Use this checklist after Élan is installed. The order is intentional: set the site structure first, then homepage content, then styling and integrations.
1. Site identity
- Open the Header widget and replace the demo title or logo with your own.
- Check the blog description if you want it displayed.
2. Main navigation
- Edit the Main Navigation Pages gadget.
- Add your top-level links.
- Use hyphen prefixes when you need dropdowns.
3. Navigation social links
Edit the Social Links Link List and replace placeholder usernames/URLs. Élan chooses the icon from the link name.
4. Homepage slider
Edit Featured Posts Slider Settings. Choose recent posts or a Blogger label, decide whether dates are shown, and set the number of posts to load.
5. Homepage featured links
In Landing Featured Links, replace the three Image widgets with your own images, titles, links and captions.
6. Homepage About section
Edit the homepage About Image widget with your portrait or brand image, short introduction and About-page link.
7. Sidebar
Open Theme → Customize → Advanced and set the sidebar width for each page type. A value of 0px hides that sidebar; a positive width shows it.
8. Newsletter
Replace the placeholder newsletter URL with the signup form URL provided by your email service.
9. Footer and Instagram
Update the footer text, links and social profiles. If you want the Instagram strip, connect Behold and paste your Behold feed URL into the Instagram widget.
10. Colors and typography
Finish in Theme Designer. Élan exposes settings for global colors, navigation, header, slider, image boxes, About section, latest posts, sidebar, footer, single posts and dark mode.
11. Test the important views
- Homepage
- Blog listing
- Single post
- Static page
- Label/category page
- Search and archive pages
- Mobile navigation
- Light and dark mode