WordPress blog design

| October 2008 Posted in Consulting, News |

0 Comments Tags: redesign, theme design, WordPress, wp theme

facelift For the past few weeks we have been giving our site a heavy face lift. For those that cant tell, we run our entire site on a wordpress platform, there are several advantages to that, my favorite is the ease of use. From daily use to monthly or yearly updates it makes change easy. If we could run our whole lives on wordpress I am convinced we would all get over our resistance toward change, no matter what it was.

The other thing I love about using wordpress is the hundreds of design themes that are available. And 90% of them are free. There are advantages to buying a theme, like a license to change and add your own design to it. But free is a favorite among most individuals.

How many blogs do you have? Are you trying to manage more then one blog and struggling? I was running 3 separate wordpress blogs all related to my business. It wasn’t the smartest idea I have ever had, I quickly learned that I couldn’t keep up with them and that I was dividing my precious traffic among 3 sites. So I have recently combined all 3 sites into this one. Now I do have 2 other blogs, one is a personal one and the other a project blog for a nonprofit organization I am developing. Now because those don’t fit the category of my business, I wouldn’t combine those ones. So if you have a personal blog for family and friends and a blog about your business, you may not want to combine those two. There are still aspects of your life it is nice to keep separated.

With the PHP programing style of wordpress themes, you have the ability to do some amazing things to your wordpress blog pages. If you are skilled enough you can create a blog with in a blog, just by creating a PHP template, adding some CSS code and bam! You got a whole new look inside of your look. Want to see an example? Click the Biz Network tab at the top of the page, then click on the debt relief tab on the new navigation bar. Or use this link… www.blog4biz101.com/debt-relief

That is just a php tmeplate that I created, I then created a new page, selected the appropriate template for that page and bam! It might have taken me about 30 minutes, but that was becasue I already had the designing done.

I realize that not everyone has the ability to create or customize their own wordpress theme, so I want to make a few suggestions to help you decide if the best solution for you is to;

Use a free WP theme
Buy a WP theme
Hire a designer to design a WP theme for you

To make it easier I want to try to eliminate number 1, use a free wp theme. It is ok to use a free wp theme if you are a new blogger and your blog is just a personal site were you share photos, talk about your life and all that great stuff. If you own a business and you are using a free wordpress theme, you should consider one of the other 2 options.

2. Buying a wp theme, you can buy a theme for $10, $120 and anywhere in between. And they are as easy to use as the free themes, but you will be able to customize it more. A lot of the free themes have encrypted code files that you can not change. The more professional and unique you want your blog to look, the more customization you are going to want. It is our goal create a blog for our clients that matches that of their corporate site. Consistency is important for a professional blog and website.

3. Hire a designer to design a custom theme for you, well this is a good idea if you have $700 to $1800. And for a professional corporate or business blog spending that kind of money just makes sense.

Basically you are going to make your decision based on your needs and wants. We offer 4 different blogging packages that fit into different situations. You can get the details by visiting our Services Page.

Just be careful, there is no reason why you should get ripped off. If something sounds outrages then run away. There are literally hundreds of people that can design a custom theme for you.