One of the best features that WordPress offers is custom themes: premium and free. These are templates for your site that allow you to implement a functional, coherent design to your pages and posts. Like anything user-made, however, the templates are not all created equal.
When you decide to start a WordPress blog, you’ll be faced with a choice of themes fairly quickly, and you’ll have a lot of options at your disposal. Choosing a WordPress theme that is poorly constructed or intended for a different type of site can be a major blow to your success. That’s why I’m going to show you 7 things you should consider before you make this decision.
1. Responsive Design
Responsive design refers to a theme’s ability to change its layout based on the device someone is using to access the internet. The website should look different (and more importantly, readable) on a desktop or on a mobile device such as a smartphone.
As of 2016, over 56.1% of mobile phone users accessed the internet from their smartphones. That number is expected to grow to over 63.5% by 2019! On top of that, Google has made it clear that it prefers mobile responsive sites. A responsive theme therefore could also be beneficial to your SEO.
If you want to ensure that your chosen theme fits what Google is looking for, you can check out Google’s mobile friendly test tool. This tool will quickly judge if your site meets the company’s standards.
2. Consistent Updates
WordPress itself is constantly improving. As it progresses, everything else should progress with it. When there’s a new WordPress upgrade, there will usually be one for your plug-ins soon after. Your theme should be consistently updating as well.
The last thing you want is website errors or glitches because your theme is outdated. When choosing a theme, look for one that has been updated recently and has a solid backlog of consistent updates. Then you will know that proper care is being given to ensure it remains compatible with the latest version of WordPress.
3. Keep It Simple
When it comes to web design, you don’t want something cluttered or overly complex. After all, the average attention span of someone online lasts for only eight seconds. You want to get your point across quickly and do so without any confusion.
To that end, follow this advice from the great Leonardo da Vinci:
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Your chosen theme should look nice, while also offering a clean and user-friendly layout. Looks aren’t everything, so make sure your theme is also intuitive to use before you decide on one. If you need help finding one that meets these criteria, check out these 37 simple WordPress themes.
4. A Fast Loading Speed
The way a theme is built affects how quickly it will load web pages for your users. It’s hard to see how page loading time affects your site since it’s not a tangible element you can see, but consider these statistics:
● 47% of customers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.
● A 1 second delay in your loading time can cost you 7% in conversions.
● 40% of people will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load.
If your web pages are loading slowly, you’ll have a tendency to rush to figure out if your site or your theme is causing the issue. However, you need to calm down. First and foremost, you should use a tool like Pingdom to check your website’s speed. This resource will give you a good indicator of how your site is running.
While your theme can potentially slow down your site, there are other factors that can do so as well. When browsing through potential themes, look at the user reviews to see if there are any complaints about the coding in relation to website speed.
You can also check other sites that are using your theme. For an extra layer of preparation, use Pingdom to test their speeds in comparison to your own.
5. Cross-Browser Support
As much as I think everyone should just give in and use Chrome, people access the internet using a lot of different browsers. The way they experience your site could potentially change depending on how your theme interacts with specific web browsers.
Many WordPress theme creators will test their theme’s compatibility themselves and make a note of the results in the description. However, you can easily do the same tests with the proper tools. You should also check that those tests have been done with browsers on mobile devices.
6. SEO Friendly
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a subject that comes up in any conversation about web development or blogging on WordPress. The theme you choose has an effect on SEO and ultimately an effect on your success.
A poorly made theme (even one that looks great on the exterior) can hurt your SEO. Because many factors and moving parts determine your ranking, you don’t want your site’s design to be working against you. When you are searching for a WordPress theme, look for guarantees that the theme is optimized for SEO.
7. Ongoing Support
Themes can sometimes include ongoing support from the developer in case you have any questions or you run into issues. Ongoing support saves you the hassle of having to pay someone else to fix any problems you encounter.
Support isn’t something exclusive to premium themes either. Some free theme developers will happily assist you with any obstacles. Make sure you look for the ongoing support feature when choosing a theme. If you don’t have web design experience, one issue could be a major setback.
