Tag Archives | widgets

How To Build A WordPress Theme – 5 of the Most Popular WordPress Blogging Themes

How To Build A WordPress Theme – 5 of the Most Popular WordPress Blogging Themes

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms in the internet today. Over 25 million site owners have chosen WordPress as their blog software of choice.  WordPress is easy to install, maintain and modify. It has a huge list of powerful features that can make your website very functional. Best of all, WordPress is free. Site owners can easily change the visual look and layout of their WordPress site simply by changing the themes.  There are a lot of themes available for free online. One of the best sites to get your WordPress blogging themes is the official WordPress site of WordPress.org. WordPress.org maintains a theme database where people can download WordPress themes for free. Themes are ranked based on popularity, date of first upload, as well as the date of the latest update. Currently WordPress.org ranks Twenty Ten, Mystique, Atahualpa, Constructor and LightWord as the five most popular themes based on the amount of downloads.

LightWord is the fifth most poplar theme in WordPress.org. It is a basic, intelligent black text on white theme that can have two or three columns. The theme is set to display at fixed width regardless of the browser size and screen resolution of a site visitor. It supports widgets as well as Google AdSense and covers all the basic WordPress functionalities.

Contsructor is the fourth most popular theme. A lot of people like this theme because it can have multiple layout settings. The theme can display six different sidebar positions and three layouts right out of the box and creating a new layout on this theme is fairly easy. This is a great theme to work with if you want to easily come up with a distinct original theme.

The third most popular WordPress theme is Atahualpa. They are highly customizable WordPress blogging themes. It boasts of 268 options for site owners to use to come up with their own original themes with the resulting design compatible with most web browsers. Designs can be up to 4 sidebars, fixed or flexible width as well as other customizable functionalities. The theme also has an active support forum where users can find help in fixing any theme related issues.

Mystique is the second-most popular them in WordPress.org. It currently has over 340,000 downloads since October 2009. It is a feature rich theme built over solid and stable design. There are a lot of useful widgets built-in to the theme as well. The best part with Mystique is that the theme settings interface is intuitively designed so users can easily make changes to the theme even while having only a little knowledge in PHP and CSS.

Currently, the most popular WordPress blogging theme is Twenty Ten. Designed to be stylish, simple and readable while still highly customizable, site owners can easily make a distinctive theme by just changing the header image, the background and designing a custom menu. This them is great to use when you need to come up with a theme that you can easily set up, modify to be distinctive and efficiently present your information without making any modifications to the actual theme files. This theme is great for website owners with minimal knowledge in PHP, HTML and CSS and just wants to have a theme that they can easily modify to look different and original.

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Interested In ElegantThemes Premium WordPress Themes-Discover ElegantThemes Here

Interested In ElegantThemes Premium WordPress Themes? Discover ElegantThemes Here

Overview of ElegantThemes

When you start learning about ElegantThemes, a premium WordPress theme developer, there are two things that really grab your attention.

This is one of the most affordable premium theme developers out there today, yet their quality and attention to detail remains very high.
Their customer service and dedication to pleasing clients is exceptional. You won’t find that combination in many theme developing services today.

You have a sense that you are in good hands when you take up your ElegantThemes membership. All themes are guaranteed to function properly in the dominant browsers and have been tested to ensure that. It is also noteworthy that all sidebars on these themes are ready for widgets and some are ready for AdSense ads right out of the box.

Easy Theme Customization with ElegantThemes WordPress Themes

One of the nicest features of a WordPress theme from ElegantThemes is the easy customization using the famed ElegantThemes ePanel.

The ePanel is the mechanism in their themes where you customize and set your website layout. You can dictate the navigation, home page, color scheme (if more than one color scheme is offered by a particular theme), search engine optimization, blog settings, and more. The best part is you can do all this customization in the ePanel without knowing any coding at all.

Pricing & License Model

This is one of the most interesting points about ElegantThemes. As a premium WordPress theme developer, the service is definitely one of the more affordable options. Everything operates off a membership system and there are two licensing options.

