There are thousands of WordPress themes you can choose from both free and paid but what if you don’t like anyone of them. You can create one for yourself. Yes, you read that right.
Creating your first theme is a big deal but you can give it a try and it is worth the effort. If you are creating your own WordPress theme, this article is for you. You will learn about useful tips that will make it easier for you to create your own WordPress theme.
1. Put Purpose First
Start your WordPress theme created with the end goal in mind. When you know the purpose, you are creating the theme for, it makes your life much easier. Do you want to increase brand awareness, or you want to sell products?
Every design decision would be made with the purpose in mind to create a theme that aligns with your business goals and deliver results.
2. Take Inspiration from Themes
To get a better idea about what works and what does not, you need to do some research. Take some inspiration from themes already available in the market but that does not mean that you should copy it all together.
There is no point in creating your own theme when you must copy everything from another theme. See how different themes functions and how they are integrated together. Give your theme your unique twist so it looks completely different from themes available in the market.
3. Start with A Template
Once you have a goal and take inspiration from multiple sources, you are ready to lay a solid foundation for your template. There are two ways of creating a WordPress theme.
You can start off with a template or choose to code from scratch. If you choose the former option, make sure you add your customization to it. Just look at free WordPress themes to see how to customize themes.
The biggest advantage of using a template is that you get access to functionality, components and a readymade structure. This saves you from the hassle of creating everything from scratch, save your time and effort. This approach is very useful when you must meet a tight deadline and deliver the theme within a few days.
4. Code from Scratch
If you plan to start from zero and take it from there, you should learn some coding especially if you are not familiar with coding WordPress themes. Take advantage of websites like StackOverflow and WordPress Codex to easily create and customize WordPress themes. Stack Overflow is a reliable community for developers. Check out its tutorial on how to develop a WordPress theme from scratch.
WordPress Codex is one of the best resources for WordPress developers, which serves as a manual. You can find information about every template, function, plugin, and feature. Go through the WordPress tutorials and you can easily develop WordPress websites and themes.
5. Search For Quality Images
The first impression is very important when it comes to website design. Having a website that functions smoothly is not enough especially when it doesn’t have the eye-catching visuals to grab visitor’s attention. What would your reaction be when you land on a website which is boring? If you want your visitors to stay engaged, you have to add visuals to your website.
Visuals can be anything from an image to video to animation. Spend some time in finding high quality images and creating interesting and engaging videos and animations. There are many tools that help you create high quality images from a wide range of built-in templates.
6. Never Ignore Plugins
One of the biggest advantages of using WordPress is the number of plugins you can use to add functionality to your website. In addition to this, these plugins can easily integrate with the theme and work in the background.
Whether it is mapped, embedding your social feed and collect information, you can easily do that thanks to WordPress plugins. With so many plugins around, you are literally spoilt for choice, which makes it extremely difficult to choose the right WordPress plugins to use.
7. Avoid Messing with Core Components
Just like a professional web design company, you must keep all the files organized to prevent any mishap later on. The messier the core components and files are the harder it is for you to find a specific line of code.
If possible, create separate folders for different functions. This makes it easier for you to find code elements you are looking for to make changes to it when needed.
Did you ever think or tried to create your own WordPress theme? If yes, then share your best tip with us in the comments section below. We would highly appreciate your feedback.
Author bio:
Irfan Ak is a digital marketing manager a guest blogger on various websites. He is a passionate digital strategist. Currently, associated with Branex – a digital agency. He has worked with various other brands like Taskque and created value for them.