From HTML Website to CMS with the same design powered by WordPress

Last week i had a task that i was really waiting to get one of these days. We had a client who has a basic informative website about a service they offer. The website was created a couple of years ago and they were very happy with design, but they wanted it to be a CMS. So that if they want to add another page they don’t have to manually create the page and add a link to it from the navigation menu on all other pages.

An obvious choice was WordPress since all they need is a 10 page website plus Blog, Drupal would be to big of an overkill for this scenario. Now, even though i already made more then 30 WordPress installs, i usually used either a free them and just made some small changes or even sometimes the client liked the theme so i didn’t even had to touch it.

I was looking for a blank WordPress theme that while having all the necessary elements would let me do the design. And while i am sure there are dozens of those here is one i used and was pretty happy with, its called WP Framework their own description says it in the best way possible:

A blank WordPress Theme Framework that’s everything you need, and nothing you don’t

And thats exactly what it was. All i had to do is break the existing HTML into parts as following:

• header.php will hold parts of the HTML that never change from page to page on the top of the page
• footer.php holds parts of the HTML that never change from page to page on the bottom of the page
• sidebar.php has to have the HTML that will container that will be able to stretch based on the widgets activated in the back-end menu
• and of course index.php thats where you include the header, footer and sidebar plus the container for the main part of the page your posts and pages.

Then i imported the CSS and 99% of the site was done. Feels great -I just created my first WordPress theme. Having done it i see first hand why there are so many nice and free WordPress themes, since you don’t have to be a coder to make one.