You installed the theme, there are a hundred settings in front of you, and no obvious end to pull. This is the order to work in.
By the end the site looks like yours rather than like a demo, and you know where things live.
#Step 0: basic WordPress
Small things that have nothing to do with the theme and ruin the impression if skipped. Do them while the site is still empty.
Permalinks, chosen now. Changing them later breaks every address already shared
Site title, tagline, time zone and language
Which page is the front page and which lists your posts
That last one is the most common confusion at the start, and it is a WordPress setting rather than a theme one.
#Step 1: identity
Logos. There is more than one: light, dark, compact. Set them all at once, or a stray logo appears in dark mode or in the sticky header.
Colors and fonts. The fastest route is a ready made style kit, then adjust from there rather than starting from nothing.
Content width, corner radius, density. One of these changes how the whole site feels more than a dozen small settings will.
#Step 2: the frame
Menus and the header. The footer and what goes in it. Sidebars, if you want them.
This is the structure that stays the same on every page, so it is worth getting right before you touch individual posts.
#Step 3: content
Two routes and both are fine.
If you already have posts, bring them in.
If you started from a demo, work through a few posts and get them to the shape you want to keep: format, cover image, category.
Get one post exactly right, then copy it as a template for the rest.
Configuring every post from scratch is how an afternoon disappears, and the copy carries the settings you already decided on.
#Step 4: remove the demo traces
This is where people stop, thinking they are finished. These are the things a visitor notices first:
Somebody else's social links in the footer
Demo text in the call to action and the signup form
Demo images in the header
Test categories nobody meant to keep
Demo contact details, which is the one that actually costs you something
#Check the result
Walk the homepage, an archive, a single post and the search results. In light mode and dark mode. On a phone.
Success is simple to define: nowhere on the site can a visitor tell it was assembled from a demo.
#Common questions
Do I have to do these in order?
Permalinks first, genuinely, and the rest is a sensible sequence rather than a requirement.
Can I change the style kit later?
Yes, and it replaces your colour and font choices, so any manual tuning is worth doing after the kit rather than before it.
How long does this take?
An hour for the frame and as long as your content takes for the rest, while the demo trace list is fifteen minutes and is the part most often skipped.
Should I delete all the demo posts?
Look at them before you do, because they are the fastest way to see what the theme's layouts can do, and deleting them is a minute's work once you have.
I cannot find where a setting lives
Check three places in order: the WordPress Customizer, the theme's settings pages, and the individual post or page, since some settings exist at all three levels and the most specific one wins.
#Still stuck
Open a support ticket naming the setting you are looking for and what you want it to do.
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