5 Ways to Smarten Up a Boring Wordpress Theme

In my last post, Everyone in the whole wide world should have a customized blog, I blabbed about how there’s no reason why everyone shouldn’t have a unique blog theme. Now I have 5 different ways that you can accomplish that.

Create Your Own Header

I use Macromedia Fireworks to create all my graphics, but if you don’t have that or Photoshop, GIMP does the job well enough considering it’s completely free.

A header can consist of a simple word or sentence – the name of your blog and your tagline perhaps – or it can show a beautiful, eye-catching piece of photography.

There are lots of ideas to incorporate a really groovy header into your blog to make it unique. Google “inspirational blog headers” and start brainstorming some ideas.

Add Your Signature To Your Posts – Get Personal

Adding a graphic of your signature (which can be digitally created) is one way to add your own personal touch to your blog. Having a signature at the end of each post is similar to adding your photo in that it lets your visitors get to know you a bit better because you’re not just hiding behind the anonymity the internet can provide.

Showing a bit of your personality helps your visitors connect better with you. Your signature can be part of your brand. You could even add your signature to your blog header.

Change the Font, Background, and Colors

Making a few small changes like the color of your sidebar titles or the type of font you use can make a big difference in the overall look of your blog. These changes are fairly easy to implement as well. I’ll be getting into that a bit more in the coming days and weeks.

You may want to take a plain white background and change it to a vibrant blue. You could also add a photo as your background to really make your blog pop.

When making these changes, it’s important that they don’t take over your blog. Colors that are too bright, too many colors, too many types of font, etc. can distract your visitors and may even hurt their eyes. Reading neon pink text on a black background is not a good time people.

Find or Create a Groovy RSS Icon

There are tons of free RSS icons out there that you can download and add to your blog. I’m not a big fan of those boring orange squares so I usually like to change things up a bit and whip out some kickass RSS logos that really stand out.

If one of your goals with you blog is to increase your RSS subscribers, having an eye-catching RSS icon is one way to do that. You could also create your own RSS icon and make it completely unique.

Change Sidebar Titles to Images or Graphics

If your blog theme is pretty bare of graphics, one way to spruce it up is to replace your sidebar titles with an image. You can create a subtle image that appears under the existing text, or you can create a separate image for each widget. I prefer the first option since it’s mucho easier.

This requires a bit of messing around with CSS but I’m going to go over that in a future post as well. If you’re not good at creating graphics, there are lots of free stock images to choose from.

So there you have it – 5 ways to make your generic blog theme kick ass. If you have no clue how to do any of this stuff, no worries. I’ll be posting about each one in detail so make sure you’re signed up for my RSS feed.

RT @cassiegermsheid: ř Ways to Smarten Up a Boring Wordpress Theme"