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Imagine a newly built house that isn’t decorated at all. Sounds pretty bland, right? The same is true of a website — if you don’t decorate a website, it won’t look very attractive. Choosing a theme is your first step to decorating your website. You can then customize this theme as desired.
If you want the fastest, simplest approach to setting up a simple theme, that you can then customize and decorate however you want, we highly recommend using the Design your own feature as covered in our Quick Launch course. There is literally no faster way to launch an entire website with minimal effort. This is also the best option when you’re wanting to work with a straightforward and clean theme.
But, it’s not the only option. If you don’t want to go that route, keep reading.
- Focus on the visual look and feel of the theme
- Don’t pay attention to the demo content
- Select the theme you like best and make a note of the name
Themes are a deep topic, so deep that we have a separate lesson dedicated to Understanding Themes in general. If you haven’t read that lesson already, we recommend doing so now, we’ll wait.
Now that you have a basic understanding of the different types of themes, let’s explore the process of choosing a Block theme.
When adding a new site, you’ll likely be presented with an option to Pick a Design (depending of course on which signup process you choose to use). Alternatively, you may decide to choose a theme for an existing site (even a newly created one) by going to Appearance > Themes↗︎ from your main dashboard.
Either way, you’re going to browse through a selection of available themes to find the perfect theme for your website. Depending on where exactly you are when browsing themes, you’ll have some different options to explore.
You can preview the theme, test out some colors and fonts, you might even be able to Preview and Customize the theme in the Site Editor before activating it. If you’re in the Theme Showcase within your account, you’ll also have access to an info page for each theme to learn more about it.
You may also encounter themes that require a specific plan upgrade or that even have an additional subscription cost. They’re all fair game, it depends on what you want and what your budget is. There are enough great free WordPress.com themes to work with as well.
What should you be looking for when choosing a theme?
We can tell you right now what not to look for: A theme that is immediately displaying the type of content your site will be about. The demo content that’s included within any theme is just that, a demo.
For example, the Annalee theme↗︎ shows content for a mindset coach, but you can absolutely use this theme for your pet adoption agency, or your trendy bistro, if it happens to present a look and style that you like.
Most themes don’t even come with content beyond the homepage design. So regardless of what the theme’s demo site portrays, you can add whatever pages you like, with whatever layouts you want, and add all of your own content. (More on that in the Creating Pages lesson.)
When choosing from pre-existing themes, the most important consideration is the general look and feel of it, while keeping in mind that every aspect of any Block theme can be fully customized — without any special coding.
The question becomes how much time do you want to spend customizing your theme?
Let’s look at the Reverie theme↗︎ as an example:
This theme has an extremely distinct look to it. It offers some pre-populated premium color palettes, so changing the color scheme will be as simple as a click, but if you don’t like the unique background effect applied to this theme there will be a number of different steps involved to get rid of it from this theme.
It is possible, as you can see at the 53:00 minute mark of our Fearless Theme Switching recording below. But it’s going to take some work.
While it is possible to customize any theme, if you know you don’t want the overall look that a theme presents, there are plenty others to choose from that will more closely align with what you want, with less work.
So, that’s what you want to look for — an overall visual that appeals to you (mostly) as is.
If you want a clean and simple theme to decorate however you like, we still recommend the Design your own feature as covered in our Quick Launch course.
Pro-tip:
If a theme looks like it’s using some kind of textured background or unique spacing, it’s going to be more involved to customize that theme away from that unique look.
Things that are easier to customize include base fonts and default colors. Especially with the Explorer plan which gives you access to set your site-wide defaults for your fonts and color palettes.
You can also set layout and spacing defaults for things like padding and margins and overall width, and even block specific defaults. But again, the more things you need to change, the more work that’s involved.
Take the Luminance theme↗︎ for example. This theme applies a stylistic choice for the font capitalization and spacing. If you don’t like this style, it’s easier to choose a different theme than to figure out all the settings necessary to change the defaults of the way this theme was designed, across the entire site. Alternatively, if you like this style, it’s easier to start with this theme than to try to make another theme match it.
But as mentioned, don’t get hung up on the demo content. You’re not publishing the theme’s demo content, you’re replacing it with your own.
When it comes to colors and fonts, it’s worth noting that if you’re on the Free or Starter plan, color and font customizations are a bit trickier. They’re still possible, but for certain aspects, like the site-wide background color, you’ll have to get creative with the Group block per template. So, if you’re not on the Explorer plan or higher, then the default color scheme and the default fonts of the theme matter as well, if you want to minimize the amount of work involved with customizations on a per block basis.
The other consideration when choosing a theme is the layout being used for the Default Homepage. This shouldn’t be a deal breaker for a theme you love, but it’s still a point worth considering. Some themes provide a Default Homepage designed to look like a static website page. Others have set up the Default Homepage to display the latest posts for the site.
If you’re struggling to decide between two themes, the Default Homepage layout might be the deciding factor.
But understand that the Default Homepage is just a collection of blocks. You can add, remove, and edit blocks as desired, on any plan. You can delete all of the content blocks and add new patterns. You can also switch the site to use a Custom Homepage.
So while the Default Homepage is worth considering, it doesn’t need to be the major determining factor for which theme you choose. We recommend reviewing our Homepage and Posts Page lesson in the Getting Started course for a deeper understanding of these two important pages of your site.
During the signup process, you really don’t need to get hung up on the Pick a Design step though, because changing the theme is just a matter of a few clicks, especially for a new site:
- Preview the site as it is now so you know what it looks like
- Go to Appearance > Themes↗︎
- Note the name of your current theme
- Browse for a theme you like and make a note of the name
- Activate the theme (it’s a two step process)
- Preview the site to see how it changed
Pro-tip:
It’s worth making notes of theme names in case you want to switch back to a particular theme. It’s easier to search for a name, than to scroll through trying to remember what it looked like.
An even better way to test out new themes is to use the Preview & Customize option, when available. This will open the Site Editor for the theme where you can not only see what it looks like, but you can also explore the Site Editor for Styles, Templates, Patterns, and more, including making changes that will be saved if you choose to activate the theme.
You can access the Preview & Customize option for most Block themes from Appearance > Themes↗︎ in your main dashboard.
Note:
If you’re switching themes on a site that contains content or that you’ve already customized, be sure to review the Switching Themes lesson first.
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