wordpress tips and tricks Archives

WordPress design is an appealing and lucrative field for a reason, since there are more than quarter of websites all around the globe are working on wordpress, and it’s relatively easy to get into (WordPress and the community help you all the way through).

If you have finally given in to the lure of designing for WordPress (because the market is growing at a rapid pace), you’ve made a smart move. The one thing you won’t be lacking in is potential projects and new ideas.

So, in the spirit of welcoming you to the Fellowship of WordPress Design, here are a few tips to help make your transition from a regular graphic/web to WordPress designer smooth, hassle-free, and fun.

Some DIY Tips For Designers Starting Afresh On WordPress

1. Knowledge Of How Code Is Working

No, you don’t need to learn how to write code.

You don’t have to be able to write the next theme yourself using JavaScript and nothing else. But what can help you is a little knowledge of the WordPress front-end languages: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with some PHP thrown in the mix. You need to know what they mean, and the purposes of each in the context of WordPress, specifically the front-end.

“Understanding the basics, possibilities, and limitations of code will keep you realistic so you can create better, efficient, and usable designs.”

Some good starting points would be Basics and uses of CSS and JavaScript, threading and rendering of HTML tags, etc.

A Cookie Analogy: PHP is the dough, HTML is the cookie cutter, and CSS and JavaScript are chocolate chips.

2. WordPress Theme Anatomy

Check out this brief post by Yoast’s CEO Joost De Valk on WordPress Theme Anatomy.

The infographic and text description details what a basic WordPress theme is made of. The post also touches briefly upon other useful topics like Template Hierarchy and The Loop.

Apart from PHP, WordPress also uses CSS and its variants for visual presentation. If you have taken a liking to stylesheets (or know some CSS already as a web designer), check out WordPress CSS for more details.

3. Learn From Existing Themes

There ain’t any better way than this to learn what’s currently in the market with some real hands-on experience.

Some of the best WordPress themes are also free, so there is nothing stopping you from downloading these on your WordPress installation (if you have just started installing WordPress, go ahead and do it. It’s absolutely free) and go crazy mad developer with them. Check out the Featured tab in WordPress Theme Repository, download a theme that catches your eye, install it, and then roll up your sleeves or check these free themes provided by Weblizar.

First, look at the code. In your installation directory, go to wp-content/themes and open the folder of your chosen theme. Check out the files. Template files are all PHP. The stylesheet will be a style.css. There might also be a functions.php file. Open them and examine the code. Pay special attention to how beautifully the code is indented and the separately commented sections to enhance legibility. This should teach you about good practices and coding standards.

4. Try A Framework

WordPress Theme Frameworks are a thing of beauty, and they are available for people who are currently on ‘Beginner’ difficulty settings too.

Frameworks have built-in functions and theme options that you can reuse in your own theme. You can think of it as a parent theme, or a solid foundation you’re building up from. They are available for the designer (generally drag-and-drop interface combined with lots of space for freestyle).

Gantry is one such framework. Try it and see how you do.

5. Always Ask For Help If You Are Stuck!

There are many resources, open forums, and super-awesome wordpress developers out there who can help you out.

Remember that there’s one-in-16-millions chance that your troubles are unique to you. Ask your question on WordPress.org forums, or elsewhere like Stack Exchange, Quora etc.

Wrapping Up

The one advice everyone should follow is to stay on top of new developments in wordpress core. And that’s pretty much how you’ll keep yourself updated.

Wasn’t that a piece of cake.

Most beginners feel flooded once it involves choosing a theme for his or her WordPress website. There are thousands of free and paid versions and every theme looks better than the rest of the others. How can you select the most effective theme for your WordPress site? In this article, we are going to share the nine stuff you should take into account, so you’ll be able to select the best WordPress theme for your website.

Many WordPress themes go with plenty of customization choices. If not coded properly, these choices can make it tough for you to alter themes or use different WordPress plugins. you will be locked into that theme or will get to pay a developer to assist you with the theme.

On the other hand, some WordPress themes that look extremely nice can actually make your website unbelievably slow. nobody likes slow websites, notably Google, that prefers to rank faster websites higher.
Your theme is the face of your WordPress website and plays a crucial role in how users, as well as search engines, understand it.

You’ve most likely heard the old saying, ‘All that glitters is not gold’.

Having said that, let’s take a glance at the steps you should go for to make certain that you simply choose the most effective theme for your WordPress website.

1. Look out for Simplicity

Many WordPress themes accompany numerous colors, complicated layouts, flashy animations, etc. sometimes you’ll want those things, however in most cases, you don’t actually need all that.

” Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication ”
~ Leonardo da Vinci

Look for a theme that contains a style layout that helps you support your goal. It has to look smart but without compromising on usability and ease.

