{"id":334,"date":"2015-06-20T15:49:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-20T15:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/?p=334"},"modified":"2015-09-22T15:50:30","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T15:50:30","slug":"how-to-choose-the-perfect-wordpress-template-theme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/how-to-choose-the-perfect-wordpress-template-theme\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Choose the Perfect WordPress Template Theme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From my 20 years of designing websites I&#8217;ve feel that WordPress is currently the best way to go. After I turn it over to my client, they are going to want to make changes. This is most easily done using WordPress.<\/p>\n<p>As a designer I need to create a professional appearance on top of this powerful tool. Since every client will want something unique, the simplest approach is to use a pre-designed template. This will have to be modified of course, but it can save you many hours of programming, \u201creinventing-the-wheel\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Complexity<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you want your website to be very unique or complicated?<br \/>\nOr do you mind if it is similar to other websites that you like.<\/li>\n<li>If it can be like other sites then a template may be the way to go.<br \/>\nIf it is more complicated then the costs usually go up.<\/li>\n<li>Do you mind if another website somewhere has the exact same appearance?<\/li>\n<li>Create a priority list. Websites should be constantly improving and updating. In what order would you like to see each component improved. Ie- Maybe you don\u2019t want an intranet now, but will you at some point?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Layout<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How many columns (Usually 1-3)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Themes<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Button themes- Do you want links to be selected by clicking on large colourful buttons. Or are you happy with a simple pull down menu?<\/li>\n<li>Others like Magazine themes or photo themes. Figure out what you like by comparing with other sites.<\/li>\n<li>In this instance, we are looking for white, clean, professional, sparse, simple navigation. I think we probably want a simple banner and minimal text on the front page.<\/li>\n<li>Do you like the header art of the theme? It comes a part of the theme so you don\u2019t have to worry about copywrite.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Customization<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Decide on fonts and symbols for branding.<\/li>\n<li>If you don\u2019t like what you see in a template, but the features are great, don\u2019t worry, the colors, fonts can be changed fairly simply.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Design Appearance<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The closer the design appearance is to what you want then the cheaper\/less time consuming it is to change it. Use the right theme for the job. Don\u2019t reinvent the wheel. If you want a site for a church use a church theme.<\/li>\n<li>Select design elements. Do you prefer Arial or Times New Roman?<br \/>\nDo you prefer small 10pt font normal 12pt font or large 14pt font?<\/li>\n<li>What color scheme do you want? What colors help describe the church?<\/li>\n<li>How do you want linked text to appear? (bold and underline?)<\/li>\n<li>In looking at a theme, do you like the appearance of the text in block quotes, how the &#8220;Next&#8221; or &#8220;Previous&#8221; buttons appear, how the sidebar is displayed, etc\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Technical requirements.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some changes are easy like changing the banner. Some are harder like changing the CSS. The hardest are code based (ie- PHP)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Functional Elements<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This is, in many ways, more important to a web designer than the appearance. The other features can be simply adjusted. These are the guts that can make a site simple or complex to design. Most coders can make any template work for them, but each of a templates features can save a coder many hours of time.<\/li>\n<li>Many features plugged into a template are often free elsewhere. Consider though that the template designer probably found just the right options to incorporate into his theme and already paid for some of them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Does it have a strong options panel that is widget ready (as it can save time coding)? How customizable is this theme?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>RSS- Do you want to push information to subscribers? Do you want a blog area where prayer requests, sermons, blogs, or other regular updates can be posted? (Do you want all of that RSS\u2019d)<\/li>\n<li>Do you want a contact form? (To protect your email from spam.) Do you want an option to sign up for 1. Newsletters, 2. Rss feeds. (On the contact form.)<br \/>\n(Contact Form 7 is a wonderful\/free plugin.)<\/li>\n<li>Do you want users to quickly access Facebook and twitter from your site, including being able to \u201clike\u201d pages? Does it have a customized social widget to add a twitter or Facebook feed?<\/li>\n<li>Do you want a button on more than one page? The bottom of every page? Do you want a page of information about 501(c3)? Do you want a donation button for each ministry?<\/li>\n<li>Calendar: Do you want a grid, or linear list of events? Do you want this on an RSS feed? Can someone click on a calendar item and get more information, be notified in the future of this event, or add this to their own google calendar?<\/li>\n<li>Do you need a sitemap?<\/li>\n<li>Do you want a photo or video gallery?<\/li>\n<li>Do you want users to be able to interact on a forum. (I recommend MyBB)<\/li>\n<li>Do you want a site-wide search? (Free plugin usually)<\/li>\n<li>Do you want to create and manage your own mailing lists? (I recommend using mail chimp.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Compatibility<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you want it to be mobile friendly? This is an important and already tested feature of prepaid templates.<br \/>\n(According to Google, 75 percent of users prefer a mobile friendly website.)<\/li>\n<li>Is it compatible with the latest version of WordPress?<\/li>\n<li>Is it compatible with IE9, IE10, IE11, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome? (Always make sure that your new theme is compatible with all browsers, even the older versions.)<\/li>\n<li>Is it compatible with WooCommerce, Bootstrap, bbPress, MyBB, Gravity Forms (or another forms tool), Events Calendar<\/li>\n<li>Is the theme integrated with PayPal?<\/li>\n<li>SEO features?<\/li>\n<li>Is it easy to implement a Child Theme?<\/li>\n<li>Custom Favicon?<\/li>\n<li>Optimized for WPML &#8211; International\/Local interaction? Multilingual?<\/li>\n<li>Threaded comments?<\/li>\n<li>Gravatar ready?<\/li>\n<li>Custom 404 page?<\/li>\n<li>Custom CSS option?<\/li>\n<li>Is an XML Demo content file included?<\/li>\n<li>Free plugins like paid sliders?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Read Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Take some time, before purchasing a theme to search out what other users of this template are saying.<\/li>\n<li>Check to see how many times it\u2019s been downloaded. A popular theme is probably robust with many features.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Support<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Before purchasing a theme be sure to find out what kind of support is offered.<\/li>\n<li>Does it offer free template updates?<\/li>\n<li>Is there a support forum for users to interact?<\/li>\n<li>Is the designer available to answer questions?<\/li>\n<li>Can you pay a fee to get support if you need it?<\/li>\n<li>A company that makes money by selling themes will have more resources to dedicate towards support, theme documentation, theme updates, etc\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cost<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you only get one site usage out of the template, or can you modify it for various sites that you are designing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From my 20 years of designing websites I&#8217;ve feel that WordPress is currently the best way to go. After I turn it over to my client, they are going to want to make changes. This is most easily done using WordPress. As a designer I need to create a professional appearance on top of this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}