10 Point Checklist for creating a WordPress Theme

To make a WordPress theme will not be a huge project, if you will work with a proper plan. If you would carry a good plan, then you would surely get better results. So, what are those things to be included for making out a plan, are going to be discussed. Let us start with the first point, that is. “Purpose”.
 

1. Purpose- Determine the purpose of making theme. Do you want to make a blog based website, or you want to open up an online shop, or you want to make an educational website, or you want to make your portfolio? The style and functions of your theme depend on the purpose, so, it is the starting point of our plan. Define it clearly that what objectives you have in your mind for getting your website.
 

2. Features- Having to decide on the purpose, you will have to make out a plan for the features you want in your theme. Like, you want your theme to be responsive, and want to include slide-show, want to connect it with social media platforms, what widgets you want to use, etc.
 

3. Images and Videos- What kind of videos or images, you would like to include in your theme (ultimately, in your website), you must decide before going further. It is better to collect them in one place, so that you will easily be embedding them at later steps.
 

4. Would you DIY or consult a professional? - It is your choice if you want to make your theme by yourself or would hire the professional service. There are many DIY theme makers available on the internet that may help you in the DIY way without knowledge of coding and technical skills. Such tools are made keeping the non-technical people in mind, as they don’t know the coding. So a DIY theme generator comes of great help for them.
 

5. Theme’s layout and design- If you have decided to have your theme, then you also must have its design in your mind. You can simply make out the plan on a simple paper, all you need to have is an idea of the look and feel of your theme. If you don’t have any idea about how should your theme look, then do the search for web designs to have the idea of professional designs.
 

6. Choose your theme generator- Choose a good theme generator for you, which has modern features so that despite of being non-technical, you will get technical advantage for your website. Our recommendation goes to the TemplateToaster, because it has all the advanced features like BOOTSTRAP controls, HTML5/CSS3 support, W3C validation, WooCommerce support, numerous designing options including SlideShow and custom widget area, these are the strong technical features in today’s scenario.
 

7. What plugins will you need? - Determine the plugins to be used by you. The WordPress plugin repository is very big, you may find free and paid both types of plugins there. The spam prevention plugins, cache plugins, and the SEO plugins are the types of plugins, used by almost every WordPress website.
 

8. Check your theme for WordPress standards- There comes a plugin, namely, Theme Check, which tests WordPress themes for WordPress coding standards. It makes sure that a theme is up to the specifications, hence good to be used.
 

9. Measure performance- Performance is the key factor for any website, so check your theme for loading speed. You may use one or all of these tools for doing so, GTmetrix, Google Page Speed, and Pingdom .
 

10. Optimize it- If you find your theme not good for page speed, then you should optimize it. You may need to reduce the images, or unimportant plugins in order to optimize your theme.
 

The steps after seventh point, can be performed when you will have your theme developed. But, they are the important points that is why they are the integral points of our checklist.
 

If you have learnt something from my post, then make your comments in the comments sections. As you have learnt something from this post, I will also learn from your comments.