# Guides

## Working on your blog

You have different ways to update your blog. If you are familiar with a terminal and git, you might want to [work locally on your blog](./local-workflow.md). Otherwise you can enable the [online editor](./online-workflow.md) and use it.

## Using your own domain name

Check out [this article](https://css-tricks.com/using-your-domain-with-a-netlify-hosted-site/) which explains how to use your own domain name with a Netlify hosted site.

## Analytics, tracking page views, etc.

Once you have your site live you may start wanting to get an idea of how many visitors are coming to your site along with other metrics such as:

- What articles are most popular?
- Where do my visitors come from?
- When do people visit my site?

Out of the box, the site generated by `medium-to-own-blog` does not track readers. If you want to add analytics to your blog, you have different solutions:

- use the recommend service: [GoatCount](https://www.goatcounter.com/). It is a privacy-aware, free, and open source analytics service. Simply sign up to GoatCounter and copy your code to your `config.js` file.
- use any other services: [https://www.gatsbyjs.org/docs/adding-analytics/](https://www.gatsbyjs.org/docs/adding-analytics/).

## Comments, likes, and webmentions

In the spirit of the decentralization of the web, you can support comments and likes on your blog by leveraging webmentions.

## Changing styles

`medium-to-own-blog` allows you to change the default theme styling by updating the theme values.

First, you must create a theme file and then you can override theme values. See all [theme values](../gatsby-theme/src/theme.js)

```js
// src/gatsby-theme-medium-to-own-blog/theme.js

import defaultTheme from 'gatsby-theme-medium-to-own-blog/src/theme'

export default {
  ...defaultTheme,
  colors: {
    ...defaultTheme.colors,
    text: '#000',
    primary: '#6166DC',
    background: '#fff',
  },
}
```

## Component Shadowing

> This feature allows users to override a component in order to customize its rendering.
>
> Component Shadowing lets you replace the theme’s original file, `gatsby-theme-medium-to-own-blog/src/components/bio.js` for example, with your own to implement any changes you need.

Any component or section is able to be replaced with your own custom component.

This opens up a full customization of the blog to your designed needs. You can copy any component directly from `medium-to-own-blog` and alter it how you like, or you can create your own component to replace `medium-to-own-blog`'s entirely.

Check out [the Gatsby documentation](https://www.gatsbyjs.org/docs/themes/shadowing/).