How To Build Your Own Website Template?
There’s no doubt that millions of bloggers and business owners are using WordPress templates for their websites and this is based on WordPress themes in general. So now, if you’re trying to figure out how to design your own WordPress template then this article will guide you through the process. The advantage of WordPress is that it has a beautiful theme system which works amazingly and it is also very easy to use. There is absolutely no need of having any prior knowledge of coding to use WordPress. All you need to understand is the base structure of a theme and how does it work. It is also vital to improve them boosting with some plug-ins.
When you are designing your own WordPress template, the first thing you need to keep in mind is that the theme is essentially a folder made of various files. The list of files includes different elements of WordPress. Some of them are the header, footer, and sidebar. Whenever someone pulls out your website or your blog he/she will automatically pull out all these files together to build up your website. For editing, WordPress does have a built-in theme editor which helps you make changes to various files according to your needs.
The next important thing about designing your very own WordPress template is which file stands for which purpose. Like Footer, the file is to control the bottom part of your page. If you want to make changes to the bottom part or if you want to add a link at the very bottom of your website or blog, the footer file is where you need to make these changes. The header file on the contrary to the footer controls the top section your website or blog. The header file generally contains the navigation bar and other important codes to overall control your website. Other than these you can make changes as you wish to show them on your website. Now if you’re a new one to design a WordPress template then it is wise to start with a template which has all the basic files to start with. It will help you learn and perform well.
On the other hand, if you already have a WordPress template for your website, then it is a good idea to improve it using some plug-ins to make it more attractive. This way you can attract more traffic towards your website and you don’t need to have deep knowledge of coding to pursue it. Here some tips on how to optimize your WordPress template.
- Reduce the WordPress theme file size:
Some WordPress templates do not come with minified CSS or JavaScript files to enhance your website. In that case, you can get rid of the extra characters like extra space or tabs. This process is called minification. There is free JavaScript Compressor available on the internet which can help you in such process.
- Optimize template pictures:
Usually, the images in WordPress webpage are not optimized by the developers. You can easily optimize them by reducing their size which is done with “Save for Web” feature. You can easily find it in Abode Photoshop toolkit. Besides this, you can use the special tool SmushIt, which can easily help you optimize the images without losing the quality. This way you can optimize the logo, stock images, icons headings or the CSS background picture. This optimization is required to improve the value for your readers’ page response time.
There are other ways to improve your WordPress template to represent your website in browser tabs.
- Monitor your plugins:
Before you install any plugin just ask yourself is this plugin necessary?
Plugins are one of the primary causes of WordPress website being slow while loading. The more plugins you keep piling up which are not that useful, the more sluggish your website will become. So keep an eye on which plugins are useful for you and delete the rest to make your website smooth and seamless.
Optimizing your website is no longer just an option. With new updates coming every now and so on search engines which are placing so much importance on page load time, it is necessary for the success of your website to have fast loading web pages. You have to give stress upon every aspect of the website not just only how it looks.