Origin is a very beautiful and responsive Wordpress Theme to create a Portfolio or Photography website.  I’m currently using it for one of my new projects.  So I’m just sharing with you the 10 things I did after I installed the Origin Wordpress Theme.  I’m assuming you already changed your Permalinks and removed all the test data in your site already.  Because those are actually the first things I would do after I install Wordpress.  Below are steps I did to start to customize my site after I installed and activated the Origin Wordpress Theme from ElegantThemes.

Responsive Portfolio Wordpress Theme – Origin

 

 

Overview of the 10 Things I did to Customize my Origin WordPress Theme

1. Remove Widgets from Sidebar
2. Try out the Shortcodes in New Post
3. Featured Image is For an Image on the frontpage
4. Big Thumbnail is for Individual Post Heading Background
5. Change Footer & Copyright
6. Change Logo
7. Hide Sample Page in Navigation
8. Remove Comment Count in Posts
9. Enable Banners & Add Google Adsense Code
10. Add Google Analytics for Site Tracking

Steps:

1.  Remove Widgets from Sidebar

The widgets on the sidebar clutter up the left navigation.  It also has a links to login Log in/out, admin, feeds and WordPress links.  Since I don’t want people to have access to that, I removed it along with other widgets not necessary right now.

• Login to your WordPress Administrator
• Click on ‘Appearances’, ‘Widgets’
• Drag widgets from the Sidebar to the left and Drop

2.   Try out the Shortcodes in New Post

I wanted to check out how easy it was to add shorcodes to a post.  So it’s as easy as clicking a button.  All the shortcodes are available in the editor bar.

• Click on ‘Posts’, ‘Add New’
• Shortcodes buttons are on the editor bar
• Click one and enter in data to customize a shortcode

3.  Featured Image is For an Image on the frontpage

You must add a Featured Image because this image is used to populate the Frontpage of your portfolio website.  If you don’t have a featured image, it will not show up on the Frontpage.

• In the New Post, on the right side you will see a box that says ‘Featured Image’
• Click on ‘Upload featured image’

4.  Big Thumbnail is for Individual Post Heading Background

If you look at the demo, on an individual post.  You will see an image behind the post heading.  That image is managed here in the Big Thumbnail.

•  Under the Post text box, you will see a ‘ET Settings’
• Under the ‘Big Thumbnail:” Click on ‘Upload Image’ to add an image to the Post Heading

5.  Change Footer & Copyright

I know I’m not supposed to remove the footer or change the copyright information, but I wanted to customize my footer for this Origin WordPress Theme.

• Click on ‘Appearances’, ‘Editor’
• Left Side:
  • Select Theme to Edit = Origin
• Click on ‘copyright.php‘
• You can modify the text in your footer to match mine.  Replace my name with your site name and site URL
• Click on ‘Update File’

6.  Change Logo

You can easily change your site logo by uploading your own logo in the Origin Theme Options.  To upload your own logo:

• Click on ‘Appearances’, ‘Origin Theme Options’
• Click on ‘General Settings‘, ‘General’
• Under the Logo, click on ‘Upload Image’
• Click on ‘Save’

7.  Hide Sample Page in Navigation

After you activate your Origin WordPress Theme, in the left navigation you will see a link to ‘Sample Page’.  You can hide this easily in the Origin Theme Options Navigation.

• Click on ‘Appearances’, ‘Origin Theme Options’
• Click on ‘Navigation‘, ‘Pages’
• Click on ‘Sample Pages’ (so now it’s a red x, it will not display on the Frontpage)
• Click on ‘Save’

8.  Remove Comment Count in Posts

When you view posts, you will see a count of the number of comments you have.  It is kind of annoying if you have no comments for your posts.  So you can remove this post info from your post.  You can also find this in the Origin Theme Options.

• Click on ‘Appearances’, ‘Origin Theme Options’
• Click on ‘Layout Settings‘
• Under ‘Choose which items to display in the postinfo section’
  • unclick ‘Comments’ (so it’s greyed out.  Now your posts will not display comment counts)
• Click on ‘Save’

 9.  Enable Banners & Add Google Adsense Code

Monetize your site by adding Google Adsense.  You can add the code directly into the Origin Theme Options.

• Click on ‘Appearances’, ‘Origin Theme Options’
• Click on ‘Ad Management‘
• Click on ‘Enable Single Post 468 x 60 Banner’ (so it’s blue and not grey)
• At the bottom, put your adsense code – in the text box that says “Input 468×60 adsense code”
• Click on ‘Save’

10.  Add Google Analytics for Site Tracking

Now you can track visitors to your site by adding Google Analytics. You can add this through the Origin Theme Options.

• Click on ‘Appearances’, ‘Origin Theme Options’
• Click on ‘Integration‘
• Add Google Analytics tracking code into the text box that says: ‘Add code to the < body > (good for tracking codes such as google analytics)
• Click on ‘Save’

So those are the top 10 things I did to customize my Portfolio website that uses Origin WordPress Theme from ElegantThemes.  You can also customize many more things of your site including colors, navigation, SEO, and more.  This is all managed in the Origin Theme Options.

There are lots of documentation in the ElegantThemes for the Origin WordPress Theme.  You can view the documentation if you have any questions.

Click here for recommended Fatcow Webhosting provider

Click here to demo Origin

Click here to download Origin

Click here for more features of Origin

Hope that helped you.

Thanks,

Elaine