Strong visual elements can distinguish your site from others and help to establish your identity, whether you have a personal blog or company website. Is your site brand-new, or have you been around for a while but want a new look that better represents you or your business? Here are five changes you can make to refresh your site.
1. Add your personal or business logo
Need ideas? See more examples of logos.
For more on creating your own logo, check out Canva’s logo maker.
When visitors come to your site for the first time, you immediately need to make an impression and tell them who you are. Displaying your own logo — whether it’s your company’s official logo, a symbol that represents you, or a design you made — is one way to establish your brand.
Need assistance? Read our step-by-step instructions. Depending on your design, you may also want to hide your site title and tagline.
The District Café & Eatery, a restaurant and coffee house in the heart of the Historic District in Savannah, Georgia, displays its black-and-white logo — with a horse and carriage of food — at the top of their website. The placement of your logo depends on your current theme (this Savannah eatery uses the Restaurant design, which can align a logo on the top left, center, or right).
Many themes support the site logo feature. Try it out by adding a logo in your Customizer (My Site → Customize → Site Identity). The ideal dimensions for a logo image are listed in your theme’s support documentation.
2. Reinforce your identity with a site icon and a profile photo
Make sure that two images are up-to-date: your site icon (also known as a blavatar or favicon) and profile photo (also referred to as your avatar or gravatar).
Your site icon is unique to your site — it’s an image shown on WordPress.com, in your visitor’s browser tab when they’re viewing your site, in widgets like Blogs I Follow, and as a home-screen app icon when your site is saved to a phone. It represents your site across the web and across devices. Some people use a version of their logo, like Sydney-based travel blogger Katie Mayor at Wild Spin of the World.
Others may display a different image, but it’s often consistent with their brand’s visual identity. Add or update your site icon in My Site(s) → Settings → General.
For more inspiration, read the stories behind some people’s profile photos.
Your profile photo also represents you online — it appears alongside your blog posts, next to your comments on other sites, and in related widgets, like the Authors Grid Widget, as seen on The Female Gaze, an online journal.
While a site icon is associated with a specific site, a profile photo is associated with your WordPress.com account. It distinguishes you from other contributors on a collaborative blog, and if you post on multiple sites, your profile photo represents you on each. Add or update your profile photo at wordpress.com/me.
3. Display a memorable tagline
Explore more taglines for inspiration.
Another quick way to promote yourself or your business is by adding a tagline: a motto that means something to you, a company slogan, or a short phrase that offers context about your site. Depending on your theme, your tagline may appear in your sidebar or under your site title, as seen on the blog Fun After Fifty.
Add or update your tagline in My Site(s) → Settings → General.
4. Use a personalized header to set the tone
A custom header strengthens your visual identity. We’ve explored how headers can completely transform a theme, making a site as unique as you. Looking at the sites A Ride Less Ordinary, Mandy Lea Photo, and Wags Wild Adventure, you can see how three headers change the look and feel of the same theme, Natural.
Many of our themes support custom headers. Add or update yours at My Site(s) → Customize → Header Image. The ideal dimensions are listed in the Customizer, and if you don’t have your own banner-sized image to use, you can choose one of the suggested images in the panel.
5. Add a custom background to match your vibe
For a different look, consider a custom background, which can have a dramatic or subtle effect depending on the color, pattern, or design you choose. Nneya Richards at ’N A Perfect World includes a faint map-inspired background at the top of her travel and lifestyle blog. Evoking exploration and adventure, the design is prominent but not distracting, and matches the topics that she blogs about.
Avoid busy patterns, super-bright or neon colors, and designs that make it hard to read your text. Backgrounds should tastefully enhance your site — not make readers want to click away.
Many of our themes support custom backgrounds. Add or update yours in My Site(s) → Customize → Colors & Backgrounds.
One final tip: you don’t need to adopt all of these techniques! Experiment with a few of these options to find the right balance. The next step is then taking the primary elements of your brand’s visual identity and incorporating them across your social platforms to create a uniform online presence.
Ready to take your site to the next level? Get unlimited access to premium themes, make design tweaks with custom CSS, enjoy advanced social media features, and much more with a WordPress.com Premium plan.
We are a fairly new site, just had our first birthday, and I will agree that starting right off the bat with branding yourself that can be easily found is key. It starts with the homepage of the site and logo! Nice article with good, precise points.
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Concise, brief and to the point. I’ve been taking advantage of these features for awhile now! You should also go over how to Build a Social Media Movement behind your brand.
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Thanks for the suggestion. Phoebe talked a bit about social media in her Little Grey Box interview but I have it on my list of post ideas to do updated resources around Facebook and Instagram and other social channels.
In the meantime, there are older social media resources in The Daily Post archives.
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That’s great news. Thanks so much for linking me these resources.
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This inspired me to take the 5 minutes required to finally change my blog’s header image from a generic one to one that represents me and my site. Thank you!
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Very helpful tips, definitely need to start incorporating these to build my brand. Thank you!
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Great news particularly for the beginners. I am about to kick off. Useful information Indeed. Thanks so much
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I’m planning to use some of those tips. Thanks for these advice!!!
