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These free WordPress templates can be easily customized as installing them comes with dummy content and all you have to do is change that content to your content. It is very easy to understand how to change the content and doesn't need any prior coding knowledge.
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Considering a Free WordPress Theme? Follow These Steps to Avoid Problems This always crosses minds of developers or start up companies as to why spend unnecessary money on Premium themes when you can use a free WordPress theme. Yes the whole idea can backfire as well with you spending lots of time with the free version only to realize that a Premium theme could have reduced your time and efforts. But sometimes even the free WordPress themes are so good that you would have even paid for them. Below we are going to discuss what it takes to choose and plan a free WordPress theme to the final execution. This talks about the whole process of choosing your ideal Free WordPress theme: Theme that fits your style of website Of course you are the one who know what you are going to write about in your website and what kind of website does it fit into. Hence it is essential to know the following types of websites and then decide what kind of free WordPress themes you are going to search for Personal: This is of course when you want to have a personal website which focusses more on you and talks about your, shows your pictures, your bio and your resume and ways to connect with you and your recent projects. This type of website will be simple and focus more on simple 4-5 pages where you can just plugin your info and have a simple gallery to showcase projects or pictures of yourself and a simple blog to write and interact with the world. Portfolio: This is when you are either a photographer or an event manager or something of the similar kind where you want to showcase your portfolio to the world and hence this type of website will focus more on pictures and handling pictures and lesser on the content stuff. Corporate or Business: This type of website obviously will focus more on corporate or business style of websites with many pages of info, stocks and shares, sharing different locations, contact forms, team members etc. Mostly this type of website will focus on content and different types of content and how they can be managed easily and look good. Magazine: This is newspaper style of blogging which will focus more on different blocks of content and news and should have lots of content blocks with various types of images and content showcased. Luckily nowadays there are a lot of free WordPress magazine themes as well available. Blogging: Simple kind of blogging which can be of varied interests from travel, photo blogging to recipes. Any kind of blogger might need to check what different kind of free WordPress themes are available for blogging. By the way there are a lot of themes available. E-commerce/Selling: Focussing more on online selling and small stores nowadays free WordPress themes even cater to this style of website. There are a lot of free Ecommerce themes available in the market mostly compatible with WooCommerce and other different E-commerce plugins. Planning your requirements Not just researching on what kind of website fits your type and then searching that type of theme doesn't end your job but you should also plan little further in terms of requirements and essentials you need in your website. Because you might get the type of theme you want but it may lack several features which will turn your time into more of a waste rather than doing it later why not find it out before hand and then be in a better safe position. Here we have created a small list of requirements which should satisfy one's most of the requirements they have from a free WordPress theme and from their website: What kind of content blocks do you need?: What kind of content blocks will support your website? Like 3 column or 2 column. This is mostly checked when you want sidebars like 2 sidebar or 3 sidebar or no sidebar at all. Which features are more required? There are few features available in free WordPress themes but some of
them are worth noting. Few of the features are: Header image: Does the theme allow header image and do you need different images for your website header? Background image: Sometimes background plays a crucial role in how the website appears and appeals to its audience and if that is crucial check whether your selected theme allows for background image? There are several plugins as well which solve this problem. Then check for compatibility. Footer widgetized: Footer should also be widget friendly in case some kind of twitter or other widget has been added or menu is added and you need to change it to something else. Mostly footer is not that crucial but atleast you should be able to change copyright info. Sidebar widgetized: Sidebar plays an important role and most of the free WordPress themes allow for sidebar to be widget friendly. But there are some which have static sidebar just check in case this theme is not among those few sidebar static ones. Which look appeals more?: Several of those free WordPress themes are created with different looks in mind and you have to decide which one of the look appeals more to your style and way you thought about your website. Go for the unique and most modern looking ones so that you don't need to rebuild your website sooner. Which plugins are important and are they compatible with this theme?: Many times your website focusses more on portfolio and hence gallery plugin compatibility is most needed. Hence kindly check for these type of themes which are compatible with gallery plugins. Sometimes Ecommerce is most important and hence check compatibility with most popular E-commerce plugins. If a theme is incompatible then it might not be worth investing your time. Final Steps Before Choosing the theme Now you are into the final step of choosing your Free WordPress theme and you don't want to make it a bad decision either then check the last final steps which are again very important and crucial and then choose your theme: Author credentials: Check the author credentials in the theme and check for how long this company or author has been developing themes. Check how many themes they have and the community of users they have? More the users means you might get handy support from one of the friendly ones who use this theme. Reviews for this theme: Reviews are always an eye opener for any free WordPress theme. Sometimes things look good but after installation they may steal or have bloated codes leading to hack and hence users are best people to judge and let you know about their experiences with the theme. Most free WordPress themes with 4.5 to 5 star ratings are considered good. Support questions answered: Check how fast and whether support questions are answered at all by this theme author. Some theme authors don't care for their free customers and don't answer their questions but sometimes fellow users do. But if no one answers then you might be in deep trouble and hence consider the free WordPress themes where support questions are mostly answered because you never know where you might get stuck and need a hand or two. Maintained and updated: The themes which are properly maintained and updated regularly are the ones you should consider because the ones which haven't been updated for past several months or year aren't currently being supported or the author has lost interest in this theme. With all of the above steps we think it will be wise to say that you would download the best possible free WordPress theme you could have wanted for your website and start working with it.
