Depending on the theme you’re using for your WordPress site there are different set of changes you can make to your site from within your admin panel. In this tutorial we will show you how to do some of the changes to your site using the Customization page. For the purpose of this tutorial we will use the Twenty Fourteen theme.

This tutorial covers the following topics:

How to Access the WordPress Customization Page
How to Modify your WordPress Title and Tagline
Customize your WordPress Front Page
Additional WordPress Theme Customizations

How to Access the WordPress Customization Page

To start customizing your WordPress theme, first go to Appearance -> Themes page..

On this page, locate the active theme (Twenty Fourteen in our case) and click on the Customize button next to its title.

The next screen will take you to a page that you can use to modify your WordPress theme in real time. On the left you will see a list of the available options and on the right a live preview of your site and how those changes will affect it.

How to Modify your WordPress Title and Tagline

The theme customization page allows you to modify your site’s title and tagline and see how it will look on your actual site immediately. To do this, expand the Site Title & Tagline group of settings and alter the text. As you type you will see the new text showing up in the preview on your right side. Once you’re happy with the result, simply click on the big Save & Publish button.

Customize your WordPress Front Page

WordPress allows you to choose between two options for your front page – a static page or a list of the latest blog posts with part of their content. This is another setting that you can config from the theme customization page. Expand the Static Front Page tab and you’ll see the available options.

By default WordPress will show your latest posts on the front page. However, you can change that option to A static page. This will open two more options for you – to select a page to be displayed on your front page and on which page your blog posts should be shown. For both options you’ll be able to choose from the list of all the pages you’ve published. If the list is empty this means that you don’t have a single Page created in your site.

Additional WordPress Theme Customizations

Depending on the theme you’re using there might be additional options in that page. For example, the Twenty Fourteen theme allows you to modify its site title & background colors, add a background image and more. Once you’re happy with the result, simply click on the Save & Publish button to save the changes.