Theme menus
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Hello there,
For some time I have been using the theme Origin as I wanted the option of having multiple navigation menus.
However, I have shifted to the Cubic theme as its more appealing to the eye, although the issue is it doesn’t have many navigation menus.
I was hoping for some advice/assistance to better my blog as it’s used for professional purposes and I’m hoping to gain traffic.
Please help!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi Eleanor,
A quick glance at your blog has very much made me want to go read The Book Thief with some gingernut and caramel sandwiches. :)
However, I have shifted to the Cubic theme as its more appealing to the eye, although the issue is it doesn’t have many navigation menus.
Cubic has two main menu areas:
- A primary menu that you can view after clicking on the hamburger icon in the upper right hand corner.
- A social links menu that you can view in the lower right hand corner.
In addition, you have the option of adding as many custom menu widgets as you’d like. These will appear underneath your primary menu after clicking on the hamburger icon in the upper right hand corner.
If you’re not keen on the way the menu is hidden behind the hamburger icon, then you could consider a different theme. Baskerville, Dyad, and Gateway are a few examples of themes that nicely feature posts on their home pages but that also have a main menu that’s visible at all times. I’d encourage you to have a browse through our repository and filter based on different criteria at the top, too:
I was hoping for some advice/assistance to better my blog as it’s used for professional purposes and I’m hoping to gain traffic.
Have you checked out any of our Guided Courses before? We have one that’s specifically geared towards Branding and Growth:
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/blogging-university/branding-growth/
In addition, we have some tips and tricks for gaining more views and traffic in the follow support documentation:
Take a look through those resources and let me know if any questions come up.
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Dear siobhyb,
Thank you for your response and I am glad my blog has made you want to read The Book Thief whilst eating ginger nut and caramel sandwiches. Wise choice! :)
However, the blog themes you suggested aren’t my thing.
My aspiration is to create a blog similar to the below.
http://nativefox.com
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/
http://www.seriouseats.com
http://nativefox.comI would be so grateful for some help and look forward to your’s and others reply.
Eleanor -
Hi Eleanor,
Perhaps Toujours would work well for you? It has a post slider at the top, like the blogs your provided a link to, and a similar minimalist feel. I recommend taking a look at Shoreditch for similar reasons, also.
Rosalie is one of my favourite themes at the moment but is one of our Premium themes that comes at an extra cost. In case you’d like to consider upgrading with a Premium theme, you can check out others with post sliders via this page:
https://wordpress.com/themes/filter/post-slider/type/premium/
Let me know if you decide to go with any of the above or if you have any extra questions.
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Dear siobhyb,
Thank you for your response.
I like your suggestions and Shoreditch is pretty.
I have altered my blog – I would love your thoughts and opinions on how I can make it better and less ‘ugly’.I would be so grateful for some help and look forward to your’s and others reply.
Eleanor
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Hi Eleanor!
I took a look over your site and don’t think it looks “ugly” at all. :)
I see you’ve now switched to Rowling. Is that the theme you’re going to settle on? If you’re unhappy with the general look and feel then I recommend that you continue to experiment with different themes.
You can make some changes to your theme’s main background colour, choose different fonts, add widgets, and make other changes to the look of your site via the WordPress.com Customizer.
If you’re looking for general feedback on your site then I recommend checking out the “Community Pool” post that gets published to the Daily Post each Monday:
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/category/community-pool/
The Daily Post, in general, is a great blog to follow for tips and tricks on making the most out of your site:
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/
You may also be interested in one of our Guided Courses:
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/blogging-university/
Let me know if there are any specific changes you’d like to make and I can help guide further.
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Dear siobhyb,
Thank you for your response.
I have asked and read through some of the of the questions and forum chats in the community pool.
Can I ask – what/how do you personally think I could better my site?
I use my blog for professional purposes and need it looking sleek yet engaging.
HELP!Regards
Eleanor -
Hi Eleanor,
As your site is food-based and you’ve posted a few recipes, I want to make sure you’re aware of the recipe shortcode. The shortcode can be use to embed recipes to your posts/pages and formats them in a nice, consistent way. You can read more details on the shortcode and see it in action in the following documentation:
In addition, Rowling supports a social links menu (as can be seen in the top right corner of the theme’s demo site) and you can find steps to activate this on your own site here:
I also recommend setting a favicon to replace the WordPress logo in the upper left hand corner of your site:
https://en.support.wordpress.com/blavatars/
Beyond those few tips, I think you’ve done a good job of setting Rowling up and can see you’ve experimented with some of the options available in the Customizer e.g. the custom colour palette, widgets in the right sidebar, a site logo, etc. :) If there are specific parts of the theme that you dislike or any other features you’d like to add to your site, let me know and I can see how I can help out.
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Dear siobhyb,
WOW! Thank you so much! You are amazingly helpful.
A blogger from the community pool suggested:
1. I change the header by moving my picture to an About page.
2. Change the name of my blog and add a tagline
3. Add a few more widgets – a text blurb and add a Categories widget.
What are your thoughts?I do have my blog listed on my CV so I want it nice looking!
