Besides picking a Blog topic or a domain, one of the biggest challenges I constantly find my mentoring students running into is understanding how to find the right WordPress theme for their Blog.

In this post I’m going to cover some of the basics of how to choose a WordPress theme for your Blog.

Long before I was a blogger, I had a background in website design so when I look at WordPress themes I see them through a different lens than most people trying to pick a theme.

Learning just a few design basics can greatly simplify your search for the perfect theme, so that is where we will start.

WordPress Theme Design Basics

There are three very common theme design styles which the majority of WordPress themes share.

Two Column Design

The first style of design is the two column design.

Right now, Paulymath.com is based on a two column design.  If you scroll up you will see that at the top of the page we have the header.

In my current design this is where I have my mascot design and my logo.

Below the header, we have the menu.

The header and the menu are usually pretty easy to identify in a blog design.

Once we go below the menu though, this is where people usually get lost in the design.  Their eyes get distracted by flashy images, sliders, and other things.  It’s important to be able to see past those things and understand the structure of the design itself.

In a two column design, there is typically a Body Content section and a Sidebar section.

Keep in mind that the body content section can have many sub-sections within it, but for our purposes we want to think of it as just one big section for now.

The sidebar section will also contain many subsections as well.

For example in my sidebar right now I have a “Connect with me” section, a “Search” section, some graphic links to different pages, a “Blog Sponsors” section etc.

We’ll cover each section in more detail below, but you should be able to identify where the “Content Body” section ends and where the “Sidebar” begins pretty easily by understanding that they are separate sections as shown in the diagram.

Below the content and sidebar, there is the footer section.

I have my footer section broken down into three subsections right now – “Latest Videos”, “Blogroll” and “About Me”.

Take a few seconds now to scroll up and down my site to see if you can identify these five different sections.

The two column design is very common for many WordPress themes.

Sometimes the sidebar section in a two column design will be on the right side, instead of the left side.

Three Column Designs

Another style of theme design is the three column design.  Here are two different variations on the 3 column design.

In the first version of the three column design we have the content body on the left side, and two sidebar sections on the right.

Of course the width of the content body and sidebars might vary slightly from the diagram.

As you can see, the three column design is very similar to the two column design except of course there are three columns in the middle section instead of two.

However there is still a header section up top, followed by a menu section, then the content, sidebars, and the footer.

Once again, the content section in a three column design may be broken down further into smaller parts and so may the sidebars.

This is usually where a lot of people get lost in theme designs, not able to see the difference between where the content section ends, and where the sidebar(s) begin.

Another version of the three column design places the Content Body section in the middle (horizontally) with one sidebar on either side.

With a little bit of practice, you should be able to go to any Blog and within a few seconds identify whether the Blog is using a two column design or a three column design, as well as distinguishing the difference between the Content Body section and the Sidebars.

Here are a few examples of sites with different designs styles.

DreasIntuition.com – My wife’s site is based on a two column design with the Content Body on the left, and a single Sidebar on the right.

DrNima.com – Nima’s site is also based on a two column design with the Content Body on the left, and a single Sidebar on the right.

TylerCruz.com – Tyler’s site is based on a three column design with the Content Body in the middle, and one Sidebar on each side.

StevePavlina.com – Steve’s site is based on a two column design with the Content Body on the right side, and Sidebar on the left.

With a little bit of practice you’ll be able to start looking at themes and very quickly being able to identify whether they are a two column design, three column design, and where the Content Body section is and where the Sidebar(s) are.

Keep in mind that these are just some of the more common design styles.  There are others.

There is also the single column design where there is no sidebar at all, and there are four or even more column designs as well but they are not as common as the two/three-column designs.

WordPress Theme Design Sections

Now that we’ve covered some basic design styles, lets dive more into each of the sections themselves.

I’ll show you guys how I break down each theme one section at a time to decide whether the design is appropriate for my needs.

We’ll start at the top with the header.

The Header

The header resides at the top of the blog theme and it’s the first thing you see on the page.  The header usually sets the theme and establishes the brand of a theme.

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when trying to find their perfect WordPress theme is that they go looking for the perfect header graphic.

For example, take a quick look at my RCHeliSimulator.com website.

This is a two-column design, with a header up to which has a picture of an RC helicopter up top.

What most people see when they look at a theme design like this is a “RC Helicopter Theme”.  If for example they were looking for a theme for their martial arts Blog, they might dismiss this theme because the picture of the helicopter in the header is unrelated to a martial arts theme.

However, if you take a look at BujinkanMartialArtsBC.com, the theme is virtually identical to the RC Helicopter theme except that there is a different header image, and a different color scheme.

Picking a Blog Theme Tip #1 – Don’t judge a theme by it’s header graphic!

If you spend just a few seconds looking at those two websites, the RC Helicopter Simulator theme and the Bujinkan Marital Arts BC  theme you will see that they are almost identical in structure, but they have a totally different theme and feel to them just by changing the header and the colors.

Incidentally, if you pop open my wife’s site again, DreasIntuition.com, you’ll see that her site structure is pretty much the same as the other two except her header is different and a different color scheme.

