Useful Resources for Creating a Wordpress Theme

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:01:59 +0000

This article will give you pointers on some of the useful resources out there for creating a Wordpress theme, and also where to find some of them. It assumes a basic knowledge of Wordpress as this is vital for putting themes together. If you need more information about Wordpress then you need to find an online manual which can be found on the documents page of www.wordpress.org. There are literally hundreds of pages, and they should answer most questions you have.

The first thing you need to create a theme in Wordpress is to understand how templates are put together otherwise you are going to be working in the dark. Another useful reading resource to help you with this can be found within the manual under ‘Stepping in to templates’. If you are sure all this makes sense then you are ready to start creating templates for Wordpress.

Wordpress Theme Tutorials

There are many resources available online that can help you develop a Wordpress theme. The following is a list of tutorials. Tutorials will guide you through the process of developing a Wordpress theme using a step-by-step process. This is by no means a comprehensive listing, however I have tried to include a variety so you can look through them and determine which tutorial you find easy to follow.

http://themeshaper.com/wordpress-themes-templates-tutorial
http://themetation.com/2008/07/14/how-to-create-wordpress-themes-from-scratch-part-1
http://blog.themeforest.net/screencasts/new-wp-video-series-and-free-rockstar-book
http://designreviver.com/inspiration/how-i-learned-to-build-wordpress-themes/
XHTML/CSS resources

If you would like to obtain a good working knowledge of both of these, a great resource for those new to web programming or those moving over from older languages is www.w3schools.com. Here you can find hundreds of tutorials, scripts and quizzes to help you get your head around things, and working in conjunction with this you will need a text editor. Notepad++ is a popular choice, and we recommend the Firefox web developer toolbar so you can test and check your coding. It is brilliant when you are making live changes to your CSS.

Graphic design resources

You are going to find life so much easier if you have a decent graphics package on your computer. Photoshop and Fireworks are two of the best for the job, and this is where you will create your graphics. The issues you need to consider for your Wordpress templates are things like color schemes, fonts and images. For inspiration there are a number of resources. www.designmeltdown.com is a good site for ideas, as are the gallery pages of www.cssbeauty.com that have collected some of the most excellent examples of sites that look good.

You need to come up with a clear color scheme that presents the image you are seeking, and if these sites do not help inspire you enough, try checking out somewhere like beta.dailycolorscheme.com where you can see hundreds of schemes and download them too. Finally some of the best inspiration for color schemes comes from life, so browsing through photographs on a site like Flickr can also prove invaluable. Free fonts can be downloaded, or you can purchase professional ones from Linotype, and the same goes for images free stock that can be found at SXC, whereas paid for images are found at iStockPhoto.

Finally you need to have an understanding of plugins, and you need to learn how to install them and when you should be installing them. Some great plugins can be found at WP-Plugins.net. Overall the best tip we can offer you is to read plenty on the net about Wordpress and Wordpress templates – and above all enjoy!

Make your WordPress Blog More Appealing: Top Five Tips

admin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:02:10 +0000

Everyone has heard the expression, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” With WordPress blogs this is especially true. Millions of websites use WordPress as their mechanism to deliver their blog to the public. The idea is to generate traffic by a variety of means, some including paid advertising. But once you have the traffic visiting you only have a few seconds for that visitor to decide whether or not they want to stay and browse your content. If you pay for advertising to attract viewers to your site you do not want it wasted by turning them off to the design and having them leave.

Instead you want your site to be attractive and appealing so people are enticed to stay. You also want to make it easy to use and have interesting content. If you can make the site more appealing your advertising efforts whether paid or just time will be well worth the investment. Of course, an attractive site has to be backed up with content so make sure you spend as much time on ensuring you have regularly updated, interesting blog posts to share with your community. But the design is a first step. To enhance your site, here are the top 5 tips to make it more appealing:

Make sure your site is clean and not cluttered. If your site looks messy a new visitor won’t even bother to try to wade through it because there are many cleaner options available. Use menus to give overall topics. Do not have cluttered side bars. Only use line items in a side bar or menu that support the actual content categories found on your site.
Make the site readable. You may have a formal site but using script may be too hard to read for some. Get rid of it. Choose a font that is consistent and compatible with all platforms. Also, make sure you use a font size that is neither too small nor obnoxiously large. Do not excessively use italics or bolds. Be consistent throughout the entire site so that all pages and posts are similar looking and the eye does not have to adjust to multiple font styles.
Optimize your site to encourage your visitors to stay on the site as long as possible. Suggest relevant additional reading by using plugins. You can download a plugin that suggests similar posts the reader may be interested in. You can also download plugins that allow viewers to share your post at other locations such as via email, RSS feed or social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and the like.
Encourage user participation as much as possible. Encourage users to make comments and read what others before them have contributed. Use an anti spam plugin to help prevent spam from cluttering your comments section so you can make it as easy as possible for even unregistered users to post. Cultivating a sense of community will go a long way in ensuring each visitor to the site enjoys themselves.
Change your design entirely. If you are unsatisfied with the efficacy of your design choose another one. You can download a variety of different themes from a variety of different places. You can get free themes that will likely suit our purposes. You can also find paid themes that are customizable and have complete solutions for your site. Finally, you can hire a professional designer to ensure you have exactly the theme design and functionality you need for your site. You can choose everything from free to affordable paid themes.

When you concentrate a bit on ensuring you have an aesthetically pleasing and easy to use WordPress blog site you will find your visitors will spend a lot more time on your site. When you put effort, time and even money attracting visitors to your site you want them to stay so using the top five tips on making your site more appealing is a great start that can only be enhanced when you add in interesting, regularly updated content.

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Useful Resources for Creating a Wordpress Theme

Make your WordPress Blog More Appealing: Top Five Tips