Millions of people all around the world use WordPress as their blogging or website platform. They do so because it is easy to use, offers the best support, the most plugins AND: the best themes. But themes are as individual as your blog posts. Although there are thousands of free ones available, it gets hard finding your “perfect one”. Just look at some comments here at TheBuckmaker.com – many people have spent hours of searching all over the web, and finally found their desired design. I’m glad that Aeros seems to attract so many people all around the globe, but I’m also convinced that a single theme isn’t after everyone’s fancy. So how to find your theme?
Searching is much easier if you first make clear what you need. Which topic do you want to cover? What should be displayed? Do you want ads and sidebar widgets? How much information do you want on your front page? Is your blog more about personal thoughts (diary) or about a certain topic that you want to cover? Based on these and other thoughts, decide how many sidebars you need, how wide they should be to display ads and other stuff without having to edit to much, how good you are at CSS, which color scheme you prefer and so on. Maybe grab a piece of paper and some colored crayons and paint your perfect theme.You should have a very clear picture in mind before you start searching.
Once you’ve found a design that comes close to your favorite design, download and edit it. In many cases the developer will support you as his motivation is that the theme spreads around as far as possible – which presumes that it’s actually used by you. A small donation to the designer may also make him support you or even customize the theme for you. All the designers I know also offer custom theme design from scratch if you want your 100% individual theme.
Don’t change your theme too often. Once you’ve started blogging, your regular readers will get used to the design. Having this one today and that one tomorrow may confuse them or even make them jump off, as theme changes also mean changes in functions and useability.
4 Responses
I just signed up to WordPress. This is easy to use and the themes are the best. I love this!
Al your themes are so good. I’m using aeros right now. It’s lovely. But how can i use my own background? I changed the php file functions.php and i changed /images/vector-landscape to my image (http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs25/f/2008/161/2/e/abstract_lined_background_by_bjarnovikus.jpg). But it gives just a color. id don’t know what to do.
Hi Bjarno, make sure your image is in the /images folder of the theme and it should work. Tell me the url of your blog so I can look at it – if you want to
Hi Bjarno, make sure your image is in the /images folder of the theme and it should work. Tell me the url of your blog so I can look at it – if you want to.
It work I tested.