You might have noticed that I change my theme a lot here at Marketers Mojo. That’s one of the biggest challenges I’ve found with WordPress – finding the perfect theme.
I love WordPress and I wouldn’t be without it, but you are limited by the theme design in many instances. Over the last year or so I’ve tried out a number of themes here, including:
Internet Marketing With Blogs
Original Premium News by WooThemes
Revolution Lifestyles
Thesis
WpRemix
Rockstar by WooThemes (this is my current theme)
What to Look For in a Home Office Theme
When I look for a new WordPress theme for my business I want one that suits all my needs. It’s not always easy to find that in one theme.
Here is what I’m looking for in a good theme:
Font Options – My biggest complaint about the WpRemix theme I paid something like $300 for a developers license for is the small font that is basically unchangeable throughout the them. For one, it’s just not user friendly and two, not everyone wants the same font type on their website. To me being able to make changes to both font size and type is now a top consideration when choosing a new theme.
Header – One of the things that makes a website unique is a header that proclaims the name of the site and gives you an overall ‘feel’ for the personality of the blog or site. Any theme that makes updating with a new header easy is on it’s way to being a great theme.
Adjustable Layout – There are a number of themes available now that allow for adjustable layouts. This allows you to create a theme that looks original without having to do any back end coding to get it to look that way.
Look- Every theme has it’s own look, basically the way it’s put together. I like clean themes that don’t have too much extra customization. I think it’s really important to just get to the goods within the site rather than have a lot of fancy stuff just for looks.
Widgets – I know how to hack up a theme a little bit so in the past I would always edit my sidebar by working on the coding. But now WordPress Widgets have improved so much that they are very work-able. Many themes include customized widgets that give even more options. I don’t really need this myself as I like to keep my sidebars clean and minimum so as not to cause distraction.
That’s pretty much it for what I’m looking for in a theme. Mostly I just want something that gives me the best options for customizing when I want to make changes without having to change to a whole new theme. The current theme I’m using, Rockstar from Woo Themes, is one I’m really happy with because it’s simple, easy to edit and has a clean look.
p.s. Want to learn how to create a website or blog using wordpress? Check out my free mini-course here –> WordPress Setup
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I always have a hard time with themes! I want something clean and easy to customize in case I want to make a quick change myself. I like what I have right now, but want to change for the new year at the same time. I'm going back to school next week and want to have a new one by then.
It is something you really can spend a lot of time on, isn't it?? I'm pretty happy with the theme I have now too so my goal is to not change it for the entire year! Let's see if I can stick to that
It does seem fairly hard to find simple and clean themes. Good luck with the new theme!
I bought the developer's version of Thesis. It's less than the cost of 2 solo Thesis themes, and I can use it on unlimited sites.
It's totally flexible in the way of design. In fact, the newest version even allows you to color the page bkground, headlines, etc. w/o having to know CSS. Easy as pie. I believe it's worth every penny.
Thanks Emily. I don't believe I really gave Thesis a fair shot when I tried it out. I wasn't liking the way my Aweber sign up forms were showing up and I thought it was the theme but now I think it actually had to do with the coding and nothing to do with the theme.
Anyway, I've heard a lot of people are happy with Thesis. There is also a theme called Headway that I think is similar in some was as it is very customizable.
I find themes a challenge too. I just converted a static site to WP using Revolution theme, which I really like, but it took time to learn. Whew! Being cheap, I use mostly free themes and tweak, although some you can't change the footer which wouldn't be so bad if it didn't have links to questionable stuff! I like the MM theme as well which I use for 2 of my blogs.