Flexible Theming with WordPress Templates

29 January 2016

Websites with continually rotating information struggle to keep their readers engaged. Readers quickly become familiar with a site’s layout and develop the ability to navigate to their destination with a few mouse clicks. This kind of intuitive interface leads to a positive user experience, but it also tends to circumvent the ability of your website to deliver new information to the user or to prompt new behavior. WordPress sites use a template structure to swiftly change the appearance and layout of the entire site without compromising functionality.

Change With the Seasons

Theming your website for the current season can be as simple as changing the color scheme and customising your header bar. By changing the design of your template, WordPress applies sweeping changes to the color scheme and fonts used throughout your entire website. Wallpaper backgrounds and header bars are popular seasonal changes easily tied to a customised theme. Even if the colors and text remain unchanged, custom templates can be used to rotate background images or to assign specific backgrounds to specific pages or categories of posts. Keeping the layout the same will provide readers with a sense of familiarity while the new colors keep the appearance fresh.

Change With the Readership

Your WordPress template controls the layout of your site as well as the appearance. By offering readers the ability to create an individual login, you also gain the ability to display customised content based on profile choices. Once users have logged in, your site can the shuffle the display order of sidebars and selection of widgets in order to match criteria described in the user’s profile. This allows you to display entirely different sets of content to individual readers or to alter the visual flow of your pages.

Change Your Image

Frequently visited websites depend on repeat traffic as a means of delivering the impressions that provide metrical value. When the website administrators decides to alter their deliverable content or undertake the process of re-branding, dramatic changes to the website can result in lost readership. WordPress templates offer the ability to gradually roll out changes in the format, branding, and presentation of your website so that the readership is more accepting. Difficult transitions become just a little bit easier as the reader still feels like the new website provides a familiar experience.

Change is inevitable, and it’s one of the primary causes of reader attrition. In the battle to retain traffic, it pays to be flexible.

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