What you need to know: there are a ton of free and paid themes out there – start with a free one until you know exactly what you want out of your blog.
In WordPress, a “theme” is a visual design that changes the appearance of your blog.
When you first set up your blog on WordPress, it’ll come with a very basic free theme that you’ll likely want to change to fit your style preferences.
There are all sorts of themes out there for all types of blogs and websites. Some are free, some cost money.
My advice: don’t get hung up on getting a paid theme at first. Install a nice free one that you like, then learn what you’d like to have in your ideal theme.
Why?
Here’s what happens: a lot of bloggers buy a theme right away, install it, then realize shortly after that it’s not quite what they wanted.
- So they have to buy something else.
- And then buy something else again.
- It happens all the time – even to me.
What I’ve learned after helping plenty of friends and family set up their blogs is that it’s good to go with a free option until you learn more about what you’d like to see. This way, you can avoid having to buy multiple themes because you’re focusing on learning what you want before you get distracted by a nice shiny paid theme.
Also, when you’re shopping for themes, realize that the creators of those themes try to make them look as pretty and done-up as possible, but that when you install yours, it’ll likely look more basic.
So don’t get thrown off by big beautiful header images – pay attention to the layout of the content, the formatting of the blog and so on.
You can still make your blog look like the theme demo, but you’re looking at the “bones” of the design rather than specific images or anything like that.
Here’s a list of some free WordPress themes to check out:
- The 23 Best Free WordPress Themes for Bloggers
- Free Featured WordPress Themes
- 75 Best FREE WordPress Themes
When you’re looking for a theme, the biggest piece of advice I can give you is less is more.
You might think you need a bunch of bells and whistles to make your blog look good, but the truth is that if you’re focused on solving your readers’ problems, then your goal should be to make that process as efficient as possible. That means putting your content – your answers to readers’ problems – front and center.
Don’t get hung up on fancy features. Remember that the value you provide is related to solving readers’ problems. So pick a nice, clean design that showcases your value.
If your blog takes off, you’ll have plenty of options down the line to make things look really, really nice. But for now, all you need is a blog that works well and makes your content the focus.
Make a decision and spend time on writing – something that’ll actually move your blog forward.
Quick Recap
- start with a free theme, learn what you like and don’t like
- your theme should highlight your content, not bells and whistles
- a less is more theme is easier to update and maintain over time
Homework
Look through some of the best free WordPress themes out there and choose 3-5 to test out on your site.
You can upload and delete these pretty easily, so don’t be afraid to test out a lot until you find one you like.
At the same time remember that having something up and live is better than waiting on the perfect theme.
Just keep moving.
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