Tag Archives | Free WordPress Themes

A Brief Explanation of WordPress Themes

By Randy R on November 10, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

A Brief Explanation of WordPress Themes

WordPress is an excellent tool that many small businesses and individuals are using to reach their target audiences. So, what exactly is WordPress and what can you do with it? WordPress is a blogging platform which allows users to either create their own theme or use one of the many free themes available. Let’s take a look.

Dashboard

Once you sign up for WordPress you will be able to log into what is called your dashboard. This is where all the magic happens. The first time you sign into your dashboard you might feel a little overwhelmed. Don’t fret. The dashboard is the grand central station of your blog. From here you will have access to your blog posts, the different pages of your blog, links to and from your blog, different media you are using, comments to your blog, and of course your WordPress design. WordPress design falls under the “”Appearance”” section on your dashboard and there is much you can do with it.

Free WordPress Themes

To begin with WordPress you need a theme. This is what people see when they look at your blog, but it’s also so much more. It determines the control you have over your blog in terms of look and feel. There are many free WordPress themes that you can choose to use. To gain access to these simply click on “”Appearance”” on the sidebar of your dashboard and then select “”Themes””. This will take you to a section of WordPress where all the free themes are available. Each theme will have a brief description, and allow you to be able to preview it via the “”Preview”” button. If you find one you like you can click the “”Activate”” button to have the theme active on your blog. The good news about free WordPress themes is that you can switch them anytime you like. On the downside, you are not likely to find a theme with every design element you want on it and while you can add your own design elements like your company logo, in the free WordPress themes, this ability is somewhat limited.

Custom WordPress Themes

To get a custom WordPress theme you can go about it in two different ways. In the first option you can choose a free one and tweak it to your liking. One way to tweak it is to utilize the various widgets that are available with that particular theme. To do this, select the “”Widget”” selection on the sidebar of your dashboard under appearance. On free WordPress themes you can also edit the stylesheet. This is the code behind the design of your chosen theme. To do this, select the “”Edit”” option on the sidebar of your dashboard under appearance. It is important to note that stylesheets are set up in CSS which means that in order to edit the theme you will need to possess knowledge of at least basic CSS code.

Your other option is to create your own WordPress theme. This is also done using CSS. WordPress itself gives an excellent tutorial called Theme Development ( http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development ) that is very helpful if you want to develop your own theme. It is important to note that if you want to get a clean looking, professional, custom WordPress theme that no one else will have you are going to need to know coding and have access to a design program. If you have neither of these, a simple solution is to work with a design service that will be able to create a custom WordPress theme for you.

StudioPress WordPress Themes Review And StudioPress Discount Code

By Randy R on October 29, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

StudioPress WordPress Themes Review And StudioPress Discount Code

More and more people use WordPress these days, because WordPress is free and there are a lot free and premium themes and plugins. Some of us love free WordPress themes, but most of time we can not find quality themes. So I suggest you use premium WordPress themes and you can get full support from the designers.

StudioPress is a leading WordPress theme provider; the designer Brain is famous in this area. If you are looking for high quality professional premium tempaltes, you can find your favorite WordPress themes on StudioPress. With Brian Gardner as the founder, StudioPress is being managed by a group of six professional designers, graphic artists, and WordPress experts.

There are more than 25 professional premium WordPress skins out there, including news themes, magazine themes, gallery skins, company templates, real estate themes and more. You can find your favorite theme here.

The price of these quality WordPress themes is affordable. Similarly important is the pricing of the themes offered by StudioPress; generally they are affordable at $59.95 per theme. On top of that, they also offer a Pro-Plus All-Theme package for $249.95 which you can gain access to all themes offered by StudioPress including the newly launched skins. With the Pro Plus All-Theme package, you are entitled to receive support and updates for all current and future StudioPress themes! You can use StudioPress coupon code to save.

StudioPress offers theme aid by means of their assist forum where you may ask any questions and they shall be answered by helpful members and supportive staff. On the negative side, no email assist is available and your issues will have to be posted within the forum in which others can address it. Hence, there may be no privacy on your component when it comes to asking for help. Nonetheless, this is not a massive issue due to the fact the critical thing is that you will get the assistance that you will need either from other members or the staff. When it comes to the use of the selected layouts for your web page, there is assistance and detailed concept tutorial provided for the members so that you can make integration of the concept towards the web site smooth and less difficult.

