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Lets face it, there are an over abundance of WordPress themes available on the internet, and with so many out there, fitting magazine style, CMS style, and personal style blogs, how can you tell which one is suitable for your needs? Choosing the right themes can be tough at the best of times, however by making sure that you follow the following guidelines, you should be able to easily shortlist to your ideal theme in no time.

Is The Theme Search Engine Optimized?

For most webmasters, this is going to be a priority, and for those who don’t know what they are looking for, it can be a hard task in itself. First and foremost, the theme will need to load in a reasonable time. As Google has made it public that they will include a measure in their algorithm that incorporates load time into their ranking system, a theme that is so jam packed full of features will most definitely slow down your load times, and may impact your rankings.

For example, the Boardwalk WordPress Theme from WPnow is one of my favorite themes, it’s bursting with color and life, which suits my needs perfect, however, the theme is painfully slow to load. In cases such as these, you can simply use the Super Cache plugin, which will create a static set of HTML files, to allow for fast loading, every time, thus keeping you safe when Google incorporates page speed into their algorithm.

Of course, you are also going to want to be completely certain that keywords are emphasized in headings using the correct tags. The standard use involves H1 and H2 tags in both the header, and in the blog post title. Some other themes, such as the Vigilance Theme from the Theme Foundry use a special piece of code which renders an image from text, and whilst this may come across as a bad thing, the script itself renders clear HTML coding which the search engine spiders can read easily. Bells and whistles are fine, only if the result is a clean and clear coding structure that can be read by the search engine crawlers.

Does The Theme Support My Version Of WordPress?

WordPress is booming at the moment, and as such, the demand for improvements is higher than ever. It only seems like yesterday when version 2.9 was launched, and we are already on the verge of seeing version 3.0 arriving. As such, if you are looking to shortlist your theme selections, making sure that your theme is by a reputable designer that regularly updates their themes is going to be of huge importance.

One of the most renowned theme designers, WooThemes, are currently working with WordPress on their version 3.0, and as such, they work consistently to ensure that all of their themes are compatible with all versions of WordPress.

What I suggest in all cases is to install WordPress on a test domain, just to ensure that themes are compatible, and most importantly, that they work and are customizable for your blog.

Is The Theme Easy To Customize?

If everyone downloaded or purchased the same theme, the blogosphere would be a very repetitive place indeed, and would most certainly lack the excitement that it currently has. Although I do recommend all webmasters to find a good theme to purchase (more people download free themes than purchasing, instantly making your blog more unique!), it is always advisable to look into making some customizations to your theme.

Some themes make customisation very easy, in the case of the Theme Foundry, their coding structure is very clearly labeled, which is most certainly something that I believe a lot of designers should be taking note of. Knowing where the search box is in the header can save a lot of trouble locating it, especially if you only know basic HTML, as such, a clearly labeled theme is always going to be something that deserves a second look.

Where Can I Get A Good Theme?

There are many places online that will offer themes for free, and various others that will charge a fee for their high quality premium themes. Whilst I do recommend investing in a good unique theme, this is a personal choice, some free themes can be very easy to customize just so long as you know HTML and PHP. The choice is entirely yours!

By: Ryan T Malone

About the Author:

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Having a WordPress theme for your blog can be a really good decision because an apt theme conveys two things: 1- You care a lot about the presentation of your blog. 2- You want the visitor or reader of your blog to derive the maximum utility or value from your blog through interaction and good user-experience.

Here is how you can install a WordPress theme.

1. Go to a blog or website that is known for WordPress themes. There are some of them who charge you to download the themes, those are high quality and are of the premium variety. It Is up to you if you want a free WordPress theme or buy one. Go to the category that is in sync with the theme of your blog, check the ‘demo’ to see how the theme may look on your blog.

2. Download the theme; it will be downloaded in the zipped format. Copy it to the wp-content or the ‘themes’ directory. You will find this folder in the location where you had installed WordPress.
3. Now unzip the zipped file that has the theme.

4. Once you have unzipped, you will find a directory listed as wp-content/themes/theme_file, apart from the existing directory.

5. Now you can choose to retain the theme_file.zip or take it off.

6. Go to the WordPress Administrative Panel and choose Appearance.

7. The newly installed theme should be present. Now you just have to activate it, and you are all set to see the new theme on your blog.

There is also another option that will tell you how to install a WordPress theme. Use the built-in theme uploader, which can be accessed directly from the WordPress Administration Panel. Go to the appearance section in WordPress and choose the ‘theme’ section. Once there, you can click on ‘add new them’ to get started.

By: Stuart Michael M

About the Author:

Kansieo.com

WordPress is turning 7 years old this year and is currently the most popular blog publishing application available today. Over 200 million websites are using WordPress, but it can be a bit difficult to tell because of how easy WordPress customization is. Through the use of templating and widgets integration, WordPress blogs can be customized to the web master’s liking and they do not even need to know PHP and HTML coding although those that know can benefit even more. Therefore it is important to make full use of the WordPress customization techniques to make the most out of your blog.

Benefits of WordPress Customization

While the default WordPress theme is simple and elegant, customizing the theme allows you to give your site a personality and identity. You can put business logos or brand names to give people a better idea on what blog they are reading. It also serves as the basis for what color scheme to use since color schemes often revolve around the logo.

By combining creativity with WordPress customization, you can impress your visitors with a unique design that encourages them to subscribe to your feed or come back to check out some more content when you make updates. If you already have a fully designed website, you can utilize the WordPress customization features to enable your blog to integrate perfectly with your web site’s theme for complete branding.

How to Obtain WordPress Themes

Starters can begin by looking for the many free WordPress themes made available for download on the web. WordPress’s very own website has its own search bar where you can look for WordPress themes that are linked from other WordPress blogs. Social bookmarking websites often post links to free WordPress themes as well. Downloading is as easy as clicking the download link and saving it to your desktop. Themes are usually ZIP files that contain several PHP files and a style.css file.

Another way to get WordPress themes is by buying them from sites that sell premium WordPress themes. These types of WordPress themes look more professional than the free ones and offer greater WordPress customization possibilities. Some free templates may suit your site’s theme well, but it is better to check out the WordPress premium themes and move on to a better design to create a better impression.

Installing WordPress Themes

Whether the WordPress theme is premium or free, installing the WordPress theme is also easy. Just extract the ZIP file to a folder and then upload that folder to your “themes” folder inside the “wp-content” folder. You will need an FTP program to do this or utilize your web host’s FTP tool. Once the upload is finished, activate the template by logging in to your WordPress via wp-login.php. Go to “Design > Themes” and you should see the new theme in selection. Click the “Activate” link and refresh your website.

Review your website and see if you need to do anymore WordPress customization adjustments. Remember that you can always edit the template files once you learn the structure so you can end up with modified and unique designs based on your favorite templates.

By: Ryan T Malone

About the Author:

Caffeinated Content