Make sure that the theme’s presentation style isn’t excessively difficult. the aim of web design is to assist users to notice the data they need and to assist website owners to accomplish their goals at the same time.

If a theme appears nice but doesn’t assist you to get new business or subscribers, then it’s not a good theme. it’s also not a decent theme when your users can’t really notice their way around your website.

Take a glance at some of these WordPress themes for some inspiration.

2. Responsive Themes are better

Responsive themes modify their layout to different screen sizes and devices.
A significant variety of net traffic is generated from mobile and different hand-held devices. counting on your website’s topics, this range may go even beyond five hundredths of your traffic.
Google shows mobile friendly websites on top in their mobile search results. in spite of your site’s topics and demographics, all websites have to be compelled to be responsive and absolutely mobile friendly.

Most WordPress themes are already responsive by default. but there are still sellers who are marketing fixed dimension layouts that don’t seem to be mobile friendly at all. ensure that the theme you’re selecting for your website is mobile friendly.

Testing a theme for Mobile Readiness

The easiest way to check whether or not a theme is responsive or not is by resizing your browser screen. As you resize your browser screen, you {will|you’ll|you may} notice that the theme’s layout will change itself to the screen dimension.

For additional thorough testing, you can copy the URL of theme’s demo page and paste it in Google’s Mobile-Friendly test page.

Testing a responsive theme against Google Mobile-Friendly test.

Please note that this test can show some warnings, despite how good a theme is. Look out for any red flags like text too little, content wider than the screen, etc.

3. Browser Compatibility

Your users will be using completely different browsers. Your theme might look excellent on the browser you use, but there could be few things tamed in other browsers.

This is where browser compatibility comes in. Most WordPress theme developers check their themes strictly by using subtle browser compatibility testing tools.

They may clearly mention this on their website. but if they don’t, then you’ll be able to continuously run some basic tests to examine the theme on completely different browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, internet explorer, Safari, etc.

Don’t forget to check on totally different browsers on mobile as well.

4. Supported Plugins

The real power of WordPress comes with WordPress plugins. These plugins let you play and tr something different with your WordPress website.

While there are lots of WordPress plugins, some are must-have WordPress plugins for each and every website. Like Gravity Forms, Yoast SEO, W3 Total Cache, etc.

Make sure that your WordPress theme supports all in style plugins. If you’re unsure, confront your theme developer regarding it. take a look at few

You can also take a look at some interesting and much-needed plugins.

5. Multilingual Support + Language Translation

A large range of WordPress sites doesn’t seem to be in the English language. you’ll be making a website in the language apart from English.

Perhaps you have got plans to make a multilingual WordPress website in the future.

Make sure that your WordPress theme is translation ready and supports multilingual WordPress plugins.

6. Page Builders

Page builders are WordPress plugins that permit you to make page layouts using drag and drop interface.

Many premium WordPress themes come along with page builders pre-installed. a number of these page builders are utilized by that theme developer solely.

Using such a page builder to form landing pages can produce plenty of unwanted code. If you ever switch the theme, then those pages would require plenty of cleanup up.

You should select themes that are shipping with one among the most used page builder plugins. you can also purchase these page-builders individually to use with different themes as well.

7. After Sale Support of the Theme

One drawback of using a free WordPress theme is that there’s no secured support. whereas some developers give wonderful support for their free themes, several free themes don’t have any support possibility.

If you damage your WordPress theme, then you’ll need to figure it out on your own. There may be a possibility that you’ll end up paying a third-party developer to resolve the tiniest issues.

Make sure that you simply choose a WordPress theme that has smart documentation and support option. Most premium WordPress themes provide elaborated documentation with one year of email-based support.

8. SEO Friendly

Your WordPress theme plays a vital role in your site’s SEO friendliness. a decent looking theme will still generate poorly coded hypertext markup language, this might have an effect on your site’s performance on search engines.

It may well be tough for beginners to research a theme’s ASCII text file on their own. this is why several premium WordPress theme developers will allow you to recognize that their pages are optimized for SEO.

You can also take a glance to check if the page generates correct HTML5 by checking it with W3C Markup Validation service. However, please note that the W3C tool can generate several warnings that are nothing to be worried about.

9. Ratings and Reviews

Another solid indicator of a WordPress theme’s quality is ratings and reviews provided by their users. If the theme is sold on a third-party marketplace, then you will see customer reviews.

For free WordPress themes, you will find the rating section just below the download button. It will show the number of reviews and stars given by users. If you click on 5 stars, then it will show you all the reviews that gave the theme 5 stars.

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Tag: wordpress tips and tricks

Designers Starting Afresh On WordPress – DIY Tips