How to Create Your Own WordPress Template: A Guide for Beginners

WordPress is the leading Content Management System (CMS) there is because it provides you with everything you need to create a personalized blog. Since blogging gas proven to be so lucrative, more people are choosing it as a career. WordPress understands that you need your website to stand out among the crowd. 

The many WordPress themes allow you to choose something unique and different for your site. Since many people enjoy building a blog on their won, WordPress allows you to do just that even if you have no coding and programming skills. 

The wide collection of themes ensure that you find a look that suits the look you’re looking for. Regardless of the theme you choose, WordPress guarantees that you’ll be accorded the same level of functionality you’ve come to expect from WordPress. 

The best part is you can choose to use your own images to come up with a different background for the blog. WordPress has a theme development feature that provides all the tools you need to arrive at what you envisioned. 

Whether your website is meant to give students access to editing jobs or it’s an online extension of your brick and mortar store, WordPress is the way to.

Introducing to Theme Development 

Every website owner wants their site to look great as well as be functional. The WordPress Theme Directory provides you with all the tools to achieve just that. If nothing you see here meets your requirements, all is not lost. You won’t have to compromise your vision because there’s the option of developing your own theme from scratch. 

You can use whatever you have to come up with something unique that has your personal touch. You can achieve this even without having to spend money on a premium theme. Developing a theme from scratch might seem complicated, but WordPress has simplified the entire process. You get access to user-friendly features.

Begin by Setting up a Local Environment 

The first step in theme development is creating a local environment where you’ll be working on. You need to install this to manage your local site. Beginning with a local environment ensures you develop your theme without affecting the site. 

How do I create a local environment? Well, this question is quite common among website owners. The good news there is more than one way you can achieve this. If one method does not work for you, you can try another. 

Download the Starter Theme 

Once the local environment is set up, you can then download a starter theme. Ensure you give the theme an elaborate description and customize it if need be. Consider adding Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets (SASS) files to your starter theme. SASS gives you more functionality, especially if you have programming skills.

Go Behind the Scenes 

Understanding how WordPress works behind the scenes ensure you understand how component you include boosts the functionality of your website. To build a template file, you first need to understand that it’s your theme’s building block. 

If you get it wrong, you won’t achieve what you had envisioned. This step requires you to take your time because it’s where all the action happens. Make you get template hierarchy right. Otherwise, visitors will have a hard time navigating your website. 

Configure the Themes

Once you set up your themes, you can now configure then. This step is easy because all you need to do is make them aesthetically appealing. After all, the themes need to serve a cosmetic purpose aside from being functional.

Conclusion 

There you have it, a simple guide on how to create your own themes on WordPress.