Fundamentally, the WordPress Theme system is a way to “skin” your weblog. Yet, it is more than just a “skin.” Skinning your site implies that only the design is changed. WordPress Themes can provide much more control over the look and presentation of the material on your website.A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. These files are called template files. A theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software. Themes may include customized template files, image files (*.jpg, *.gif), style sheets (*.css), custom Pages, as well as any necessary code files (*.php). For an introduction to template files, see Stepping Into Templates.

Themes are a whole new ball game. Let’s say you write a lot about cheese and gadgets. Through the innovative use of the WordPress Themes and template files, you can customize your Cheese category posts to look different from your Gadgets category posts. With this powerful control over what different pages and categories look like on your site, you are limited only by your imagination. For information on how to use different Themes for different categories or posts, see The loop in action and Catagory Templates.

Posts are time-oriented objects. You write them at a specific time, and that time defines their context.

Pages, on the other hand, are most often used to present information about yourself or your site that is somehow timeless - information that is always applicable. For example, you might write a Post describing what you did or thought on a particular morning (”Breakfast was good”), but on a Page you might write something whose context is less time dependent (”This site is about breakfast”).

Of course, this is your WordPress; you can do whatever you want with it and its features. Pages can be used to present any information you want to live “outside” your blog. Experiment and be creative. And, as always, have fun doing it!

Some examples of Pages to create on your site may include, Copyright, Legal Information, Reprint Permissions, Contact Information, About Me, About Site, Accessibility Statement, among other things.

In general, Pages are very similar to Posts in that they both have Titles and Content and can use your site’s Presentation Templates to maintain a consistent look throughout your site. Pages, though, have several key distinctions which makes them quite different from Posts.

If you are new to WordPress and you’re worried about where to start, you’ve come to the right place! Here is a very simple step-by-step plan for getting started with WordPress. Please remember, if you need help along the way, plenty of options for assistance are listed in this article. Welcome to the exciting world of WordPress!

After installing WordPress and going through the following process step-by-step, consider making your first plugin installation the Codex and Forum searcher Plugin. It allows you to search both the WordPress Codex and Word Press Support Forum from your WordPress Administration Panels. Click on one of the search results and the page will open in a new window or tab so you can have the article or discussion open while working on WordPress. This will make your transition to WordPress a much gentler one with information right at your finger tips.

Starting a new blog is difficult and this can put many people off, there are then other people who have blogs with no comments or visits. You want to stand out from this crowd of millions of bloggers, you want to be one of the few hundred thousand blogs that are actually visited. So here are some simple tips to help you on your way to blogging mastery:1:Post regularly, but don’t post if you have nothing worth posting about.

2:Stick with only a few specific genres to talk about.

3:Don’t put ’subscribe’ and ‘vote me’ links all over the front page until you have people that like your blog enough to ignore them (they’re usually just in the way).

4:Use a clean and simple theme if at all possible.

5:Enjoy, blog for fun, comment on other peoples’ blogs (as they normally visit back).

“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.

Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, home staging, sports, or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to all types of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the author’s daily life and thoughts.

Generally speaking (although there are exceptions), blogs tend to have a few things in common:

• A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories.
• An archive of older articles.
• A way for people to leave comments about the articles.
• A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a “blogroll”.
• One or more “feeds” like RSS, Atom or RDF files.