1. Presented by Karen Porter UM School of Business Administration & ImpactOnlineMarketing.com Choosing & Configuring Themes

2. Theme Basics - 1 Themes give you the layout and overall design of your website Some themes give you tremendous flexibility Some themes are fairly “fixed” and give you limited flexibility At very least, most themes let you: Change background color Change out header graphic Make some changes to make your site “your own”

3. Theme Basics - 2 Free themes vs. premium themes Limited places to find (safe) free themes Many good sources of premium themes Option to choose a responsive theme Automatically resizes to fit device being used to view Options for making a non-responsive theme mobile-friendly Plugin – WP Touch Subscribe to DudaMobile

4. Free Themes Limited places to find (safe) free themes Potential problems with free themes Often very poor support / documentation Many free themes are buggy or even have malicious code Best to get free themes ONLY from WordPress.org – all have been vetted and are “safe” to use To change to a new free theme within WordPress: Go to Appearance > Themes > Add Theme Explore from options : Select one and click the Install button Then activate the new theme – new theme replaces old.

5. Premium Themes - 1 Premium themes come at various price points Range from $19 up to $150+ Licensing rights may vary One time use vs. use on as many sites as you wish Generally well-documented with good support Some excellent premium theme sources: Theme Fusion Theme Forest iThemes WooThemes Do Google searches for others

6. Premium Themes - 2 Premium themes will need to be downloaded to your drive and then uploaded to WordPress You will ALWAYS work with the ZIPPED file Assuming you have the zipped file ready: In dashboard go to Appearance > Themes > Upload Theme Then upload the zipped theme folder from your drive Activate the theme The new theme replaced the old one Unhappy with the change? You can change back!

7. Premium Themes - 3 Most premium themes give you many options for changing the look of your site Go to Appearance > Themes > look for something like “options” or “theme dashboard,” etc. Many give you options to change things like: Header graphics (change just words or the entire header) Change default colors – background and inside Change default fonts Change how navigation looks Change out sidebar placement Add things like favicons Etc. – don’t let it overwhelm you – take time to explore!

8. Creating Header Graphics Find size of the header within the theme Can create a new one yourself Find photo you have rights to use Crop it to size Add verbiage, etc. using a tool like PicMonkey.com (free) Hire a designer to do it for you Local designer Sites like Elance.com Inexpensive site like Fiverr.com