In he previous post in this series we successfully updated to the latest version of Wordpress. Next you can easily change the look of your site using Wordpress themes. Themes provide the overall “look” of the site. Themes allow the content to remain separate from the design of the site. The theme contains all the formating an graphic elements of your pages. There are probably thousands of free themes available on the web. Many can be found here or you can just search Google for Wordpress themes. They can be used as is, or you can customize a theme to suit your own needs. You will most likely need to do some customizing. Before you choose a theme take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with some of the basic features of themes and how they work here. You will want to make sure your theme will work with the latest version of Wordpress and it has been thoroughly tested on a variety of browsers. Some theme designers will provide some limited support for their themes. You can also buy a “premium” theme which may offer better support or customization options. Of course you can hire someone to create a custom theme or if you can create your own theme. Many newer themes offer several ways to customize your site from within the admin panel. One other thing to look for is a “wigetized” theme. Widgets are pre-made tools for the “sidebar” of your blog. One example is the slideshow in the upper left of this blog. It was created with the NextGEN Galley widget. Below is a quick screen cast of how easy it is to change the look of your site using themes.

Here is another video were I change the theme of the unsharpmasked site, demonstrating the power of themes.

Next we will take a look at Wordpress plugins. They are probably one of the most powerful tools in Wordpress and they are essential to a good porfolio site.

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