How to See Your WordPress Website as You Modify It
The beauty of WordPress is that it is incredibly flexible. No matter what kind of blog or website you have, there is a plugin that can help you make it look more like a million bucks.
In fact, there are over a million different plugins that can be added to a WordPress website. This flexibility is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it makes WordPress an incredibly reliable platform. But on the other, it can make it incredibly difficult to keep track of what is going on.
Keeping a close eye on every aspect of your website can be challenging. So to assist you with this, WordPress provides numerous tools to help you keep track of what is going on beneath the surface. Let’s take a quick look at these tools and how you can put them to use.
1. wp-appearance.php
Every WordPress theme comes with a template file named wp-appearance.php. This file is often ignored by newbies who are just getting started with WordPress, but it is actually a critical part of WordPress customization. When someone loads this file in their browser, they are presented with a blank page, as there is not much going on here. This is where you can add your own CSS styles to make the page look how you want it to look. For example, you can change the background color, change the fonts, or add new fonts altogether. In addition, you can remove a lot of the default WordPress styling that is present in other template files to make your page look more like a clean website design without all of the WordPress cruft. This is a great place to start when trying to figure out how to style your page.
2. wp-login.php
The login page is one of the first places a potential visitor will come across when visiting your website. And you want to make sure you leave a good taste in their mouth. But this taste has to be earned. You have to provide value to the visitor in some way if you want them to stay and come back for more. This value can be anything from a free ebook to a free t-shirt to a free theme registration. You can use this page to ask visitors to sign up for a newsletter, to follow you on social media, or to simply provide valuable content.
3. wp-admin.php
If someone has managed to find their way to this point on your website, you can be sure that they are interested in what you have to offer. From here, they can access all of the backend features of your WordPress website. This includes the features that you have enabled for your site in the dashboard area. Things like theme options, plugins, and others.
With the right theme and plugins, you can make the backend of your website look just how you want it to look. For example, you can change the colors, enable or disable specific features, or put in place a new ordering system for your products. You have complete control over what is happening behind the scenes with this area of your website. And you can give it a brand new appearance with just a few clicks if you are not happy with how it looks by default. Keep in mind that if you do decide to change things around a lot, you have to go back and forth between the wp-admin interface and the browser interface to make sure that everything looks consistent.
4. wp-content.php
The content area of your website is where all of the blog posts and pages reside. So it would be a shame to have all of this potential content and not have it displayed in an easily accessible place for readers. Luckily, WordPress provides you with several different ways to organize and display your content. You can use the widgets area of your WordPress website to display content in a variety of ways, from a simple list of blog posts to a full-blown blog with all of the features you could want. WordPress also provides you with a number of different shortcodes that you can use to make content look more like a magazine article than just a few dull blog posts.
5. wp-options.php
One of the most critical files in the WordPress directory structure is options.php. When someone visits your website for the first time and navigates to wp-options, they will see a big notice at the top of the page. This notice contains important information about your website, such as the name, description, and URL (uniform resource locator, website address).
WordPress also provides you with a handy set of options to make your website experience as pleasant as possible. You can use this area of your website to set up email notifications, choose a page layout, or determine the site title. It is a very powerful area, and with a little bit of customization, you can make it look like a completely different website. For example, let’s say you are the founder of a startup company and you have a blog where you post helpful information about starting a business. In this case, you would want the page title to be something like “How to Start a Business Blog in 2020,” and you can use the “webmaster” section to set up email notifications so that you can get notified whenever someone searches for that topic.
6. index.php
The last file in the WordPress directory is index.php. This is the entry file for your website, and it is very important, as it determines what happens when someone visits your website. In the case of an e-commerce store, the file index.php determines what happens when someone buys a product or makes an online booking. So it is best to put in place a set of rules for what happens when someone visits your website, as you never know what could happen.
As you can see, there are several critical files that make up the WordPress directory structure. These files are often overlooked by beginners who are just getting started with WordPress, but they are actually quite important. Knowing how to modify these files can give you a better understanding of how WordPress works, and then you can go about customizing your website, as well as, the content within it, to look the way you want it to look.