How to Choose a Wordpress Theme - Virtual Assistant Forums

#1 (**permalink**) 03-19-2008

I'm working on a post about CSS and blogging, but in the meantime, I'm making a special post about choosing a blog theme. Keep in mind this is based on Wordpress blogs!

There are many free themes available and lots of ways to find them! A simple Google search for "Wordpress themes" will bring up some great sites!

One of the most important features of a good Wordpress theme is the "widget ready" feature. A widget-ready blog theme generally supports lots of nice plug-ins and will also allow you to rearrange your sidebar and add and remove whatever sections you would like. A widget-ready theme makes this happen without any extra coding - simply go into your Wordpress backend, click on Presentation, and then click Widgets. On this screen you can change your sidebar by clicking and dragging the various widgets.

Another important feature is good, clean code. You'll often see reviews in the comments section where the theme is available for download. ALWAYS read these comments. Often you'll find information about various bugs in the code, problems with the theme, and comments on the cleanliness and organization of the code itself. Search engines like clean code, and clean code means less problems with the display of the theme on your site!

Also, make sure you're choosing a theme that is compatible with the version of Wordpress you are using. Often that is mentioned on the page where the theme is to be downloaded. If you fail to do this, certain features in your theme may not work properly!

Choose a theme that has the basic layout that you like. Things like background color and images can often easily be changed to suit your tastes. We'll go over some of that in my post on CSS and Wordpress.

Also choose a theme with an actual header image over those that just display your site/blog name at the top. This allows you to put your own header image with your logo into the theme. This will make your theme look more professional and customized.

It is not necessary to purchase a paid theme, but those will often allow you to remove credit links from the footer. Also, some paid themes will offer a "unique" version, meaning they'll sell you the only copy of that theme, and no one else can use it. These are often expensive, though - ranging from $60 to $300.

#2 (**permalink**) 03-19-2008

Oh Brianna! Why does it seem like you just keep lovingly nudging me along!

I got my domain name on Monday and I just open the blank page and know it needs something. Duh! OK...I want to change my lotto reply. If I won the first thing I'd do is pay someone to build my website. I'd even pay an expedite fee to have it done over the weekend!

Thanks for the encouragement!

Make it a great day!

Sundi

#3 (**permalink**) 03-19-2008

LOL, Sundi you are so funny

Nice post Bri. And I cannot agree with you more on the point about reading the comments to look for a template that is cleanly coded - it will save you tons of headaches later when you want to 'adjust' something...especially if HTML is still a very foreign language for you.

#4 (**permalink**) 03-19-2008

I'm such a big fan of WordPress. What great advice.

For those that want to use a free online blogging tool, I always point them toward Wordpress.com. That way if they later decide to start a blog at their own domain, they can typically easily install Wordpress and the transfer of data is pretty easy from the free version to the personal site version (I've done it).

#5 (**permalink**) 03-19-2008

Yep, Jeanne, you're absolutely right! Starting out with Wordpress.com is a good way to test the waters to see if blogging is right for you - before making it part of your actual website! Great advice!

#6 (**permalink**) 03-20-2008

Brianna - Thank you for creating this post and look forward to the CSS one. I was looking at some videos on one of the paid theme sites and it actually looks easier than I thought. They recommended saving your image file as the same name as the image file that is already there. This is exciting... I am going to test it out on a theme I am uploading.

Thank you so much for your wisdom!

CoraLyn

#7 (**permalink**) 03-20-2008

CoraLyn,

That is one of the best ways to go about it! Good deal! Just make sure your new image is the same size as the old one. Often there is a bit of CSS that specifies the size of the header. If it's different, you'll need to change the CSS header size to reflect that.

Good luck, and feel free to post if you have any issues!