Blogging 101 Day Five: Love Your Theme

Now we’re getting into the more visual aspects of the blog. Today’s assignment is try out at least three other themes. Michelle W. over at The Daily Post tells us that it’s important to try out different themes for your blog because you should love the way your blog looks, and because you never know what you’re going to like until you try it. I can definitely second those notions. I tried dozens of themes before I struck on my first one, and a little over a year later I tried dozens more before I settled on what you see today.

There are tons of theme options available on WordPress (I can’t speak to the other blogging platforms, but I’m sure there are lots of options there as well), and I strongly suggest using the Preview option to try out anything you might like before actually imposing the change on your blog. Something I learned very quickly is that the themes as you see them on the theme page don’t always look the same once you apply them to your own blog. In addition to previewing, you want to check out the options that are available with that particular theme. For instance, does the theme allow customization, or are you stuck with it exactly as you see it? Does the theme have tablet and mobile modes for when someone accesses your blog on a non-PC device, and do those modes look nice? I’ve vetoed several very nice looking themes because they absolutely destroyed my blog when switching to mobile mode.

There’s not a great deal that I can do for this assignment since I’ve already done my fair share of theme-hopping ages ago, but for the sake of helping others, I thought I’d share the website of a friend, Tom Slatin. If you click on the “Web Design” tab of his site, you’ll find that he regularly shares free WordPress themes. As of the writing of this post he’s up to 71 free themes. Check them out! You might find something awesome. 🙂