Want to quickly give your blog a fresh coat of paint and make it stand out from the pack? Heres how you can customize your WordPress blog and make it uniquely yours.
WordPress offers many features that help you make your blog the best it can be. Although it doesnt offer as many customization features as full WordPress running on your own server, it still makes it easy to make your free blog as professional or cute as you like. Here well look at how you can customize features in your blog and build an audience.
1. The Header
The first thing you might want to do when customizing your theme is change the header. Most sites have a custom header image, usually a company logo or a picture that has to do with the theme of your site. To edit the header just go into your theme directory and edit the header.php file. The header HTML will usually be stored in this file. In some more rare cases theme authors may have placed header information in the individual page templates (if they did youll have to hunt around a bit more!). Youll usually see a piece of HTML under the opening tag thats something like lt;div id=header>header content. You can customize this content with your new header.
2. Themes
Find the perfect theme. Themes are like website templates, and they give your blog the look you want it to have. Locate dozens of themes online, or have a custom theme designed.
Customizing WordPresss look happens through themes. If you log in to your WordPress dashboard and select the Design tab, youll see the main themes panel. Also check out the Header Image and Color tab which features a very nice inline theme editor, complete with color pickers and other tools that make it easy to customize the default theme.
But frankly, one of the advantages of WordPress is the number and variety of custom themes that members of the community have created. The official repository of themes is the WordPress Theme Viewer, so browser through that list, find something you like and download it.
Then just unzip and upload the theme to the wp-content/themes directory provided by WordPress. Then, just head over to the Design tab inside the WordPress admin interface and select your new theme.
From there, you can customize and tweak the theme to fit your whims. Different themes offer different levels of customization so what you can and cannot do will depend on the theme youre working with. In general, you should be able to change the header image, layout options and colors on any theme.
Also note that themes dont have to be site-wide. If you happen to blog about both cupcakes and software, you can assign your archive pages for cupcakes to use one theme and the software posts to use another.
If youd like to create your own theme, it isnt too difficult. The best place to start is to open up an existing theme and study how it works.
Youll notice its more complex than just throwing together some HTML and CSS in a template. It helps to have a decent knowledge of PHP, and if you need help getting up to speed, Webmonkey has you covered.
3. Sidebar(s)
This area will most likely be the most unique from blog to blog. From single sidebars to double sidebars to sidebars with sidebars this is where you can get creative and also add great functionality to a blog. Here are things to consider when designing or choosing sidebar items:
Social media links
Subscription links (RSS/Email)
Info about the blog
Search functionality
Categories
Popular articles
Most commented articles
Flickr photo stream
Recent news
Twitter update(s)
Advertisements
Recent posts
Blogroll (other blogs you like)
Links
Email forms
Contact information
Archives
WordPress offers many features that help you make your blog the best it can be. Although it doesnt offer as many customization features as full WordPress running on your own server, it still makes it easy to make your free blog as professional or cute as you like. Here well look at how you can customize features in your blog and build an audience.
1. The Header
The first thing you might want to do when customizing your theme is change the header. Most sites have a custom header image, usually a company logo or a picture that has to do with the theme of your site. To edit the header just go into your theme directory and edit the header.php file. The header HTML will usually be stored in this file. In some more rare cases theme authors may have placed header information in the individual page templates (if they did youll have to hunt around a bit more!). Youll usually see a piece of HTML under the opening tag thats something like lt;div id=header>header content. You can customize this content with your new header.
2. Themes
Find the perfect theme. Themes are like website templates, and they give your blog the look you want it to have. Locate dozens of themes online, or have a custom theme designed.
Customizing WordPresss look happens through themes. If you log in to your WordPress dashboard and select the Design tab, youll see the main themes panel. Also check out the Header Image and Color tab which features a very nice inline theme editor, complete with color pickers and other tools that make it easy to customize the default theme.
But frankly, one of the advantages of WordPress is the number and variety of custom themes that members of the community have created. The official repository of themes is the WordPress Theme Viewer, so browser through that list, find something you like and download it.
Then just unzip and upload the theme to the wp-content/themes directory provided by WordPress. Then, just head over to the Design tab inside the WordPress admin interface and select your new theme.
From there, you can customize and tweak the theme to fit your whims. Different themes offer different levels of customization so what you can and cannot do will depend on the theme youre working with. In general, you should be able to change the header image, layout options and colors on any theme.
Also note that themes dont have to be site-wide. If you happen to blog about both cupcakes and software, you can assign your archive pages for cupcakes to use one theme and the software posts to use another.
If youd like to create your own theme, it isnt too difficult. The best place to start is to open up an existing theme and study how it works.
Youll notice its more complex than just throwing together some HTML and CSS in a template. It helps to have a decent knowledge of PHP, and if you need help getting up to speed, Webmonkey has you covered.
3. Sidebar(s)
This area will most likely be the most unique from blog to blog. From single sidebars to double sidebars to sidebars with sidebars this is where you can get creative and also add great functionality to a blog. Here are things to consider when designing or choosing sidebar items:
Social media links
Subscription links (RSS/Email)
Info about the blog
Search functionality
Categories
Popular articles
Most commented articles
Flickr photo stream
Recent news
Twitter update(s)
Advertisements
Recent posts
Blogroll (other blogs you like)
Links
Email forms
Contact information
Archives
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