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You can wait until you have much more content before applying a theme.

I prefer to get it done near the start, partly in case early visitors get disillusioned by a bland interface, partly because I really dislike the navigation options on the default theme, but mainly because I like to get a feel for the site I am working on and identify with it from the beginning.

From a technical point of view, you can chose from hundreds of ready made themes. First, find one that you like the look of and suits your visitor profile, then add some of your own images and colors. If you have strong design ideas, or a site designer employed on the project, you should choose a very simple theme and build in your own requirements. Working on someone else’s complicated theme is a nightmare unless it is very well documented. Most are not, so it is easier to build your own from the default themes, or even from scratch.

My own design skills are limited, and I get frustrated with overly complex themes that detract from the message. As my audience is mainly business and scientific type people, I opt for a fairly plain, text-based theme. I feel that it suits the audience better, without too many distracting graphics.

If you have not yet developed a feel for your audience, it is better to leave the theme for now, and concentrate on content. There is nothing to stop you trying a few themes for 2 or 3 days to help you determine what features you really need. Once you start attracting attention, and your visitors start coming, you must give the theme more thought and get it in place.

Before
Default Theme

I find it particularly satisfying to have built up a few days of content using the default theme, then transforming the site with a new theme, with just a few clicks of the mouse.

After
Garland Theme

One of my favorite themes of the moment is the Garland theme. It looks good straight out of the box, but the ability to easily change color scheme can transform a site in seconds. All you need to do is install the theme, then play around with the different color combinations until you get what you want. The interface allows you to easily change colors with a mouse click on the color wheel and gradient box.

In my case, I knew exactly which color codes I wanted to use, so just typed the hex codes in the boxes provided. I’ll do an in-depth article on this later, describing exactly how to manage the Garland theme to match your logo / favicon, with a bit of history about how and why I chose this particular color scheme.

Once the theme is installed, the sidebars can be customized using the standard WordPress widget selector. The Garland screen-shot shows the default layout. I will tell you about the changes I make in a later post. This includes my activation of a few more plug-ins, and some code tweaks to gain optimal performance.

In this case, the key site concept is Business Web Hosting. You should change the default category to your key site concept. In WordPress, this is in Manage Categories, and my installation wizard will automatically pick this up and change it.

The description for this category in standard WordPress is blank, but my installation wizard can generate a better description:

Any aspect of business web hosting that does not fit the other categories.

All other categories should follow naturally from the site plan.

It is a good idea to list these categories on the about page. You can do this manually by editing the page, but my installation wizard can build this automatically, and even import categories direct from your site plan.

Ideally, you should add all categories now, and go back to allocate old posts.

WordPress Hosting Sub-Categories

The Category Manager allows you to create a hierarchy of categories, presumably infinite, where each category can be top level, or it can have a parent.

You, or your site designer, must decide which will make the site most accessible. In general, avoid sub-categories, unless you cannot see all the categories on the page without scrolling.

If you do choose categories, you can have problems with some themes, that may not be suitable for sub-categories. Since all templates are easily edited, this is not a major problem, but might involve more time in future, when you tweak the settings to get the best look.