by Melissa Gilbert

Created on: March 24, 2009

Wordpress is what I like to call a multipurpose software due to the nature of it. It's mostly known as a blog software, but it also doubles up as a cms. CMS for the people whom do not know what that stands for is content management system. Wordpress comes with their own themes or templates, but they are lacking and most people do not stay with the default. Instead everyone usually looks for themes that work with their Wordpress installs to fit their needs.

Where to find themes is not that hard to find. One place that these templates are usually available is through the wordpress site in the extend area under themes. T hey usually have a great amount to choose from and then the other option is to google wordpress templates or themes. When you google themes, you may come across both free and paid templates. If you are new to wordpress and installing templates, I would suggest to you to you to go with one of the free ones out there before you think about paying for one. Depending where you get them, they are not expensive. One of my favorite places for themes is in fact Theme Hybrid. The reason I like those themes is because they seem clean, profession and most importantly; free. I found that site some time ago when I came across one of my favorite themes that they recently continued; options.

You really do not have to worry about not finding themes for your wordpress install as there are plenty of sites out there that offer them. One thing that you really do need to make sure of when installing a theme is that the theme is compatible with wordpress. Wordpress has gone through different versions over the years and has managed to be one of the best all around software out there, but still you still have to make sure that the templates will work with your current install. There are some that will not as they are way too old and when you do install it, all you will get is a blank white page which is not a good thing. Another thing reason why you want to have the most up to date template is because you do not want to deal with security holes that may be intact by running a template is behind in its time.

With each version, the improvements are there, but at the same time when they improve the software, the templates are usually improved also. Depending on which type of wordpress install you have, its as easy as loading up the template via to your webserver. If you are running wordpress mu, there is an extra step though.

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