Choosing the right theme

  • rosemaryflatbread

    (@rosemaryflatbread)


    10 years ago

    Hi,
    I run a holday cottage in the UK and have previously written my own website. (all written from scratch in HTMl, CSS and PHP). It’s at: http://www.lawsons-studio.co.uk

    I’m a complete newb to WordPress. Basically I’d like to upgrade my site to a more modern design that is mobile and seo friendly ( I don’t need booking or calendar pages, so just a site about the cottage will do – with the same content as the original site).
    Now my problem is this: I’ve installed WordPress and been working my way through themes trying to find one that looks nice, has the facilities and flexability I need and I’m not having much luck. I’ve seen some premium ones but don’t want to pay around $50 dollars only to find that it isn’t as flexable as I would like.
    How do you choose? If I found a wordpress site I like being used by somebody else, is it possible to find out which one it is be viewing source etc. so that I can use it too?

    thanks

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • esmi

    (@esmi)

    10 years ago

    We can only suggest that you try browsing the themes in the Theme Repository. Using the Themes Feature Filter should allow you to narrow down the list of choices by functionality, colour, layout etc. Any additional functionality that you need may be added via plugins.

    CrouchingBruin

    (@crouchingbruin)

    10 years ago

    Hi, Rosemary. Since you have some experience with HTML, CSS, and PHP, I would recommend a theme that I use a lot: Montezuma. It is the most flexible theme that I’ve found. You can read more about it here, and find out what kind of background knowledge you will need on this Getting Started page.

    If you do see another WordPress site that you like, you can see what theme it is using by doing a view source and looking for a link to the style.css file. It should look something like this:

    http://example.com/wp-content/themes/make/style.css

    In this case, the theme would be Make. If you look inside the style.css file, you might be able to find a link to where the theme can be found.

    Thread Starter rosemaryflatbread

    (@rosemaryflatbread)

    10 years ago

    Thanks for that – I’ll give it a look.

    Marietha du Plessis

    (@marietha-du-plessis)

    10 years ago

    Hi

    It’s very important to look at functionality of a WordPress Theme, instead of just a good looking theme.

    You will find some free and premium themes available.

    Here’s some tips to look at when choosing a WordPress Theme.

    1.) Free or Premium
    Do you want to pay for a WordPress theme or start with a Free theme. Premium themes have more functions, but it does not mean there’s not a free theme that will suite the need of your website.

    2.) Navigation
    The role of proper navigation can’t be ignored. Please make sure that the WordPress theme have a menu/navigation that suite the need of your requirement.

    3.) Theme Design Features
    The functionality of each WordPress theme differs whether they are the simple looking ones or the very complex themes. Users generally settle for good looking themes without considering the factor that they have complex functionality.

    4.) Support
    Make sure that the theme developers offer support, incase you run into trouble.

    5.) Browser Compatibility
    You need your website to look good on all browsers. Make sure that the theme is compatible with all browsers and not only 1.

    6.) Responsiveness
    These days most people make use of mobile devices and tablets to browse on the internet. Make sure the WordPress theme is responsive and show nice on all devices – Desktop, Tablet and Mobile.

    7.) Ease of Customization
    Check the difficulty of customization, incase you need to edit the colours, font and functionality of the theme.

    8.) SEO
    WordPress themes play a crucial role in making websites SEO-friendly. A good looking theme may generate HTML tags that are poorly coded. This can affect the overall performance of websites on search engines. Thus, the key is to analyzing the source code before using them. This task may prove to be a daunting one for the beginners and thus, choosing the premium themes is the ultimate option.

    I hope this help you in choosing the correct WordPress Theme

    [Link redacted]

    Regards
    Marietha

    Thread Starter rosemaryflatbread

    (@rosemaryflatbread)

    9 years, 11 months ago

    Thanks all good advice – thanks guys.
    I’m really enjoying my journey into WordPress. It’s a big change for an old fashioned HTML coder. 😉

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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