I have to say that the default theme provided with the most recent versions of WordPress is far better than the themes provided up to version 2.9.2, but even still, on the whole it is not a choice for a serious weblog. Why? Well because you want to look unique. If you and thousands others are using the default theme then you are lost in the crowd of same looking sites.
Find free themes
The first thing to do is to search the internet for several good looking free themes to start of with. There are thousands to select from, some on WordPress.org and others on a whole myriad of other websites. Take your time and find some that you like the looks of. I never merely choose one and start with that, for the reason that quite often what looks good on the sample looks totally alternative when you install it. I have even download themes and installed them, just to find that they are not compatible with certain popular browsers.
So download a few themes, unzip them to your computer and upload them to your website (if you haven’t done this before, you load the entire theme directory to wp-content/themes).
Install a theme
Now sign on as your admin user and go to appearance and look for one of the new themes. Click on it to preview and then choose activate. Then have a look at your blog and see if it looks right. If you aren’t sure, activate one of the other themes that you have uploaded and try again.
Customise it!
The customisations available to you will depend on you theme as a few have options for different header colours and so on. If this is your first theme that you have uploaded you will also need to go to settings and name yourblog and give it a description. “Merely another WordPress blog” proudly displayed on the top of your weblog does not give a serious impression!
Take a look at the side bars of you new look blog and see what changes you want to make. You might like to go to the widgets section of the appearance menu and choose several widgets to install. You could select widgets for a whole alternative array of options, for example different ways to display the archives. Personally, I like to have the archives available on every page, but depending on what you are doing with theblog this might not be needed. Have a look through the widgets and select which you want to display and how.
If you are happy with a bit of PHP code then you could edit the code instead of using the widgets. For instance, I always remove the Uncategorised category from the list of displayed categories (only add &exclude=1). My reason being that if I am writing off topic then it is not so important to link to it from everywhere.
Written by Keith Lunt of How To Start Blogging. Call in if you need any help or advice with earning money blogging.
Access vital information about web traffic – make sure to study the web site. The times have come when concise info is truly within your reach, use this opportunity.
Link to this page
Related Posts -
Can Your Free Internet Business Pass This Test? One advantage that Internet businesses offer is the ability to get started fairly cheaply. It is possible to start a... - How To Make Your Niche Blog Successful Niche blogging is not that difficult. It is really quite simpler than creating a general blog. This is because you...
- Make Money From Blogs-2 Ways Internet Maketers Do It To make money from blogs you have to go about things in the right way. It is possible to supplement...
Related Websites - Professional Blogging Roundup - Blogging Tips and Resources Good morning and welcome to another Sunday edition of Buildify's weekly roundup. From general blogging tips to articles on very...
- Learn How to Make an Impact with Your Blog Commenting Getting targeted visitors to your website or your blog depends on your actually understanding how to get more exposure both...
- Absolutely Everything Corporate Blogging By Debbie Weil This book claims to be the definitive guide to corporate blogging, so we were pretty interested to see what it...