StudioPress WordPress themes are easy to use. Their layouts are fully Search engine optimized by 1 of the top SEO experts, Joost de Valk. StudioPress Themes can assist your blog rank much much better inside the Google by following StudioPress Tutorials and recommendations you’re able to obtain even higher search engine placement outcomes.

Good for SEO. StudioPress WordPress Themes are fully Search engine optimized by 1 of the top SEO professionals, Joost de Valk. StudioPress Themes can assist your blog rank much better inside the Google by following StudioPress Tutorials and recommendations you are able to achieve even higher search engine placement results.

To conclude the StudioPress review, the overall assessment of this premium WordPress subject provider is superb and highly recommended, having wide range of expertly developed SEO themes to offer to its prospects and consumers.

Top WordPress Themes

By Randy R on October 11, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Blog Business, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Top WordPress Themes

With thousands of WordPress themes now on the market for free and for money you can bet it’s hard to decide on the top WordPress themes, but I believe I have come up with a great answer to this burning question. Now there are many free WordPress themes that are very nice and I use many of them but they can’t justify being number one on the list.

To be number one the theme needs to have some exclusiveness, but at the same time still be available to the general public. I’ve seen some very incredible WordPress themes that are unique to just one person’s blog but in this case we won’t be choosing from that.

I have looked through the top WordPress themes on the internet that cost anywhere between $20-$200 and I have come up with the top WordPress themes.

It was a fairly difficult decision to come up with a winner for the top WordPress themes but after viewing themes for a long time I decided on choosing the Revolution WordPress themes.

There are currently eight Revolution WordPress themes for sale and each one of them are very well designed and thought out. Each one of theme are designed for a specific niche blog and I feel that the designs were kept simple enough to use and didn’t go overboard on the options.

The two themes I like the most from the Revolution series is the news theme and the sports theme which are somewhat similar but both very nice magazine style blog themes. Magazine style WordPress themes have been very popular and I have seen them on lots of blogs recently, but most of the free magazine themes aren’t very well designed.

Now I don’t have much coding knowledge so this is why spending a few bucks on a well designed WordPress theme is worth it. With a revolution WordPress theme you will stand out and look like one of the top dogs of blogging.

Now this exposure is excellent when starting out a blog and this is why I give the Revolution WordPress themes the number one WordPress theme.

The Importance of Using a Unique WordPress Theme

By Randy R on September 17, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Blog Business, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

The Importance of Using a Unique WordPress Theme

If you’ve used WordPress to blog already then you will know that you have the ability to choose a WordPress theme for your blog, and your options are either choosing a paid or free theme. The difference between the two themes is simple, the free WordPress themes will be available to anyone, but if you buy a WordPress theme then you can make sure it’s unique to your blog only. Now a unique theme isn’t very important for every blog you own, but for your main blog you should make sure you have a unique WordPress theme for numerous reasons. For adsense and niche blogs there isn’t much need to create that unique appeal to the visitors and you don’t need a unique theme for these blogs.

There are lots of reasons why you should use a unique theme on your main blog and we’re going to take a look at some of the reasons right now. The most obvious reason is too create a unique appearance and appeal to your readers. Most of your readers will read other blogs and with over a million blogs and not too many free themes there are a lot of people using the same theme. If you have a unique theme then you will stand out from all of the bloggers using a free theme. Most blog readers also state that they will typically stay longer on a blog that has an appealing and attractive theme.

The most important of your theme is that it functions correctly and is carefully coded so that everything is clean looking. If you don’t have these skills then you should make sure you hire a professional for the job so that it’s done right the first time. Once you have the theme coded you need to ensure you have a very attractive header. You’ll notice a lot of the new bloggers are using cartoons in their headers to create a sharp looking and appealing image for the readers. I think it’s a great idea and they look awesome so make sure you have a colourful and attractive header with some sort of a logo. It’s important that you have your own logo in your header so that you can use the header down the road when branding your blog. If it’s a catchy and attractive logo then you’ll typically draw in more visitors and you’ll also be remembered by people by the logo which is the point of a logo, so this is good.