The basic license after joining gives unlimited access to all themes for a full year and you are allowed to make any changes to customize the theme to your personal needs without giving credit or stating anything about ElegantThemes on the site. The only restriction is that you can only use the themes on sites that you personally own. No redistribution is allowed.

The cost for a personal membership with the basic license is $39 a year (as of the time this article was published). This is definitely one of the best membership pricing models on the market today for an all-theme access premium WordPress themes developer. Yes, for $39 you get access to ALL the themes created – including future themes for the duration of your membership.

If you want to use one of these themes as a part of a professional web design or development service, you need to pay the one time distributor fee of $89 when you sign up (at the time this article was published). This gives a more advanced license to use all themes on as many domains as you like, with any modifications that you like, and this includes putting them on sites that will be sold to others.

The distributor license does not include selling the actual theme itself. It must be packaged with a domain name that is sold as a complete project to your clients.

PSD Files Included

Every theme offered from ElegantThemes comes with the PSD files that makes editing the graphics fast and easy within Photoshop. Also, each theme comes with blank logo images so you can do some customizations even if you don’t have access to Photoshop. Often PSD file inclusion is a premium cost with other theme developers.

Technical Support

Technical support is one area where other theme developers could learn something from ElegantThemes. They stand behind their themes and openly offer to fix any problems with installation or functioning. There is an active support forum open to members and an FAQ file that answers practically any question you could have, including defining basic terminology and concepts for beginners.

The catch here is that they are willing to keep their themes compatible with future WordPress releases as long as you are a member of the service. Once you cancel your membership and a new version is released, they may not be as willing to get it up to date without a restored membership.

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How to Edit WordPress Widgets

How to Edit WordPress Widgets

One of the things most people like about WordPress is the built in widget system. Widgets make it really easy to manage the sidebar elements of your blog or website. Depending on your theme, you may also be able to use widgets to control other sections of your WordPress blog or website.

However, in order to take advantage of the widget system you need to learn how to edit WordPress widgets to suit your needs. The good news is doing this is really, really easy.

To get started with widgets, just navigate to the widgets section within the WordPress administration panel. If you are unfamiliar with this, you can find the link to the widgets section along the left hand side of the screen.

Once you are in the widgets section, you will see a variety of different options available to you. WordPress comes with a handful of built in widgets, such as recent posts, recent comments, tags, categories, and search.

To activate any of these widgets, just click and drag it to the sidebar section which can be found on the right side of the screen. Then let go of your mouse button to automatically place the widget in the sidebar you choose.

Another cool thing about widgets is that you can drag and drop them to determine the order they show up on your sidebar. They will appear exactly the way you place them within the widget screen. If you place recent comments above recent posts, then they will show up just like that on your blog or website.

As far as editing widgets go, each widget has different options which can be configured. If you see an arrow next to the name of the widget, you can click on it to expand it. This will then give you a variety of options that can be customized for that specific widget. A good example of this is setting the number of recent posts to show.

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Magazine Style WordPress Theme and Why Your Site Needs It1

Magazine Style WordPress Theme and Why Your Site Needs It

Whether you are a seasoned internet marketer or just an ordinary blogger you of all people will know this cruel fact:

“”No one will visit, let alone bookmark your site if your pages looks unprofessional, long-winded or in worst case, having a bad design…””

Studies conducted by Joel Comm a veteran in AdSense and online marketing has shown that it took 5 second or less for a visitor of your site to determine whether they want to stay, or click the back or close button.

In the unforgiving world of online marketing and website development, having a simple but yet engaging “”first page”” prove to be better than just having words and flashy graphics.

So what is Magazine style WordPress theme, why you should change your site design and where to find it?

With the advancement of internet connections revolutionizing the world of information technologies, we can find internet access to places that you would usually dream of connecting to the internet. The Web 2.0 has also made it easy for anyone, anywhere to have a website without getting a degree or going to schools.

