Help Me Design a WordPress blog site
Well hi there. More than likely, you’re expecting to see a post that will be all about how to design a site using a theme and a self-hosted WordPress site. I know I would be if I clicked here.
Unfortunately, I have no really useful knowledge about this topic right now. I’m hoping you can help me change that.
I want you to help me write this post.
I’m hoping to create here a curation of some of the best information you can find or have used about this topic. If you leave a comment with information, I’ll incorporate it into the post.
Why? Because I can’t be the only one out there who finds this process scary, intimidating, and counter-intuitive. I want one single place to help me through this trial, and to the best of my knowledge, that one single place doesn’t exist yet.
What kinds of information am I looking for?
All kinds!
Here are some ideas to get you started.
• What are the benefits of using a paid theme?
• How do you upload images to your WP site?
• What theme(s) do you recommend? (Note, if you are linking to an affiliate link on your own site, please preview that, ok?)
Hopefully we can crowdsource this topic and put together a resource that can be useful to lots of people.
What do you say? Are you game?
The advice begins here!
From Sam Beaumond: Here’s my two cents… Buy a Studio Press child theme with a style that you like the general look of. Bear in mind that the Studio Press admin panel allows you to customize almost every aspect of the sites look and feel. Blog background, header image, color scheme are all editable with point and click controls. They also include many video tutorials of how to perform common tasks and how to get your blog looking like you want. As for installing the blog on your own host, use the “5 minute install” from WordPress as a guide. Or hit me up and i’ll do it for a nominal fee…
Image by Svilen Milev. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/svilen001
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Here’s my two cents… Buy a Studio Press child theme with a style that you like the general look of. Bear in mind that the Studio Press admin panel allows you to customize almost every aspect of the sites look and feel. Blog background, header image, color scheme are all editable with point and click controls. They also include many video tutorials of how to perform common tasks and how to get your blog looking like you want. As for installing the blog on your own host, use the “5 minute install” from WordPress as a guide. Or hit me up and i’ll do it for a nominal fee… 🙂
thanks Sam! Your input has been added 🙂
Dear Margie –
You are a writer. Not a tech.
Hire it out. It will take you hours to figure it out. Time you could use in doing what you are really good at.
That’s what I do. When I hear the word “plugins” my brain turns off.
True enough. However, a lot of people talk about how easy it is to do this stuff. It doesn’t seem so to me, so I figured if Im going to try to figure it all out, might as well help other people at the same time 🙂
Ok, you know I am an incurable smarta** and you’re ok with that, right?? Right?
1. Pick up phone
2. Dial 937-XXX-XXXX
3. Ask for Rufus
4. Sit back, relax for a couple days
5. Cut check
6. Enjoy your new WP site.
Tight-rope walkers tell you it is easy to step out onto the wire. They even trick you by making it look easy. But the catch is, they know what they are doing. They’ve practiced doing it a million times. Of course it is easy. For them.
Pitchers pitch, catchers catch. Some pitchers can catch and some catchers can pitch, but they are mostly outliers.
Oh gosh. Playing with themes? Where to start?
I generally base what theme I build on the kind of site I want. What’s in the sidebar? How many pages are on the site? What’s the core function?
Genesis is pretty slick, but I’ve never built with it. I use Standard, personally, but I’m a code monkey. The real trick lies more in the branding, the feel of the site than the code or the organization. What’s your information architecture like? What kind of plugins are you going to use? Discus, Comment Luv, etc? Worry about that first.
Build the layout. Next, consider the colours. Go to http://kuler.adobe.com/ and start building a colour scheme. Their tools make it almost impossible to mix the wrong colours. I assume Genesis has a portion of the admin panel associated with colours? Kuler will give you the hex codes for the mix you create.
That’s the place I usually start, anyway. 🙂 Hope it’s helpful.
Very interesting, very good advice. Thanks! 🙂
Marjorie
I have to agree. Hire it out. There is just not enough time to learn everything. Unless you plan on doing all the tech side and writing on your site. which is a big ask. For what it will cost you buy a theme and get someone to get it up and running it is worth it. There is an opportunity cost to everything and in my opinion for what it is worth I think this will mean you will have too much to do,. Unless that is of course you want to develop a hybrid set of skills rather than focus on your writing. In all the years I have worked with entrepreneurs this is the key area where they struggle deciding where to focus their energy and I have to say it is one of the key reasons why businesses fail. I know you are not an entrepreneur in the strict sense of the word but you have a marketing mindset in that your promoting, branding, writing and raising your profile all things that entrepreneurs do.? Your a smart lady so I know this is part of the process of gathering information so you can make the best decision hope you make the right one for you. Just my thoughts.
You make some very good points.