Apart from the header you want to make sure that the sidebar or sidebars are constructed with the readers in mind. You should try blending in all the widgets you plan on using into the sidebars so that they look like there apart of theme. It may take some struggling trying to do this, but in the end you’ll have a very attractive blog that is sure to retain its visitors. Creating your theme to retain visitors is a very important feature that most free theme bloggers never can utilize, so if you use a unique theme you’re one step ahead of most people. Now all you need to do is send traffic to the blog and write great content.

How to Install a WordPress Theme

By Randy R on September 13, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Install a WordPress Theme

One of the cool features of using a self-hosted WordPress website is the ability to very quickly and easily change the layout of your site. There are tens of thousands of free WordPress themes available to choose from. Many can be found on the WordPress website in the Theme Directory and many more can be found on various WordPress related sites as well. A quick Google for “”free WordPress themes”” will present you with all the themes you could possible want to choose from. In addition there are thousands of Premium (aka you pay for them) as well that offer even more advanced functionality and layouts for specific website types.

Installing a new theme is amazingly easy. From within your WordPress Administrative Dashboard, on the left hand side, click on “”Appearance”” and then on “”Themes.”” On this page you’ll see the current theme you have installed. If you are looking at a brand new WordPress install you’ll probably just see the standard default theme. At the top of this page you’ll see two tabs; one for “”Manage Themes”” and another for “”Install Themes.”” You guessed it – click on the “”Install Themes”” tab.

What you’ll see is a search page that lets you quickly search through all the free WordPress themes currently on the WordPress website. Choose a few parameters, such as color, width, number of columns or click on one of the quick tags like Featured or Newest. You’ll see the themes that match your search displayed for you with links for “”Install”” and “”Preview”” at the bottom of each thumbnail.

The Preview feature is pretty neat as it allows you to see how the new theme will look on your website. Keep in mind, however, that once in a while things will look a bit messed up. The new theme your are previewing many have different settings and parameters than you current theme so some things may look a bit out of place at first and require a bit of massaging.

Once you’ve found a theme you like simply click on the “”Install”” link and the theme will be installed into your site. You can then activate the theme to make it live online. Easy, right?

In the case you find a theme on a 3rd party website, not on the WordPress Theme Directory, you will simply need to download the file. Typically you’ll download the file in.zip format and need to extract it (right click, extract all). Once it’s extracted use a FTP program like Filezilla to upload the new theme files to your website. You’ll need to place the folder containing the new files into the wp-content/theme folder. Then visit your admin panel and activate the theme. Easy enough!

Two Free WordPress Themes That Can Reduce Your Blog Setup Time by Half

By Randy R on September 11, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Two Free WordPress Themes That Can Reduce Your Blog Setup Time by Half

WordPress themes are also known as layouts or templates. These are files that create the look and feel of your blog content. WordPress themes can be very simple, like the one that comes standard with every install, to the complex. Bloggers can choose from free and paid versions of templates. When choosing a template, you should choose one that will give you a lot of ability to easily customize the template to fit your branding needs. This article discusses 2 templates (or themes) that have a lot of customization features which are relatively easy to a create unique brand.

All WordPress templates allow you to customize them by going into the Edit page of the Appearance tab. If you are not comfortable with PHP and HTML code, then you may have some trouble in customizing your appearance. One benefit of the themes mentioned in this article is they are customizable through a special theme options page, which means you can get your WordPress site up and running much more quickly.

1) Atahualpa Theme

This theme is a free theme that was created by ‘Bytes for All’ and can be found on their web site where you can ask questions and get community support for this theme. Once this theme is installed, you can customize the theme in the Appearance >> Atahualpa Theme Options page. Once here, you will find a host of options to highly customize your theme. Webmasters can configure special CSS styles for things such as the header, the layout, and page features such as headings, links and menu bars. Users can easily upload header graphics that can rotate through the header graphic.

Other options that can be customized include the number of columns you want on your blog (technically you can have from 1 to 5 columns), which side you want you sidebars to be on, or what you want your widget boxes to look like. The look and feel is highly customizable and is a great start to quickly getting a professional look to your blog.

2) News Magazine Theme

The free News Magazine theme was created by Anti Social Media LLC. This theme gives you several easily customizable options that can be set in the Appearance >> News Magazine Theme 640 Options page. The News Magazine theme doesn’t have quite as many options to set up as the Atahualpa theme, but you can add code for site tracking (can be done through the use of plugins), ad rotating and just adding text or java script code to parts of your template.