So many times I’ve had students tell me they can’t find ANY themes they like and when I ask them to show me how they are searching for their themes, I find out that they’re focusing all of their attention on picking a theme with the perfect header.

I’ll repeat this again – stop looking at the header graphic!

It’s completely irrelevant.  You can get a custom header designed quite easily.

The Menu

The menu is the next thing we see, sometimes below the header as in my site and all of the sites I just referenced, but sometimes the menu will appear above the header.

The important thing to look for when looking at menus is what are the menu items being listed in the design.

Are they menu items based on the name of the PAGE, or are they menu items based on the name of the CATEGORY you’re looking at?

For example, on my site here I have my menu showing some of the main PAGES on my Blog.  I have “Home” , “Blog”, “Contact” , “Mentoring” etc. listed there.

When you click on these links, it takes you to a separate Page on my site dedicated to that topic.

A lot of new designs now also show Categories in the menu up top.  Personally I don’t really like to see category navigation in the main menu.  I find it very confusing but I’ve seen it on on a few sites where it does kind of make sense.

The challenge with putting categories in the menu, in my opinion, is that it limits you to only have a select number of categories.  Meaning, the menu might only have enough room to show five or six categories, and if you categorize your posts by more than five categories like I do, then you won’t have enough room in the menu for all of them.

What’s even more confusing is that if you have the same posts appearing in multiple categories, clicking on different menu items might end up showing you the same content.  Personally I find that confusing.  I prefer to pick themes which just list the main pages up top, and list categories in the sidebar.

Keep this in mind when looking at themes.  Sometimes you’ll find a theme that looks good with the sample content the designer added in, but they only put content in to “sell” their design so they might only have three or four categories listed.  That may be good for showcasing a theme, but totally impractical when trying to actually use the theme.

If you do pick a theme that uses categories for navigation, just be aware that you may be creating a limitation for yourself down the road in terms of how many categories you can create/use on your Blog.

Content Body

The Content Body section is really the “meat and potatoes” section of your design.  This is where the real valuable content of your Blogs posts or pages will be displayed.  In a future post I’ll talk about the different types of options you can have for the Content Body section of your site.

For now, the things you will want to look for is the “look and feel” of the main content body.  The font, the spacing, the colors, the different styles of headers, etc. are all things to look for here.

There is so much to go into here that I’ll have to cover it in a different post, but for now the best thing to do is to look through a bunch of different Blog themes and look at how they layout the main content differently.

Ignore the header, menu, sidebar and footers, and just concentrate on the main Content Body section and see what you like.

After a while you’ll get a feel for what feels right and what looks good to you.

The Sidebar(s)

The sidebar section of a design is yet another area where a lot of people get lost.

What most people don’t realize is that WordPress gives you complete control over what you put in your sidebar through the use of Widgets.

This is the widget setup on my Blog right now.  As you can see on the right side there is a section called “Right Sidebar”.  In this section I have listed from top to bottom several widgets such as “Lijit Search”, “Text”, “OIOpub BannerZone”, “Top Commentators” etc.

There is a lot of control you have over your sidebar by using WordPress.

Picking a Blog Theme Tip #2 – Don’t judge a theme by it’s widgets!

This is another pretty common mistake I see people making.  They look at themes and they get mesmerized by some fancy widget they see in the sidebar.

For example, maybe they find a theme that has a YouTube video embedded in the sidebar.  Or maybe there are three YouTube video’s embedded.  They see that and they think to themselves “Yeah, that’s what I want!  I want to show my videos there.  I like this theme!”

You can embed a YouTube video (or five) in the sidebar of almost any WordPress theme in less than 30 seconds.  You can add in a links section, some advertising slots, a calendar of posts, your blog categories, whatever you want.  There are a lot of different widgets to choose from and you can always add more through the addition of plugins.

The main thing to remember with the sidebar section of a Blog is that you have full control over this section.  If you don’t like the fact that a theme has “Top Commentators” in their sidebar design, don’t dismiss the whole theme – you can get rid of that widget in 2 seconds.

The Footer

The footer section is very similar to the sidebar section.  A lot of Blog themes give you the ability to have control over what appears in the footer the same way as the sidebar, through the use of widgets.

For example, if I wanted to I could remove the “Latest Videos” section of my footer with the click of two buttons, and replace it with something else.

The footer section is usually not that huge in terms of site design.  Typically the footer might contain a few “Widgets” where you can place some basic site information, maybe some links and your copyright notice etc.

Simplifying Theme Selection

By understanding some of these basic parts of all themes, you can much more easily find the perfect theme for your.  If for example you find a really nice theme you like, but you don’t like the header you can always commission someone to design a custom header for you.  It typically doesn’t cost a lot to do something like that.

If you find a nice theme but you don’t like the order in which the sidebar widgets are displayed, or if you want to add in an advertiser’s section, you can do so by the use of Widgets.

I know this is really basic stuff, but it will really help your theme selection process if you understand some of these basics.

Also if you ever decide to get a custom theme designed, you will now know what the designer is talking about when he asks you if you want a “two column” or “three column” design, or whether you want your sidebar on the left or right side etc.

What’s your biggest challenge in picking a theme?