Introducing WordPress Themes

Templates – free or not – aren’t necessarily what they seem until you start working with them and get a closer look. Even if you are a code expert it can be easy to get stuck in deep muck quickly.

Your goal is to find a theme that functions technically the way it should, looks good and has the features that you want. For instance, columns are good if you want to have advertising or multiple items of interest on one page, but not so good if the post or page content is the only real important thing.

Widgets and plugins can be good, powerful additions that really make your site perform, but we’ll cover them in a dedicated article because they will generally work with any theme you choose.

When the budget calls for a “free” template:

‘You get what you pay for’ remains true – but in this case ‘free’ does not mean ‘you’re a hobo if you use one!’

Some very fine themes are available free and so many people use blogs now that a free theme is readily accepted as ‘normal’. We’ve gotten to know a few of the best and most versatile ones and learned how to ‘make them our own.’

The best thing to do if you are looking at free templates is to download several and play with them. Find good ones by reading a few reviews–do a Google search for ‘best free WordPress theme 2010′, etc. You will be able to tell (once you upload them and take a closer look) whether or not they will be satisfactory for you. And they are free, so all it will cost you is some time. Loading a new theme when you are starting out is easy – but trying to change later is tough. (The content you generate over time may or may not fit into a new template!)

Experiment now until you are happy!

Upgrading to the Cadillac Version:

Paying for a theme comes into play on two fronts: Fine-tuned looks and support.

A top-drawer polished look is often lacking in free themes and very often a free theme will not work well as a website without some work ‘under the hood’. Many free themes are professionally designed – but they are ‘teasers’ used to get customers to come and upgrade to that designer’s for-pay products. (These designs will have the designer’s name and link at the bottom of the page.)

“Fine tuned looks” means more than “pretty”. Many free templates do not support more than one page layout for your site while some premium designs will have two or three page layouts with the look and feel of a traditional website.

The most important items in this regard are things like they way titles show up on pages whether you want them or not, ‘comments are off’ messages on pages that – as web pages – shouldn’t ever have comments anyway, and ‘metadata’ (like the date and author info’ showing on pages. Turning these things off takes a little knowledge of programming, although they aren’t hard to do.

Also you can get more bells and whistles such as featured scrolling banners, greater control over the layout or color scheme, etc. with a paid or custom made theme.

The stand-out issue with a paid theme is what kind of support is offered. If you lay down your money on something this key (changing themes midstream is not necessarily an easy thing) you’d better be able to ask technical questions and get good answers. Aside from building our own, we recommend the providers we do based on a)their reputation for creating technically and artistically well structured themes and b) their reputation for consistent and quality support.

No theme is perfect in every way – that just seems to be the name of the game. But it is important to find one that comes the closest in both presentation and support.

With that in mind we have some recommended places to start looking:

Woo Themes