One of the most popular open source (free) content management system or CMS that are used by ordinary bloggers to popular websites such as the CNN and New York times is the WordPress. It is easy to know why so many websites are using wordpress, because of its easily customizable themes, design, its useful widgets, plugins and last but not least, its free!

When searching for freely available theme or deciding on shopping for premium themes, WordPress user are being bombarded with thousands of choices, and chosing the right design for your website can be a headache. The Magazine style wordpress theme took its name from an easy to navigate “”Magazine cover”” style. The Magazine style theme stands out from the rest due to its superior layout and presentation of content, and more users are drawn to change their wordpress site into Magazine style themes.

But like many great themes and designs, there are some pros and cons of the Magazine Style WordPress Theme:

Pros

1. More featured content previews than bulky paragraphs.Ever visited a site with long winded, bulky content on its first page and immediately you click the close button?

2. Establishing a website while writing a blog.Many users like to look professional with the magazine style “”real”” website looks, rather than blog standard face.

3. More control of what you WANT to feature.You have got millions of information you want to tell, but you have got to filter the first page just like a normal magazine cover, so that readers want to read on and click to your next page.

4. Ability to put engaging pictures and videos to interact with visitor.Welcome to the Web 2.0 world! The Magazine style wordpress theme really revolutionize blogging by allowing your site to look like a professional news and media portal.

5. Great Ads Placement.Maybe it is just personal, but I find that the advertisement placement in this theme is one of the best and smart way to get your AdSense or message across your audience.

Cons

1. More heavy editing and work. Most people like you and me do not know html codes and can only do minor editing to enhance the site.

2. too much content VS too little content. Blogs or websites with too much or too little content can make the page look messy and unorganized.

3. Requires more clicking for your visitors. As content can only be seen on the next page, your users have to do the extra effort to click onto the next page to see what you have written.

4. Freebies VS premium templates. Free is always good, but you need dedicated support and a unique look so that your site can stand out from the rest.

My last word of advice is that, if you do not wish to be bothered by simple html coding and changing your whole blogs or sites into the WordPress CMS, then the Magazine style wordpress themes is not the right one for you.

But if you love your site, and wish that you get more unique and returning visitors, or you are like me, an internet marketer who want people to come and convert each visit into cash, you have got to check this Magazine style WordPress theme, as it might change your world forever.

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WordPress Plugin – DataFeedr – Auto ad rotating for your website.

The Datafeedr Random Ads V2 plugin allows you to simply and easily show random, rotating ads anywhere on your site by adding a template tag to your theme’s template files or using widgets. You can show ANY type of ad: Google Adsense, affiliate ads, banners, images, flash, text, etc… There’s no limit to the number of ads you can put into rotation for an ad spot. Plugin Website: www.Datafeedr.com Plugin Download link wordpress.org My Website: www.jplaforge.com Follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com Question or requests: Send me an email!

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lynda.com Tutorial | Dreamweaver CS5 and WordPress 3.0—Overview

Watch the entire course at www.lynda.com In Dreamweaver CS5 and WordPress 3.0, author Joseph Lowery shows how to create web sites using WordPress and Dreamweaver together. This course demonstrates workflow best practices and techniques, including installation and set up, how to create content, work with WordPress themes, customize CSS, and add widgets. It also covers how to extend WordPress pages, add Spry elements, add and customize plug-ins, integrate WordPress-stored data in Dreamweaver dynamic pages, and how to administer and publish a WordPress site.

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lynda.com Tutorial | Dreamweaver CS5 and WordPress 3.0—Assigning design to page templates

Watch the entire course at www.lynda.com In Dreamweaver CS5 and WordPress 3.0, author Joseph Lowery shows how to create web sites using WordPress and Dreamweaver together. This course demonstrates workflow best practices and techniques, including installation and set up, how to create content, work with WordPress themes, customize CSS, and add widgets. It also covers how to extend WordPress pages, add Spry elements, add and customize plug-ins, integrate WordPress-stored data in Dreamweaver dynamic pages, and how to administer and publish a WordPress site.

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