If there’s one consistent challenge that I see confront people that are trying to start a blog, it’s that they get really worried about how things look.
Like way too worried.
But, I get it.
You want things to look right and you want to be proud of your site.
Same thing happened to me when I first started.
But what I found is that it was a lot less important for me to get stuck on how it looked rather than writing.
In fact one time I had a WPLaunch customer who spent so much time worrying about getting the look & feel of her theme tweaked just the way she wanted that she ended up losing all enthusiasm for writing to begin with and it took us a while to get her sorted out and back on the right track!
Now that being said, you should always be happy with the look & feel of your site.
I just don’t want you to get sidetracked by it – it can always be changed later to something else.
So how do you pick a WordPress theme for your blog?
Keep it simple
When it comes to picking the theme you want to use with your new WordPress blog, it should be simple.
You don’t need tons of color variations, and complicated layouts.
There’s a time and a place for those kinds of things, but when you’re just getting started isn’t one of them.
Responsiveness is required
The truth is that a lot of your readers are going to be accessing your site on a mobile device, so your theme should look perfect on smaller screens.
Virtually all themes available in 2021 are going to be responsive “out of the box” but it never hurts to check and make sure by resizing the demo you’re looking at by dragging and changing the size of your browser window on a desktop computer.
Stay away from page builders
Don’t get me wrong here – I love page builders. At least the good ones.
But when you’re starting a new WordPress blog you don’t need to get bogged down trying to figure out how to use a page builder when you should be creating content.
Here’s the bottom line:
You’re starting a blog, not becoming a web designer.
Start simple and stay far away from the things that are not going to be in your wheelhouse.
Find an easy-to-install plug-and-play theme that looks great to get started.
That’s the whole point – to get started, and be done so you can focus on the RIGHT things.
You want a theme that’s professional and looks great, and will grow with you until you’re ready for something more specialized.
I use and recommend using premium themes from Studiopress (and some of my very own premium themes that will be available soon!) for some of my websites.
Premium themes usually run around $100 or so, but they’re worth the money!
Everything you need to know about how to install a WordPress theme is in this video below: