Tuesday, June 16, 2015

How To Make A Custom WordPress Theme For Your Blog ?

You are planning to set up a blog but do not want to design it with the run-of-the-mill themes? How about designing your own theme? Well, designing a theme may look like a daunting task, but with a little help from a custom wp theme developers, you will have your own unique theme. Wait, did you just said that you want to design the theme on your own? If so, this post will help you to put it all together with the help of free blogging software and WordPress. Are you excited to design the theme? Let's get started!!




While starting with the customization process, you have two options. You can either start building a theme from scratch or customize a pre-designed theme. For both the options, it is not important that you possess all the technical knowledge about coding. We will be taking up static HTML and CSS pages and would customize them further to design a unique theme. But before we start the customization process, let's first known more about the files we would be working on.

  • header.php
This is the file that will contain everything that according to you should appear at the top of your site.
  • index.php
Looking for the homepage? Index.php is the file that loads the theme and act as the website's homepage.

  • sidebar.php
The primary and the secondary areas for the sidebar widget are contained in this file.

  • footer.php
This file is required to be edited to include different elements that you want to show in the footer.

  • archive.php
This is the template file that is used when you want to view different categories, author, posts, and dates.

  • single.php
Want to view a single post? This is the file that displays a single post and it is available with and without comments.

  • comments.php
Use this file to enable or disable the comment section. This is the file used to show the comment form.

  • page.php
This file is similar to single.php but is used to display a single WordPress page. It does not include posts, instead individual static pages are included.

  • search.php
When a user request for a search, this file shows the request through search widget present on your WordPress website.

  • 404.php
Have you ever seen the 404 not found error on a website? This is the file that is responsible for displaying the error.

  • style.css
All the styling and the changes that you want to make in your theme will be done in this file. So today we will talk about how to edit it to design an amazing theme for your WordPress blog.

  • functions.php
Unless or until, you have good knowledge of PHP, you should not try to edit this file. You can use this file to edit the WordPress core without making changes in the core files.

While this list may look a little intimidating, we are not required to make changes in all of the files. We need to edit the style.css and footer.php files to make the required changes in the theme. Now that you know about different files and their function, let's install a blank theme in WordPress and style it in a unique way.

Login To The Admin Area
After installing the WordPress theme, go to the file editor. This is where all the changes will be done.

  • Custom File Editor
A file editor is available in the WordPress admin panel and it allows you to make changes in the custom.css file without an FTP program or external text editor. Most of the changes that will help you to customize the theme will be done to custom.css.

  • Appearance – Editor
In this editor, you will see a list of files along with the codes. In most of the cases, this editor is used to customize the PHP code, however, default CSS style can also be customized.

Styling The Theme
With everything in place, now we can easily edit the style.css file. Without further ado, let's cover different items that will help you to add some style to the theme.

  • Page Layout
The page layout section contains 2 code blocks – one for div#content and other for div#container. In both the conditions, DIV tags are targeted. The container tag contains everything that is present on the page and the default margin can also be changed or adjusted according to a person's requirement. However, the content tag includes the blog roll, posts, and static page.

  • Header
Header plays an important role in changing the styling of your page. You can add different elements in the header or decide how the menu will look. As we all know that menus are the main attraction of your blog page, you can easily customize it by making some changes in the header.php file.

  • Post And Pages
When you are picking up a theme for a WordPress blog, it is imperative that you choose to customize the entries also so that it appears attractive. You can use different styles to align the text right or left or even use the .entry-title to relate different page headers.

  • Comments
Although styling the comment section may seem like an easy task, it is one of the most complex jobs. When a person comment on your blog, you reply to that comment and finally you end up with a nestle of comments. So while styling the comment section, you end up making a lot of changes.

Additional Style
If you have hired a WordPress development company for the job, styling the theme for your blog will be an easy task. They will move ahead of the basic changes and include some additional changes in your WordPress theme to make it look beautiful and interesting.



If you have not designed a WordPress theme before, these tips will make it easier for you to customize a theme. However, if you do not have the time to spare, you can always hire WordPress development Company to get the theme customized by the professionals at competitive rates.

Hire Custom wordpress theme developers at  - https://www.thinsquare.com/wordpress-development-services

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