One of the greatest advantages of using a content management system (CMS) for your website is that you are able to change the look and feel of your website without being knowledgeable about HTML and CSS. Almost every CMS allows users to customize the look of their website without having to worry about their content being changed. These managed looks are referred to as themes. On other platforms (for example, Blogger, Joomla, and Drupal), themes are sometimes called templates or layouts.
Thousands of WordPress themes are available for download free of cost, and thousands more are available at a pretty low cost. Some of the free themes are developed by members of the WordPress community and listed on WordPress' main website at https://wordpress.org/themes/, while others can be found across the web on independent sites.
Before you are ready to set about changing the theme of your website, you will want to know the following:
- Some basic factors about the theme you're considering
- How to find quality themes
- How to choose the theme that best suits your content and audience
- How to install a theme
In this chapter, we will discuss all of these topics. This chapter is a ground-up guide to using themes. And, in the following chapters, we will discuss the advanced topic of developing your own themes.