published Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 10:09 am by
JoAnnAndBob
What is a Theme, and why do I need one?
A WordPress Theme is the collection of files that provide structure to your website. It will define the colors, layout and more. When you set WordPress up, it does come with a basic default theme, but for a professional website you will want one with a more customized appearance and better functionality.
Do I need to buy a theme, or can I just use a free one?
There are a lot of free themes available, some of them quite good, but I wouldn’t recommend using one. There are some potential drawbacks such as lack of support, possible malicious coding, and a longer time to adapt to changes in versions of WordPress. Good premium themes are available at very reasonable prices, and well worth it.
I look at free versus premium themes the way I look at FSBO versus going with a Realtor. You might get lucky going “free”, but odds are you get what you pay for.
What’s the difference between a Parent Theme and a Child Theme?
There are a couple of ways to develop a theme. The theme may be independent of any others, in which case you would just call it a WordPress Theme. A theme could also be a customized add-on for another installed theme. In this case, the main theme is called a Parent Theme, and the add-on theme is called a Child Theme.
A lot of people who have more than 1 web site set up prefer using Parent and Child Themes. You can use the basic Parent Theme for all the sites, and get different Child Themes for each. This lets you have very different layouts and looks for the different sites, but the behind the scenes set up for each on your end is similar.
What WordPress Theme would you recommend?
It depends what type of site you are going to have. If it is going to be your primary personal website, I would recommend AgentPress, from StudioPress. This is one of those Parent and Child Themes, where Agent Press is a Child Theme, and Genesis is the Parent Theme. This is the theme I use on my own personal website.
If you are setting up a website based around community information, I would consider what they call a “magazine style” theme. If you decided to use AgentPress, then I would recommend another Child Theme that works with Genesis, the Magazine Theme. Another magazine style theme I’ve used is Oracle, from Theme Trust. This is a stand-alone theme.
There are different pricing packages. How do I decide which level to purchase?
Some publishers have different pricing packages, depending on how many sites you want to use the theme on. If you know you are going to be using the theme on multiple websites, get the upgraded package. If you’re not sure, just buy the single use license. You can typically upgrade it later if you need to.
What should I do next?
Think about what type of website or websites you will be building, then check out the major theme publishers. Look at the live demos of the different themes. When you find a theme or themes you like, buy them!
A few theme publishers
Next time, Installing WordPress….