Something that shows off my published work currently listed in the top menu section.Regards
Eleanor -
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Hi Eleanor,
I’m glad you got some really good suggestions from the community pool. :)
I particularly like the suggestion of switching up your blog’s name and tagline. These are two of the first things that visitors will notice about your site and therefore a great chance to grab their attention.
My colleague gave some handy pieces of inspiration for choosing a blog name in the following blog post. You can also find a list of links to previous Q&As with WordPress.com bloggers around how they chose their blog’s name:
Design choices are very much down to personal preference and, so, I encourage you to have an experiment based on the suggestions/feedback you’ve received so far.
I don’t understand shortcodes
If you use the support documentation I provided as a starting point and come up with any specific questions while walking through it, then I’ll be happy to help.
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Dear siobhyb,
First question refers to shortcodes.
I tried the recipe shortcode.
However, the results are terrible
https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/2016/07/04/coconut-panna-cotta/I don’t understand what I’ve don wrong.
Please help.
Regards
Eleanor -
Hi Eleanor,
I took a look over that page and noticed the following issues:
- Under Ingredients, there’s a missing space between the dash (–) and each ingredient. Add a space in order to make sure the list is formatted correctly.
- Under Directions, there was a missing space between the first number (1.) and the first direction. I went ahead to add this space in for you and the list should now be formatted correctly.
- Servings was misaligned due to the theme’s default styling for lists. I have reported this back to the theme’s author and, as temporary workaround, added the following CSS to your site:
.post-content ul.jetpack-recipe-meta>li:first-child { margin-top: 0; }Let me know if you spotted any other issues with the formatting of your recipe.
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Dear siobhyb,
You’re the best thank you kindly.
I have been plugging through past recipe posts and altering them according.Furthermore many of my blogs are reviews. Does WordPress have a shortcode for reviews?
Also, my blog is listed on my CV as I use it to upload videos/audio pertaining to my showreel. Therefore how do you think I can highlight past work?
As potential employers said they have found it hard to navigate and then find my showreel on my blog.Thank you again.
Eleanor Tabone -
Hi Eleanor,
Furthermore many of my blogs are reviews. Does WordPress have a shortcode for reviews?
We don’t offer a specific shortcode for reviews. How would you envision such a shortcode working? If you have ideas for how you’d like to format your reviews, I can see how I can help.
As potential employers said they have found it hard to navigate and then find my showreel on my blog.
You could consider adding a separate page and menu item specifically for your showreel.
We support embeds from sites like YouTube and Vimeo. (You can find the full list of video sharing sites that we support embeds for here.) If you upgrade to WordPress.com Premium or Business then you can also make use of VideoPress and upload videos directly through the WordPress.com admin area.
In addition, you could consider a separate page for your portfolio. We support a portfolio shortcode, to help you manage and display your portfolio items:
Hope that information’s helpful!
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Dear siobhyb,
What I like about the WordPress recipe shortcode is that each recipe post looks the same. Could WordPress potentially create a shortcode that enabled each review post to look the same?
I do have seperate pages for my showreel – see my blog in the top page’s. There’s film/audio/published work what are your thoughts of this layout?
Eleanor
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Question regarding portfolios:
“Viewing Portfolio Projects
Helps says –
I have to create a seperate link to view my portfolio.
I want my showreel seen on my blog though…
I am very confused. -
Hi Eleanor,
What I like about the WordPress recipe shortcode is that each recipe post looks the same. Could WordPress potentially create a shortcode that enabled each review post to look the same?
I think the reason that a shortcode works well for recipes is that they have many different components: Instructions, ingredients, preparation time, directions, etc. As these components are so universally used and recognised across different types of recipes, it’s relatively straightforward to pick them out and format them with a shortcode.
Reviews generally vary and don’t have as many components that are universally recognised/used.
Instead of a shortcode, I recommend using your editor’s built in tools to manually format your reviews in a similar way to each other.
I do have seperate pages for my showreel – see my blog in the top page’s. There’s film/audio/published work what are your thoughts of this layout?
I can see that, since you switched themes, the links to the separate showreel pages appear in your social links menu in the upper right. Each of the showreel pages are therefore linked via a WordPress icon.
Do you like the look of that menu?
If you would like two separate menus for your blog and showreel, then you can browse our repository for themes that support multiple menus here:
https://wordpress.com/themes/filter/multiple-menus/
The above themes would enable you to create two separate menus that link your pages via text, rather than via a WordPress icon.
I have to create a seperate link to view my portfolio.
I want my showreel seen on my blog though…I’m afraid I’m not clear on your question here. Can you please clarify?
Portfolio items are a good way to showcase individual pieces of work e.g. art pieces, photography, videos, etc. If you would prefer to include lists or work that isn’t as visual then separate posts may work better for your needs.
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Hi @riponsp,
If you have a specific theme question that we can help out with then please start a new thread on this forum. You can do that here:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/forum/themes#postform
Thanks!
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