Selecting a Blog Theme Shouldn’t Be SO Difficult!
They warned me that selecting a blog theme might be one of the most difficult things to do when setting up my blog…
I really didn’t believe that… I just could not understand why…
Using Themeforest… and with that experience behind me I can honestly say, “They were right!” Selecting a blog theme was in fact, pretty difficult. So many choices!
Time to Get Out the Notebook
I wrote down a few blog themes I thought I might like in my notebook… started making notations about the blog theme features and what made them different from each other… But the more I looked, the more impossible it felt.
There were so many nice ones – and so many features. In the end, it was like I just had to close my eyes and throw the dart – I was never too good at playing darts… but generally I usually hit pretty close to the target. However, I just didn’t know how else to make a decision.
Some recommendations in selecting a blog theme that were passed on to me were:
- a blog theme must look good on all venues – it must look good on a computer screen, a tablet or phone
- a blog theme must have good speed. After all, how many will stick around long waiting for my blog to load?
- I also looked at how many “guinea pigs” bought the blog theme before me… were they happy? Feedback was also important…
- what about the capacity for images, video, audio? I am a somewhat photographer wannabe. This was important to me…
- does the blog theme have a variety of layouts, widgets and all the other tools I could use to make my blog unique – and how easy would it be for me to install, edit and work out the look I wanted?
- and I also thought about price… While most of the blog themes would not break the bank, I did notice that some asked for a flat fee while others renewed automatically annually
So many choices to make – my head was spinning.
So I decided on a blog theme… and purchased it.
In comes the technical part… which I thought would be the easiest part…
Now, I’m not an “over-the-top” techie, but I do have experience with downloading and uploading files. I know how to follow instructions, I know about zip files. No problem.
Well, for unknown reasons, the upload function for my new blog theme on my host just could not in no way, shape or form recognize the zip file for my theme…
Actually, the upload function couldn’t recognize any zip file on my computer.
So asking myself, “What’s going on here? Is it because my zip file is in my File Manager under “Downloads”? (So I move it to a folder in my Documents). Try again. No go.
I tried uploading my new blog theme through cPanel – no go.
I was using Firefox. So I decided to try using Microsoft Edge – nope.
I rebooted my computer… that didn’t help either.
Wow… installing my new blog theme was turning into a nightmare!
I finally turned to Help on my hosting page. (I’m sure the gal thought she had a dummy here… if she only knew all the “Dummy” books I bought when all this technology came out so many years ago.
But she was patient and kind – for at least 4 hours… (She was probably saying the same about me… patient and kind).
Using FileZilla (my favorite FTP software), and multiple entries in the Site Manager box, we finally were able to get my blog theme uploaded. Success!
Well, not yet…
Can you believe when I went to activate my new theme, I got an error message, “broken theme – stylesheet missing…”
You can’t make things like this up…
Somehow, she found the missing file – and everybody lived happily ever happy…
But it was way past my bedtime…
A happy and simple life?
What’s so simple about selecting and installing a blog theme? Not with what I just went through!
What nightmarish tech experience have you experienced lately? Or in the past?
