WordPress Theme
Note: I’ve setup a new blog just for my theme, Basic Simplicity. I’ll also be blogging about blogging over there.
After trying dozens of minimalist themes over the years I finally decided to code one myself. It’s open source and called Basic Simplicity. It’s super simple, loads fast, ad ready, widget enabled, validates, and has an administration control panel that makes quick color edits easy.
I built Basic Simplicity because I always found myself editing other people’s code to get the look & feel I wanted. I also wanted more sidebar regions for easy inclusion of widgets. There are actually 10 widget enabled regions in this theme and all of them are optional. Scroll down for a description of all 10 regions.
Cluttered designs might be good for ad clicks but I really wanted my content, especially on Tiny House Design, to take the lead. If it’s all about the content shouldn’t the website’s design be all about the content?
The main column is also wider than most blogs allowing for much wider images (600px) than most blogs. The font size and color in the main column is also more visually dominant making it easier to read. The right sidebar is 300-pixels wide which is ideal for the ubiquitous 300×250 ads.
Administration Control Panel
In this version I’ve added a control panel for making easy edits to the colors: Appearance > Edit Basic Simplicity. Just edit the hex color codes (like #0000ff) in the admin form. You can also add your Google Analytics code, Google site verification code, and custom css on the admin page.
Note for advanced users: If you want to edit the main stylesheet you’ll need to comment out the dynamic CSS code in the header just above the BODY tag or the default settings may override your CSS edits.
You’ll also notice that I’ve used visibility: hidden for the header and description. I left it in for search engine optimization reasons but if you want to make them visible just delete that attribute and color as you see fit.
Configuration Tips
Images
Set your large image default to 600-pixels so when you upload images they span the main column. Do this on the page at Settings > Media.
Use The More Link
Use the more link in every long post. I like to start with text and then have a 600-pixel wide image followed by a little more text and a more link. I’ve styled the more link to stand out nicely.
A more link is a way to cut long posts on the home, search, and archives pages. You can add it by using the little icon in the WYSIWYG editor or by typing <!–more–> in the text view.
Widget Regions
I’ve built it with 10
widget regions that should make it easy to add supporting content, navigation, and advertising. Below are some tips for each of the areas.
Sidebar-Main: This is the normal right side sidebar. I made the sidebar 300 pixels wide. If you want to place standard 300×250 ads there just use the Text Widget.
Bottom-Left, Bottom-Middle, Bottom-Right: At the bottom of the page you’ll see a grey bar. This is in fact a region called #bottom just above the normal footer region. It’s 3-columns about 300 pixels wide each. Each column is also a separate widget region perfect for things you don’t want cluttering the right sidebar.
Column-Top, Home-Top: This is a region just above the main content column perfect for a 468×60 ad or the built-in Tags Didget. Home-Top is the same as Column-Top except it only appears on the home page.
Post-Top-Right-Single, Post-Top-Right-Home: This is a widget area 300-pixels wide at the top right of the content on pages and posts. Add a text widget and paste in your 300×250 ad code. Post-Top-Right-Home is the same as Post-Top-Right-Single except it only appears on the home page.
Post-Bottom-Single, Post-Bottom-Home: This is a widget area below the content on pages and posts. Add a text widget and paste in your 468×60 ad code. Anything up to 600-pixels wide can be added to this widget region. Post-Bottom-Home is the same as Post-Bottom-Single except it only appears on the home page.
Strategy
Instead of trying to squeeze every penny out of my blogs with Adsense I’m focusing on increasing readership and the number of impressions. By focusing on the content and leaving the home page easy to scan I’m encouraging people to click for more content. I think I’m also building my readership faster because the blog looks less about ads and more about the content. I think people like that and the ultimate goal for sucessful monetization is increasing readership and impressions. See Tiny House Design or CARazed for the best examples of this strategy in action.
About The Banner Photo
Just in case you’re curious about the header image; I lifted it from a photo of the tiny house I’m slowly building. The house is called the Tiny Free House and I’m building it from mostly reclaimed material like old pallets. Any money I spend building it will be reclaimed by selling free stuff I find.
In the theme download file above included an editable header.psd file in case you want to keep the blue sky but change the name. Feel free to use the header image on your blog or replace it with a photo of your own.











Hi Michael. I’m fairly new to Wordpress but have been fiddling quite extensively. Your theme is one of the the nicest and most customisable of the many free ones I’ve looked at. Thank you for putting it out there for us.
Improvments that I might suggest (I don’t know if its even possible) would be the facility to change the sidebar and post area background colours, and add a bit of space between the sidebar and the content.
Thanks again!
Hey Micheal –
I must say your customer service is BEYOND GREAT!! You answer everyone so promptly — truly amazing in this day and age.
Like everyone else, I love the site. I’m trying to get my RSS to show more than 10 posts. So I went in to the widget and changed the number to 20, but it stays at 10.
Is there some way I can fix that?
Thanks,
Judi
Hi Judy,
Thanks! Yeah I try to respond to all comments/emails. Good blogging practice
I think that’s the WordPress part and not the theme. It should be controlled at Settings > Reading. I’ll take a look though, but I don’t think anything I coded would force a limit to the RSS feed.
-Michael
Hey Michael –
You were right! I needed to change the WP part — once I got the two in sync — voila! Twenty posts. Yea!
Thanks a lot!
Judi
Happy to help Judi… and glad it worked!
Hi Michael,
I love your web site, the nice clean lines and simple use.
My problem is I really don’t know what I’m doing and how I got as far as I did with it, becuase I’m a novice at this. Can you tell me how to get back into the header and remove or change the generic words: Just another WordPress weblog
Thanks so much.Judith
Thanks Judith,
The header text is in Settings > General on the left lower side of the admin pages.
-Michael
Mike,
We’d like to have the “Add a Comment” appear on some pages but not others. We’ve shut off the “Allow Comments” checkbox on some of the pages, but the “Add a Comment” remains but doesn’t do anything. Any easy way to remove it from the screen on some pages but not others? Thanks.
Brad M.
Hi Brad,
The link “Add a Comment” should actually say “Comments off” when the comments are turned off for that page or post. Does it still say “Add a Comment”?
The message “Comments off” is built into wordpress but there is a way to edit the index.php file (Appearance > Editor, select index.php on the right). Begin by opening that index file in the wordpress editor.
Then look for this line of code
<div class="meta-addcomment"><?php comments_popup_link(‘Add a Comment’, ‘1 Comment’, ‘% Comments’, ‘commentslink’); ?></div>
and replace it with this:
<?php if ( comments_open() ) : ?>
<div class="meta-addcomment"><?php comments_popup_link(‘Add a Comment’, ‘1 Comment’, ‘% Comments’, ‘commentslink’); ?></div>
<?php else : // comments are closed ?>
<!– nothing –>
<?php endif; ?>
Keep a fresh unzipped copy of Basic Simplicity handy (or a backup of the index.php file) in case something breaks. Nothing should break but anytime you mess with the php tags in the templates you run the risk of breaking the theme.
I hope that helps!
-Michael
Hi Michael. I am also a fan of your Basic Simplicity theme. I just started to use it and decided to keep it. I can’t tell you how many themes I have tried and discarded.
I’m still new to Wordpress themes and working with CSS.
Question about the footer: I added my name after the . It appears on the blog, but now the footer.php code in ‘edit themes’ has disappeared. The box is blank, and the update file button has disappeared. Any reason for this?
Hi Dev,
I have no idea why that would happened. I can see the footer on your site, so the footer.php must have code in it. Not sure why it’s not showing up in the editor.