Last month I wrote an article on how to start a natural hair blog. Specifically, how to buy and set up your site’s domain name (.com), hosting and WordPress account. Now I want to move on to talking about some of the fun stuff! Want to know how to start a beauty blog with a polished, professional and fashion-forward site theme? You’re in the right place! I highly recommend investing around $50 to buy a theme you love and, more importantly, professionally kept up-to-date.
So let me start by actually defining what a theme is. Your site’s theme (also known as template) is basically the look and feel of your site. It includes everything from the colors, fonts, layout etc. You want to find a theme that represents you and your brand perfectly. You also want it to speak to the type of readers you want to attract. Although you’ll want to make sure it looks professional, deciding on the best theme is much more than how it looks. Here are three things to keep in mind when making your choice:
PICK A THEME WITH A WHITE BACKGROUND
Whether you want something fresh and modern or traditional and clean, pick a theme that has a white background. I’ve worked in digital content strategy and communications for 10+ years. Sites with white space a preferred by readers tremendously. Unlike other aspects of your site, the background of your site cannot be easily changed so be sure to get this right!
IGNORE THE THEME DEMO COPY AND IMAGES
Many developers/designers that sell site themes usually provide live demos for you to get a good feel for how your site will look once live. Try and see beyond the demo content (images and copy) – you’re obviously going to change these later. So if the theme demo has photos of musicians or animals, don’t feel like it can’t be used for your beauty/natural hair blog. It’s like buying a new home, look past the seller’s decor!
PICK A THEME THAT COMES WITH DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT
This is by far the most important tip. When buying a site theme ensure that it comes with some kind of support and/or buyer’s forum. Usually the best developers/designers of themes offer some sort of community/support with each sale. They even provide free updates to the theme which is essential as WordPress is constantly updating too so your theme will need to keep up and stay compatible.
LET’S GET YOU A PERFECT THEME
Now that you know the basics, where do you go to scout a great theme demos? I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Themeforest.net. This very theme you are on is from Themeforest. The theme for my new eBook KnowThyCurls.com was from Themeforest.net. I’ve been using them for personal projects for 5 years. They are one of the largest, if not the largest, community of designers, developers, creators etc.
If you’ve found these tips useful so far you may also enjoy these blog posts:
• How to Develop, Write and Schedule Blog Posts
• How my Pinterest Business Account Grew My Blog to 200K Page Views in 3 Months
• 7 Reasons Why Most Bloggers Fail
• 2018 Ultimate SEO Tips for Bloggers
• How to get 61.5K Real Followers on Instagram
You can create an account and browse their themes for free but in order to purchase a theme you’ll have to create an account and add credit to it. Here are 5 steps to get create your account and search hundreds of awesome themes.
Here’s an easy link for you to remember. You’ll be re-directed to Themeforest through my affiliate link. Please read my disclosure for more info:
https://curlsunderstood.com/ThemeForest
And there you have it! You’re almost ready to start writing your first blog post and officially join the blogging community. In my next post I’ll talk about how you find topics to write about and make them easy to find on Google by using SEO (search engine optimization) strategies.
Until next time leave your questions below!
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