How much effort have you dedicated to your web design? Lots of Online troops out there fail to realize that a great web design is a powerful branding tool. It lets people know you’re serious about the content you share, and puts you on the track to establishing a professional presence.
The Commando uses the Thesis Theme for WordPress for his websites because it’s easy to use, professional looking, and made to be customized.
But how can you create a custom design for your website without learning html code? Simple. I’ll give you one. That’s right, I will teach you how to install a custom CSS template on your WordPress blog or website.
The first step is getting your own copy of the Thesis Theme, because the free CSS I share is created specifically for Thesis. Once you’ve made the leap to the best WordPress theme available, just take these simple steps to upload your CSS:
1. Download Filezilla
Filezilla is a free FTP client (FTP just stands for file transfer protocol — it is a tool for transferring files on your computer to the server that houses your web files). Once you download Filezilla, configure it to open your website files.
First, click the ‘connection’ icon and select the option to add a new website. Name the site whatever you like. Next, on the top right, enter the ‘ftp address’ by entering ftp.Your-Website-URL-Here.com (replace with your URL address). Then select ‘Normal’ in the drop down list for ftp ‘logon type’.
Almost ready!
Finally enter the username and password you established when you signed up for hosting through services like BlueHost or GoDaddy. Then just click ‘Connect’ at the bottom of the box.
2. Open your Custom Folder
Now that you are connected to your web files, choose ‘public html’ followed by your URL name. After that select ‘wp-content’ and then ‘themes’ where you will find ‘Thesis_151′ or the most current version of Thesis. Select the file, then choose the ‘custom’ folder. The path for you non-newbies is thesis_151/custom.
3. Plug and Play — Just Upload These Two Files
You are just a few steps away from a free custom design. Don’t rely on the basic CSS that Thesis provides, instead download the two files I am sharing so you can make your site unique.
See the custom.css and custom_functions.php files in your ‘custom’ folder?
You can safely rename them so they no longer act as your basic design (You will not be deleting the hard coding, just replacing the design rules). Now upload the following two files to replace the ones you renamed:
(Important: Rename the custom functions file ‘custom_functions.php’ instead of the current .html).
Now you’re set! Play with your widgets, fonts, and images all you like. The last step for total customization is to add a custom header. You name the header ‘logo.png’ and add it into the custom/images folder. This CSS file is designed to fit a header image 800 pixels in width x200 pixels in height.
Enjoy your free custom CSS for the Thesis Theme! More free styles to come…