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Thanks for the great advice! The theme you choose will indeed also determine what you can and cannot do so it IS key – these tips are surely appreciated… Perhaps if you have time you can critique my site to see if it is visually appealing (logo is almost finished so will be added soon though) 🙂
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These tips really motivated me to shake up my blog a whole lot more! Will definitely take these into consideration 🙏
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cαn’t chαngє mч prσfílє pícturє, αnч hєlp
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Make sure you’re logged into your account, then visit https://wordpress.com/me to reach the page to update your profile, including the photo. Are you able to see this page?
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No
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Are using WordPress.com on your computer or mobile device? (If mobile device, look for and click on “Me” at the bottom of the screen — that takes your profile settings. For more help, check the forums: https://apps.wordpress.com/support/)
If you can provide more information about your setup and any other details, we can help you troubleshoot further. Thanks!
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Again I struggle with creating the kind of blog site that feels like a real journal. One that you pick up and read. You enjoy it and relive what the person or people felt. I do want my site to lead to sales in my threadless shop and promote my books. I wonder how I can balance this out and organize.
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Thanks for the lovely advice…you are wonderful to share this on my blog
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nice post cheri! I will try your five tweaks.
thanks for sharing!
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Can you please tell how do we make text as a link!
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Here are steps to create a link in a post or page on your site: https://wordpress.com/support/links/#creating-links-in-the-visual-editor
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Thank you so much..It was very helpful
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Really useful.
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These are really important aspects for the growth of blog. I use the Dara theme and have used a header image instead of logo. Do I need to change it. I have also kept my tagline hidden.
My theme supports a static front page. Should I go for that or keep it as it is.
How is the setup of my blog?
Thanks.
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As mentioned in the blog, you do not have to use all ideas in the post — they are just ideas and suggestions. In fact, you really shouldn’t use ALL of them — pick and choose the ones that work for your needs.
Using a header image instead of a logo is completely fine! Yes, hiding your tagline is fine if that is what looks best for your current design.
If you want the look of a website instead of a blog (with a feed of recent posts on the front page), then you can set a static front page. It depends on what you want.
For inspiration, here are examples of two sites that use the Dara theme with a static front page:
https://danielritchie.org/
https://kristinahobbs.com/
Resources, if needed:
https://wordpress.com/theme/dara
https://wordpress.com/support/pages/front-page/
Hope this helps.
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Thank you very much.
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whenever i change things for the better on my homepage (or any Page) it seems my traffic drops for a bit because when google indexes it again they have new things to look at and crawl and that will potentially lead to a different position in SERPS also. it happens to me every time i make any tweaks to my site. So, i cringe every time i make a change but i know i’m doing some improvements and hopefully in the long run it pays off and i didn’t ruin any chances of climbing in SERPS.
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Good tips.
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Thanks for the tips!
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Great tips!
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very good to know. thanks to you.
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Great tips! First impression is very important.
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Wonderful tips
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Great design tips for a first-time blogger. Thank you!
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Quite educational!
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awesome tips! thank you so much.
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Very insightful. Thank you.
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Excellent tips! Thank you!
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Great tips! I’ll be applying these to my blog. I’m a communications student and I just started up a new blog that includes my various photography, writing, and design projects. Check it out! https://sarahjcommunications.wordpress.com/
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This is very interesting. Thanks.
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This was insightful! I recently started my blog and am looking to take it to the next level within the coming months. A sight icon and/or logo are a couple of things I may want to do but I want to ensure the image I use is original. Thanks for the tips here.
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Nice but i guess the “contents” are what makes the most sense… But still, A very solid post you wrote.
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I’m new to blogging and this is very helpful. Thank you! ❤
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Great stuff! very helpful tips to remember
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Great tips.
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I need ideas, tips, tricks, anything to help me get more traffic in my blog please. I would like to get some engaging followers. What can you suggest please? Any suggestion is welcome.
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Here are resources for growing your blog, traffic, and readership:
A free ebook on growing your traffic and building your blog: https://wordpress.com/dailypost/postaday/ebook-grow-traffic/ (There are three common formats there that you can download.)
A free email course in which we send you daily emails for 10 days on the topics of branding and growth: https://wordpress.com/dailypost/blogging-university/#branding-growth
A list of previous posts on The Daily Post that covers traffic, growth, finding your audience, social media, and more: https://wordpress.com/dailypost/category/traffic-growth/
Thanks for publishing on WordPress.com!
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Done all this. Just need to find out how to put my header directly behind my logo.
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I’m not sure if this is what you meant, but you can hide your site title and tagline by unchecking the box next to “Display Site Title and Tagline” in Customize → Site Identity, so the square image in your header is the only thing that displays.
In more general terms, having both a header and a logo may be unnecessary – oftentimes, people use one or the other.
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Got it 🙂
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Great advice! I’ve been given mixed reviews about my logo. Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated. 😌
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This may be the thing I am looking for.
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Great tips. Thanks 👍🏼
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How do you add on the side a scroll bar with comments/ subscriptions there? Instead of clicking a post and doing it that way.
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Hi Kirsten — you can display recent comments in your sidebar by adding the Recent Comments Widget:
https://wordpress.com/support/widgets/recent-comments-widget/
You can add a tool so readers can subscribe to your site, too. You can do this by adding the Follow Blog Widget:
https://wordpress.com/support/widgets/follow-blog-widget/
In both cases, please let me know if these are not what you were referring to. Thanks!
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This post is very useful and it gives the simplest way to solve our problems.
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appreciate it, will try to include this in my own blog!
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Great tips to begin with.
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Great tips!
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Thank you for these helpful tips.
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