes, don't forget to apply them. Otherwise, all your work will be lost.

To apply the modification, click on the "Publish". Once finished, click on the close button present in the upper left corner of your screen, to exit the Customizer.

In case you need more time to finalize your new design, you can save it as a project and even share your new design with someone without giving them access to your admin area.

To save it, you need to click on the gear icon right next to the publish button. This will open the Action panel. There you will find three options: Publish, Save the draft et Plan.

To store your changes, click on the radio button "Save the draftOf the action panel.

Likewise, the schedule option allows you to publish your changes on a specific date and time. You can use this option if you want to schedule your changes to take effect when there is the least traffic.

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Finally, in case you want to reset the unpublished changes, you can click on the 'Discard changes'on the action panel.

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Discover also some premium WordPress plugins  

You can use other WordPress plugins to give a modern appearance and to optimize the handling of your blog or website.

We offer you here some premium WordPress plugins that will help you do that.

1. WP SEO Propeller

SEO Propeller is the WordPress Plugin which allows you and your visitors to generate comprehensive reports on each page's SEO for any given combination of URLs and keywords.

Wp seo propeller advanced seo analysis tool

It analyzes elements such as the title, Meta Tags, website loading speed, title tags (h1 to h3), text, images, code (valid on w3.org, text: html ratio , etc.) to generate a detailed and unambiguous report.

Read also How to translate a WordPress extension into your language

It can be installed on any WordPress theme and thanks to support of shortcodes you can create her generate this report on the page you want.

Download | Demo | Web hosting

2. PrivateContent

PrivateContent is a powerful yet easy-to-use solution for creating a true multi-level registration website. It is a plugin compatible with the new European legislation on the protection of user data.

Privatecontent multilevel content plugin

Like most plugins in this list, it comes with a whole host of full features that are only waiting for you to install it.

Also take a look at 5 smartphone apps to protect your images & videos

Protect your content with this WordPress Plugin premium and let subscribers access it based on the role or status they have. Also, it is one of the best-selling plugins in this niche, and one that deserves your special attention.

Download | Demo | Web hosting

3. Unlimited Addons for WPBakery Page Builder

As its name suggests, it is the most comprehensive addon in WPBakery. With a list of over 500 content items and 15 layout templates. This extension adds several premium options to your plugin.

Unlimited addons for wpbakery page builder visual composer

Among its latest we will find among others: the possibility of modifying the HTML / CSS / JS of each element, the highly customizable layout, the possibility of importing and exporting addons, regular updates, etc.

Download Demo | Web hosting

Recommended Resources

Find out about other recommended resources to help you build and manage your website.

Conclusion

It was a complete guide on using the WordPress Theme Customizer. We are sure and hope that you can now use all the options of the latter.

We hope this article has been helpful to you and you have learned something new. If you liked this article then you can also see our complete guide at How to create a WordPress website (step by step).

However, you can also consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on WordPress blog creation.

Do not hesitate to share with your friends on your favorite social networks. And if you have any suggestions or remarks, leave them in our section Comments.

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