Free WordPress Headers
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Many bloggers who like to customize their blogs are constantly looking for free WordPress headers. Read on to learn more about where you can find free headers for your WordPress blog.
What is Wordpress?
WordPress is one of the most user friendly blog software applications. Along with Blogger and B2Evolution, WordPress remains an industry leader when it comes to free blogging software. As of September, 2008, WordPress.com hosts over 4 million blogs, and the application is also used for many blogs hosted on separately owned domains. As the popularity of blogging grows, the WordPress user base is likely to grow as well.
One of the features that make WordPress so popular is how easily you can customize its look and feel. Some bloggers have customized WordPress blogs so well that they look like professionally designed websites. Additionally, they are much easier to maintain than websites because the new content is added through a very easy to use user interface, and no knowledge of html or coding is necessary.
What is a Free Wordpress Header?
Since you can customize WordPress blogs so easily, there is a high demand for components of blogs that are well designed and add significantly to the aesthetic value of a blog. Most new bloggers use 'WordPress Themes, or templates, which are complete blogsites with stylized headers, backgrounds, images, fonts and other features, fully customized to fit together into a nice-looking blogsite. Free themes are available directly from WordPress, as well as throughout the internet. Installing a new theme is as simple as unzipping the files into the /wp-content/themes/ directory on your website.
However, many users, after downloading such a theme (or using one of the standard WordPress themes), don't like the header. The header is a banner that sits at the very top of your blog, and it has a significant impact on the overall look and style of your blog. Most people prefer the header to reflect the content of the blog, or the style preferences of the blog writer. This is why, very often, bloggers chose to modify their sites with free WordPress headers.
Where Can I Find a Free WordPress Header?
So many people have a need for creative and stylish headers that creating blog headers has become an art form. Why? Because the first thing people see when they open a website is the banner at the very top. This is the header, and it often will also contain text that identifies the blogger and what the content of the website is all about. Within seconds, the web traveler will make the decision whether or not to bother reading the blog. This is why the attractiveness of the header is so important.
The following websites offer a great variety of unique free WordPress headers:
- Bloggertalk offers four pages of beautiful headers including nature, animals, and even Disney designs.
- Theme Headers has a great archive of headers with a variety of themes, some of which feature beautiful photography. Click on the "archives" to view them all.
- FreeWebPageHeaders.com contains a huge database with 90 pages of great header banners. While the site is based on "web page" banners, these files are identical to blog banners.
- PhotoShop-Pack provides this very easy tutorial on how to create your own blog header image using Photoshop.
- Balko Photo offers this amazing collection of beautiful photographic header images for free.
How to Install a WordPress Header
So you've found the perfect header, you've downloaded the file, and now you don't know what to do next. Fortunately, installing a WordPress header is very simple. Follow the steps below, and you'll have your blog looking exactly the way you want in just minutes.
First: Make sure the image for your header is uploaded to the "images" directory within the wordpress folder on your website.
Second: In the theme directory (/wp-content/themes/), find the file called "header.php." Download this file to a location where you can edit it. If it isn't in the themes folder, you may need to search for it.
Third: Within the header.php file, look for the section as follows.
#header {background: url("<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/wc_header.jpg")
no-repeat bottom center; }
#headerimg {
margin: 7px 9px 0;
height: 192px;
width: 740px; }
Finally: Replace the standard wordpress image with the name of the new image that you've uploaded to the images directory.
Final Notes
It's important to note that when you edit the section for the header style, you may need to modify the image size defined in the "headerimg" section to match the original image if your new image isn't already the same size. Additionally, if you look through the styles.css file and look for the sections that start with #header you'll discover an entire list of properties that you can modify, such as background color, text font, padding, margins, and other formatting properties. Make sure to save a copy of this file before making changes, and then don't be afraid to experiment and learn what settings make your blog look perfect.Learn More
This page has been accessed 4,659 times. This page was last modified 19:20, 7 September 2008.
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