One nice feature of this template is that you can easily take featured categories and spotlight them on your blog through simple dropdown selections. One very nice feature is that you can control the excerpt length of your blog postings on the index page. On 99.9% of the WordPress blogs out there, the home (or index) page prints the entire text of the blog post. A better format for visitors is to have a post excerpt and they can click a link to read the entire blog. Currently there is no function in WordPress that allows you to display excerpts of your blog postings. This blog theme allows you to display excerpts with their ‘Blog Mode Excerpt Length’ setting.

These two WordPress themes are varied enough to get you started and well on your way with your first (or second) WordPress blog. The ease of these customizable settings should greatly reduce your setup time while creating a fairly well customized blog. To make the most advantage of setting up your blog for more traffic and more automation, taking a WordPress training class will speed up creating a decent blog following.

6 Reasons Why You Should Use a Premium WordPress Theme1

By Randy R on August 22, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

6 Reasons Why You Should Use a Premium WordPress Theme

WordPress is one of the most popular open source blogging platforms available on the web, giving you complete creative freedom and the ability to design the perfect website with minimum effort.

The WordPress directory contains thousands of great plugins whilst the web is abundant with thousands of free themes, all to give your blog project that unique personal touch.

Whilst there are many great free WordPress themes available on the web, only a very few of them have the security and custom ability of a professionally designed premium WordPress theme. And this is the subject matter of this article, where I’d like to share with you 6 valid reasons as to why you should use a premium WordPress theme for your web project, as apposed to one of the readily available free themes on the market.

Design Quality

The design quality often found in free WordPress themes cannot be merely matched to those found in premium themes, and this is down to several reasons; for example, the attention to detail is often reflected on how well the theme’s code was originally written.

A good example of this would suggest; a quality premium theme will rarely ever load with any concerning glitches, the layout of the theme itself will always load cleanly and smoothly with all the qualities found in a premium theme, whilst these qualities can sometimes be of poor forthcoming in the vastly freely available themes.

Features

Many free themes also lack of the essential features whilst premium themes often offer you many useful features such as featured posts plugin, dynamic content gallery, Twitter and RSS integration and a contact us form just name a few.

Customization

When it comes to customization free themes offer almost nothing in return, as many of these free themes are designed for one thing only, and that’s for gaining a free backlink to an external site used by the theme designer normally. However, many if not all premium themes available offer full custom ability with easy customisation of CSS, headers and footers amongst many others.

Security

One of the biggest reasons why many serious bloggers or webmasters tend to use a reputable premium theme is for its impeccable security features.

The guys over at WordPress work their hardest to keep us updated with the latest security releases for their platform, and many of the premium themes are designed to cater and reinforce these security updates to make your blog project as secure as possible. No body likes the thought of waking up to find out their blog or website has been hacked into or sabotaged.

Updates

With a premium WordPress theme you also receive the latest updates that are available for your theme; if a new version of your theme is available you’ll be offered the chance to upgrade with normally no extra cost.

Even with the safe knowledge of being able to get the latest version of your theme as and when available should be enough to make you want to invest in a premium theme.

Technical Support & Documentation

Finally many if not all premium theme services now come with full online technical support as well as documentation with clear instructions on how to use your theme, giving you even greater peace of mind.

If you’re as passionate about your blog or web project as you think you are and are currently using a free WordPress theme for your blog, consider upgrading to a premium theme. For the sake of a few dollars it could mean the difference between your blog or website being safe and secure or being hacked into even without your knowledge.

6 Reasons Why You Should Use a Premium WordPress Theme

By Randy R on August 14, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

6 Reasons Why You Should Use a Premium WordPress Theme

WordPress is one of the most popular open source blogging platforms available on the web, giving you complete creative freedom and the ability to design the perfect website with minimum effort.

The WordPress directory contains thousands of great plugins whilst the web is abundant with thousands of free themes, all to give your blog project that unique personal touch.

Design Quality

Features

Customization

Security

One of the biggest reasons why many serious bloggers or webmasters tend to use a reputable premium theme is for its impeccable security features.

Updates

Even with the safe knowledge of being able to get the latest version of your theme as and when available should be enough to make you want to invest in a premium theme.

Technical Support & Documentation

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