However, I’m pretty close to done already. Didn’t you notice it looks different in here today? 🙂
You should write a post about the point regarding entrepreneurs though. That is an excellent point that often gets overlooked. The fear of delegation is a major obstacle.
Love the new look Margie 🙂 well done.
My tip, go into your dashboard. Find the section marked posts and click categories, find the one that says uncategorised and then edit it to say “latest” or “thoughts”.
If using Genesis framework take time to think out what you will add into the SEO section under your post – the main box is what will show when you are found in the search engines and you need to have something that will entice searchers to click.
Control spam very easily with the GASP plugin, it is brilliant.
Go to plugins, click add new. Then click search, search for GASP and when the results show, find the GASP plugin by Grow Map and click install. When installed (it will tell you, takes about 20 seconds) go to the plugin and activate it. Then forget about spam 🙂
I could go on… but I shall be a good girl 🙂
you are a veritable fount of knowledge!! I’m going to print this out so I can check things off.
thank you!! 🙂
Most excellent start!
Now, I’m going to get you to think. ..
What is the purpose of the ladybug? Right away, I want the photo to have meaning to the overall blog.
2nd – What is the purpose of the background image? Again, what is its value to the blog?
These are questions you ask to answer. I can’t do that for you, but the closer you get to creating a visual layout the best represents your blog, the longer people will hang around.
One note: Make your header copy white, not black – It will be easier to read.
Layout – very nice so far, easy on the eyes.
I think I tried white and it kind of disappeared in the sand.
The images are tied into the idea of Margie’s musings. One might say that the ladybug is my totem, so she had to be there.
The picture in the background is one I took at a Hawaiian temple overlooking the ocean – I definitely did a lot of musing there, and I also muse about going there as often as possible 🙂
In short, the imagery is very much me, which is pretty much who you get when you come here. A ladybug and some sand, and hopefully some good conversation 🙂
I am still tweaking though!
Thanks for the kick in the butt, sir 🙂
I like the new theme.. a softer feel. Unsolicited advice??
1) smaller background photo file… it takes too long to load and long load time is Google-killing
2) twitter.. your twitter account on all pages.(use a Text widget with links)
3) Dark title slide needs white type.. OR just bring into Photoshop and do something like this http://rivershark.com/marg_demo.png (white fill, feathered 12px) I can do for you if you want.
4) Background photo.. pick up the last color at the bottom and change in your style.css #010300 so that it flows into the background
Have I annoyed you yet? 🙂
Well, based on a recurring theme in feedback, I took out the background image altogether. I don’t know that it was doing much.
If you could do that banner doohickey, that would be AWESOME. I can’t tell you how long I finnicked with images and fonts last night (but it was hours).
Thanks!
Margie,
Feel free to send any tweets my way. I moved from Drupal to wordpress using the Genesis Framework theme.
If I can be of any help let me know.
I am going through this right now with 2 sites I am creating. It is not easy, but can be done.
I do believe that going with Studio Press or Genesis theme is the best, but I am on a budget – very tight budget.All these themes need to be customized – with code and graphics. The code is not the difficult part for myself to do some myself and get free help with, but the graphics are.
When I look at the Showcase Gallery for Genesis themes – they don’t look anything like the demo, and I have no idea how to create myself as requires more coding knowledge than I know at the moment. HTML was a lot easier in the old days 🙂
However – I decided to go with purchased themes – but cheaper and use SEO and other plugins to start.
Graphics I am keeping light and designed our own logo to start as well – paid $10 for it.
The getting setup with hosting provider – was not too difficult and WordPress was installed for me, and I was able to FTP Themes in place. I went with themes that I can get some support from the author and forums.
It is a huge learning curve however, and if I had $2000 I would hire it out. Who to choose, well I look at sites that I like and have consulted with the designers and web developers that they used, and found that most are backed up. But there are many if you have the budget.
Photos and image uploads – that part is not too difficult, as can upload easily through WordPress or use Flickr (I did have upgrade to business account – but that is only $25) .
Issues I have ran into:
1) How to change graphics
2) How to change CSS for jQuery slideshows
3) FTP theme to hosting provider – troublesome
4) I am not a graphic artist
5) Learning all about plugins and how to use and testing – as all will not work with chosen theme
6) Certain aspects of theme not as expected and require to know PHP to change
I have reviewed at least 1000 themes looking for the right one, and one that will be able to be installed quickly and then be easy to use after installation, so that we can just concentrate on posting.
It is difficult to choose a theme and know if is the correct one – the most recent one I have purchased is from ThemeForest and there is a lot of people discussing each design with comments, that helps. Some of the developers are amazing with video support and answering questions.
I should have 1 of our sites available by this Friday… and then on to the next.
I just want to write and help people, not spend days coding 🙂
…darleen
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