Through last three sessions of my WordPress tutorial I already describe the simplicity of installations, features as well as admin interface details part by part. Now that you are well familiar with WordPress, let’s discuss WordPress design, theme and layouts. Since choosing a theme for your blog does include a great deal of factors. Not all designs, or layout is suitable for every blog and not all themes are equip to provide everything. some people has a wrong impression that these themes are just skins like we used in Winamp, WordPress themes are a lot more then just a dress up.

WordPress has over few thousands of free themes as well as you can buy themes from different web design stores, alternatively you can build your own or ask someone to build for you. But basically WordPress theme layout are following:

Single column: The most oldest layout of webpage. No sidebar, one column containing all the contents and navigation are usually at the top of the page. I found this layout very boring and less user friendly. If you use this kind of layout for your blog, you can’t show list of categories, archives, blogroll etc. side by side with your posts. But if you are not blogging for reader’s friendliness, just blogging for your self -satisfaction you can consider it the simplest form of blog layout.

Two column: There are two types in this one with sidebar, another without. The layout without sidebar has two equally decided column (maybe not equal too) one column contain the contents, your posts another column used for your blogs additional accessories like- blogroll, RSS feed, Archives, Categories etc. Two column layout with sidebar is in fact one wide column of content and a narrow (less wider then content)sidebar, this is most popular web layout now day’s.  And as usual the side bar contains all the navigation and highlighted stuffs like-RSS, Archives, Categories etc.

Three column: This layout is growing popular everyday in blogosphere. Usually one column that contains the contents are wider then other two columns (sidebar mostly). one sidebar use for navigational links and other sidebar used for monetizing(advertising)/ extended items (featured post), videos/pictures (all most anything). The two side bar can be either on the same side or different sides of content column.

Four column: A rare layout, in WordPress I found only 6 of them (so far). So far as I observed four column layout have one wider content column and three narrow columns. But in one of them I noticed two content columns and two narrow column(sidebars). This layout isn’t very advisable since it looks cluttered, and most cases you reader’s have to scroll sideways to read your full contents. Trust me this will be major blow if your readers aren’t happy with user interfaces.

In addition to layout of your theme, you need to worry about two more things when choosing a WordPress theme- Width and Widget. You really need to think about this two before you choose a theme. WordPress themes are usually either fixed width or fluid width. Fixed width layout doesn’t expend or shrink even if the resolution or browser window SATs (maximized/restore down) change. Fluid width layout are flexible, they change sizes to fit within any resolution or status of window. This is actually not a problem, if your layout isn’t full window length. Widget readiness of your theme is very crucial decision. Widgets are small third party sidebar components that can be easily embedded (ex- Goggle Map, Google widget, Skype, Stock info’s etc.). If you have plan’s to use those stuffs in your blog sidebar or you wish to embed easily things to your blog’s sidebar Widget ready themes will save you from lots of hard works.  

There are a bunch of other things too about WordPress Themes, but as i said with WordPress your creativity limit is sky high. Colors, backgrounds, options, embedded plugin etc. are not important when you choose a WordPress theme, every theme has potential be deadly (well not actually, i mean to say impressive). When you choose a theme first think about layout, which layout can satisfy your needs (WordPress has a public theme viewer where you can see every theme in action before downloading). When choosing a layout ask yourself again is that layout user friendly, can it deliver enough navigation smoothness. Second thing you need to check is how contents looks in that theme (category view, archive view, single page view, search result view etc.-check each and every single view). After you choose your layout of your theme and having satisfied with the different view of the contents start playing around with it (change color of text, background pictures, headlines etc.). Every free theme in WordPress are under GNU GPL license, means you can edit/modify everything for free and all comes with proper documentation. In addition WordPress theme has coding structure (Read about WordPress Theme), if you have patients to read in no time you will have ability to change themes looks and performance.