Final Thoughts
Many of the greatest blogs in the world run on WordPress, and all of them started with a great theme. It’s amazing how important choosing one is for your continued success.
By using the above considerations to narrow down your choices, you can make an educated decision, whether you’re opting for a free WordPress theme or purchasing a premium one.
What do you look for in your WordPress themes? Let us know in the comments!
Eric Wall
Latest posts by Eric Wall (see all)
- 7 Things to Consider When Choosing Your WordPress Theme - August 13, 2016
I really like your blog about different wordpress themes. Now days wordpress is the one of the most popular platform used by many business on the internet. Its blogging software, wordpress has become an essential part of the internet. It is constantly evolving with new features and security improvements.
Thanks for share us valuable information recently i want to start a blog but i am not use premium theme can its not compatible for my blog.
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Interesting read Eric. I loved to see responsiveness at #1. Yes, it’s the new trend since smartphone users are increasing in numbers with every passing day. Therefore, having a responsive theme is mandatory to give your audience a better user experience.
Aqib Nazir would love you to read ..5 Tips to Choose the Best WordPress Theme for Your Blog
All you need is using Genesis frameworks. It has all the important factors for your website: responsive, simple, SEO optimized, fast load speed.
Hi Andy,
Yes, many serious bloggers use the Genesis framework. This blog runs on it. But all the child themes are not equal, so you have to choose one wisely.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..What Can Brands Learn from Logo Design Fails?
This is dency from chennai. I have read your blog. Its very useful for me and gathered some interesting informations for android developement. Thank for a good post.
Thanks for sharing! Your mentioning some good points that I will definitely use for my webshop theme.
Hello Eric, I loved to read your blog. Your blog is very interesting and informative. I loved your way to explain about how to make your wordpress blog SEO friendly.
Hi Eric,
These things are very very important as per whatever experience i have in Wordpess. These things help in SEO ranking as well. Like i have seen a website which has less reputation relatively on internet but it consist the above points and rank better then some well settled website for some keywords.
Thanks for pointing out these essential points.
Some of the themes available for WordPress are good but after choosing them they don’t work well why it is so? Can theme also harm our SEO strategy? Please help me on this.
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Hi Sam,
Anyone can offer WordPress themes regardless of how talented they are. Yes, they vary greatly regarding how well designed they are for usability and also for SEO. That is why serious bloggers tend to stick with particular frameworks like Genesis or Thesis. Even on those, quality can vary, but because there is a framework underneath the child theme, the themes are more likely to be stable, usable, and effective for SEO.
Even bloggers who use themes that have SEO fields built in tend to use an SEO plugin. Yoast SEO is most popular, although SEOPressor is popular with affiliate marketers and originally we almost all used All-in-One-SEO.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..5 Genuine Reasons Your Business Is Losing Clients
User friendly and SEO friendly, Responsive design are very important for a website. Can you explain about wordpress blog theme ?
SEO friendly, good design etc are great advantages of any stable WP themes like Avada, Enfold or Be. But their CSS files are huge, so their loading time is always an issue for me. Though it’s a great and easy options for a client who wants only dynamic website. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Eric,
Glad to read your wonderful post,
You have shared 7 great things which really play crucial role in making word press blog amazing and attractive.
It will extremely make website different and valuable in first sight and also beneficial for SEO.
Yes, i am agree with you theme should be selected best one such as clean and user friendly layout it will helpful to gain popularity.
Today generally almost greatest blogs which exists run on word press and should designed with superb theme.
Thanks for sharing your valuable thoughts.
With best regards,
Amar kumar
Amar kumar would love you to read ..10 Things to Consider Before Selecting Your Web Host
Hey Eric,
There are many things to check before choosing a WordPress theme. the theme should be light so that it can load your website within no time.
It should support all the WordPress Plugins. There should be an ad space which is considered the most nowadays.
The SEO factor has the major influence.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Have a nice day.
~Ravi