How to Build a Blog for Residual Income – Part 3 (Choosing a WordPress Theme)

November 1st, 2008 by Matt | Posted in Link Love

This is Part 3 of the series How to Build a Blog for Residual Income.

Perhaps the most critical decision you will make in the initial stages of setting up your blog, is which WordPress theme to use.  The good news is that there are literally THOUSANDS of free WordPress themes available for use…

The bad news is that the best themes can be very popular, and are therefore already in use by a number of more popular blogs than your own (assuming you are just starting out).  However, I think it’s important to use a free theme in the beginning, so you don’t get bogged down by the details of creating your own theme, and so you don’t have to worry about forking out the money for someone else to create one for you.  Once your blog becomes successful, then it may be a good idea to go with an original theme, but I don’t think it’s as important for generating traffic in the beginning.  Your focus needs to be elsewhere for now, so I recommend choosing a free, Adsense-optimized template and modifying it slightly to fit your needs.  Two of my favorites are:

• BlueSense – This template uses highly-optimized ad slots, but may be considered somewhat invasive to your users… I think the theme looks great, though, and has been shown to be very effective.
• Green Money – This template will probably look very familiar to you… yep, that’s right, it’s the template I used for 15 Minutes to Riches! (now Wealth Itself)  Obviously, I like this one… while it doesn’t make use of some of the most optimal ad slots, I think it’s very user-friendly and non-invasive.  Let me know what you think!

There are tons of excellent WordPress themes available that aren’t already Adsense-optimized, but these will require extra work on your part.  I recommend keeping this as painless as possible for now.  Optimizing a WordPress theme on your own can be very frustrating, especially for someone who has no formal computer programming experience.  This could lead to a lack of motivation, which is not the way to create a successful blog.

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