WordPress is a blogging and content management system used by millions of people. In fact, almost 80 million people use WordPress to power their sites! As you can appreciate, it’s a popular platform. It’s also an easy one too.
One advantage of using WordPress is that it’s easy to change the design and layout. You do that by installing a template or “theme” within the software. There are thousands of free and premium themes available for use with WordPress.
But, what should you do if you want to create a bespoke and unique one just for your site? By now, you are perhaps wondering if you need to learn some programming skills! The good news is that you can have others turn your design concept into reality. Here’s how to do that:
What is the emphasis of your theme?
WordPress gets used not just for blogs but for powering standard websites. It also gets used for showcasing photography portfolios, for example. At this stage, it’s worth thinking about the emphasis of your theme.
Do you want it to focus on text, images or a mixture of all multimedia? If you’re a photographer, there’s no doubt you want it to be more of a graphical theme. If you’re setting up a business site, you’ll want to use a mixture of text and images.
How will you design your layout?
Following on from the previous point, you also need to consider the layout. These days, it’s important websites work well both on desktop and mobile devices. First of all, your visitors will thank you for adopting a responsive design. And search engines won’t blacklist you for having an inaccessible site!
When it comes to designing the theme, will you be doing the work yourself? If so, you will need to use tools like Illustrator and Photoshop. But, if your graphic design skills are poor, it may be better to hire a graphic designer to take care of that for you.
Who will “code” your theme?
WordPress themes use a mixture of HTML, CSS and PHP code. If you’re doing the work yourself, it’s crucial you are fluent in all those languages.
Don’t worry if you’re not a development guru. You can enlist the services of a web developer to code your theme so that it works well with WordPress.
Make sure you test your theme out
When you get to the stage where the design and programming gets done, you need to test your theme. The reason for doing so is simple: to fix any “bugs” in the code!
As with any software, it’s likely that there will be some programming mistakes. It’s your job to find them out before you use your new theme. If you’ve hired a developer, you can have them fix those bugs before your new design goes live.
Device compatibility
Last, but not least, you should check your new theme across a range of devices and screen sizes. That way, you will know that people can access your WordPress site without any issues.
Ramdav says
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Bashir Ahmed says
Glad to know that you liked the post.