Wordpress has become such a phenomenon that its themes deserve to have a set of exclusive guidelines created for it. All wordpress theme creators with themes that follow all of these guidelines should succeed one way or another and it will definitely please even the most critical of designers and bloggers.

If you don’t design wordpress themes and read this just out of curiosity, it may be good to know that you can twist these guidelines a little and use them as a guide to pick your perfect wordpress theme.

For a wordpress theme that is a winner, you have to please both the technically oriented that will pick out every little flaw, and also the artsy people who like to express themselves. These are the two main categories with which the guidelines will be split, as it is easier to handle these separately.

Pleasing the Technical People

1- Clean, Understandable Code

This is for the fanatics who love to modify theme code to suit their all-so-specific requirements, or simply to subtly demonstrate their technical expertise. Actually, it is for the benefit of everyone. When plugins require the user to insert code into the theme, messy code can cause confusion in the less technically sound people. A good theme should look so neat that even an attempting layman can figure out where to put small HTML snippets for his own uses.

Insert comments whenever you can for people to easily comprehend your code and modify it. There is no point in obsfucating your code, especially if you’re following these guidelines - because a theme loved by many will eventually be reverse-engineered for the benefit of all, and your attempts at protecting it will only be frowned upon.

2- XHTML/CSS Compliancy

Validate your code here at the w3c website, both your XHTML and CSS. It tells you all the errors and what line they occur at, so there is no excuse that this is too troublesome. Not validating your code will only demonstrate unprofessionalism and laziness. This may also help future-proof your theme as browsers evolve and move towards the XHTML/XML standards. No one knows when that will happen, but it will not hurt to do it and please the technically inclined.

3- Make it Widget-Ready

This does not just please the technical people; it also helps those who want to easily customize their sidebar. This plugin has become somewhat of a staple in wordpress and it is even included in the default wordpress package. If you don’t know how to implement this, make some effort to ask a friend of yours who knows how to do it, or post on the forums for assistance. I’m sure many people would love to help you and you would be happy to have a theme that is technologically up-to-date.

4- Do the 404 Page

Don’t skip this part of the design process. You have no idea how many people hit broken pages on blogs and see a terrible page that does not match the theme of the main website. Just take some time to at least add a page with a few sentences stating that it is an invalid page.

Please the Artsy People

1- Do it Until You Love It

It may be cliché, but would you expect someone else to love your theme if you don’t love it yourself?

Preview your theme after you’re done and make a few posts to see if everyone looks good. You should feel very proud and satisfied at the end result. If you think there is something that might need tweaking, go ahead and do it. Don’t let the “it’s good enough” mentality get to you. After working on it for so long, is it not deserving of your time for an extra touch of perfection?

If you simply hate the design, even if you put a lot of effort into it, don’t push it out. It is better to have a few very impressive themes than a thousand bad ones. Releasing only the best will serve you well in the long term, and people would see you as a designer of great quality. If you release only the good themes, people will always be looking forward to more because they expect it to be good as well. Just one bad theme can kill that impression.

2- Not too Flashy

Try to keep the theme centered on emphasizing the content. Many themes look so fancy that it serves as a heavy distraction from the content and causes the blog to be hard to read. Designers don’t like their art pieces to have attention taken away from them either.
One tip here: Simple is good.

Follow these guidelines and you are sure to create a star. I see many Wordpress themes out there that will benefit and improve so much if the author would just follow these guidelines. Be sure you aren’t one of them, and I hope to see your next great theme.

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