Discover What Should Be Taken into Consideration When Chosen A WordPress Theme

 

Discover What Should Be Taken into

 Consideration When Chosen A 

 WordPress Theme

Do you want to select the perfect theme for your new WordPress site?

There are thousands of different free and premium WordPress themes to choose from. You want to make sure you choose a WordPress theme that looks good, has the features you need, and is also high quality.

In this article, we’ll share the most important things you should consider when selecting a WordPress theme.

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What is: Theme

A WordPress theme is a tool to change the layout and design of your website. Themes customize the appearance of your site, including the layout, typography, color, and other design elements.

A theme is a zipped folder with a group of files, including a set of page templates written in the PHP programming language combined with some CSS stylesheets.

When you first create a WordPress site, it will come with a default theme installed. You can change the theme in WordPress to match your needs and industry.

Choosing the right theme can make your website more attractive, easier to use, and improve visitor engagement.

What Is a WordPress Theme and How Does It Work?

A WordPress theme is a folder of files that work together to create the design of your site. A theme includes template files, stylesheets, images, and possibly JavaScript files. All those files change how your blog posts and pages are displayed.

Changing your WordPress theme won’t necessarily change your blog content, pages, users, or other information stored in your database. Your theme only changes how all that information is displayed to your website visitors.

There are thousands of free and premium WordPress themes available for you to use.

Free themes can be downloaded from the official WordPress theme directory, or you can purchase premium themes with more advanced features from third-party developers. You can even create your own custom themes for a unique web design.

WordPress Theme vs. Template: What’s the Difference?

Often the terms WordPress theme and WordPress template can confuse beginners.

Template files are part of a WordPress theme, along with other types of files like stylesheets, scripts, and images. You can’t install template files individually. They work together with the rest of the files in a WordPress theme to change your website design.

A template file only controls one page or part of a page. For example, in most themes there are separate template files for your site’s header, footer, sidebar, comments, and other sections. The template files help to control what information is displayed along with the layout of each page.

WordPress uses a template hierarchy that determines which template is used for which section or page.

Which Are the Most Popular WordPress Themes?

One of the first things you need to think about when you start your WordPress website is your theme.

It’s smart to select a theme that not only has the design and features you want, but is also actively updated and maintained.

The best and most popular WordPress themes available for download are:

·         Divi: A multi-purpose theme by Elegant Themes that’s customizable with a drag-and-drop builder

·         Astra: A customizable theme that comes with pre-designed demos so you can get started in minutes

·         Genesis by StudioPress: A clean and fast theme framework that you can style with child themes

·         OceanWP: A lightweight and customizable theme that’s 100% free and great for beginners

All of these themes are easy to use, well-supported, and have dozens of beautiful layouts.

They’re also all considered multi-purpose themes, which means they’ll work well for any type of website. You can use them for personal blogs, business sites, eCommerce sites, and more.

How to Install a WordPress Theme

To make your website look the way you want, you’ll need to install your chosen WordPress theme on your site.

There are three ways that you can install a WordPress theme: choose one from WordPress theme directory, upload a custom / premium WordPress, or add a new theme using FTP.

How to Search Which Theme a Website is Using

Sometimes you may see a website design that you like, and you may want to know which theme they’re using.

Thankfully, you can easily discover which WordPress theme a website is using with our WordPress theme detector tool.

How to Create Your Own Custom Theme

Hiring a website developer to create a custom theme can cost thousands of dollars. Learning how to code your own website using PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript code can be time-consuming and frustrating.

WordPress has many drag & drop page builders that can help you create custom page layouts.

One of the mis called Beaver Builder which comes with a Beaver Themer addon that allows you to create custom WordPress themes without any code.

Why is it Important to Choose the Right WordPress Theme?

WordPress can be used to create all kinds of different types of websites.

There are a lot of themes that cater to different markets like WooCommerce themes, membership site themes, and even multi-purpose themes that can be customized to fit nearly any type of site. 

Many WordPress themes come with tons of customization options. If not coded properly, then these options can make it difficult for you to change themes or use other WordPress plugins. You will be locked into that theme or will have to hire a WordPress developer to help you switch.

On the other hand, some WordPress themes that look great can actually make your website incredibly slow. Having a slow website can hurt your search engine rankings, user experience, and more. 

Your theme is the face of your WordPress site and plays an important role in how users and search engines perceive it.

Your goal should be to find a WordPress theme that has a design you like, is fast, and can be easily customized.

Before You Choose the Perfect WordPress Theme

Before you choose the best WordPress theme, there are a few things you’ll need in order to build your WordPress site.

First, you need to make sure you’re using the right version of WordPress, since there are actually two versions of WordPress. 

There is WordPress.com which is a limited hosted platform. Next, you have the popular WordPress.org, which is the self-hosted version.

We recommend using WordPress.org because it gives you the freedom to create any kind of website and gives you access to every WordPress theme and all the features right out of the box.

We recommend using Bluehost because they’re an officially recommended WordPress host and one of the largest hosting companies in the world.

Once you’ve signed up for web hosting and set up your domain name, you need to install WordPress. Luckily, with Bluehost, WordPress comes pre-installed.  

Most other hosting companies offer a 1-click WordPress install option. With that said, let’s take a look at the most important things you need to keep in mind when selecting the perfect WordPress theme.

1. Simple and Minimalist Design

Many WordPress themes come with many colors, complex layouts, flashy animations, sliders, and more. Sometimes you may need those things, but in most cases, you don’t need all of those additional features. 

Look for a theme with a design layout that helps you support your goal. It needs to look good without compromising on usability and simplicity.

Make sure the theme’s presentation style is not overly complicated. The purpose of your website is to help users find the information they need as quickly as possible, while highlighting relevant information about your business.

Overall, the theme you choose should be as simple as possible. If you want to add new functionality to your site, then you can use WordPress plugins. 

2. Easy to Customize and Make Changes

When you’re choosing a WordPress theme, you’ll want to make sure it’s easy to customize, so you can truly make it your own. 

Even if the demo theme is exactly what your want, you’ll still probably want to make specific changes to make the theme match your unique brand. Most changes will be made through the WordPress theme customizer or theme options panel.

Some themes also let you make more customizations than others, so you’ll want to choose a theme that lets you customize the aspects of your site you want to change. 

Generally, you’ll have control over the theme color scheme, font choice, layout, custom logo, widgets, and more.

You can also use a WordPress drag and drop page builder plugin like SeedProd to create completely custom pages, or custom WordPress themes, from scratch.

3. Responsive and Looks Good on all Devices and Screen Sizes

Today more than 60% of website traffic is from mobile devices. This number will differ depending on your blogging niche, but you need to make sure your WordPress website looks good on mobile devices.

Most WordPress themes will have a responsive design. This means the theme will adjust the layout based on different screen sizes and devices.

However, just because a WordPress theme is responsive, it doesn’t mean the theme does responsive design well. 

You’ll want to preview your theme in all screen sizes. You can do this easily by adjusting your browser window and seeing how the theme adjusts.  

You can also test your new WordPress theme in different browsers to ensure it works correctly across all browsers too..

4. Updated Frequently and has a High-Quality Codebase

Your WordPress theme will form the foundation for your website. Beyond the overall design, you want to make sure it loads fast and is regularly updated. 

The size of your WordPress theme can have a big impact on your speed and performance. Your loading speeds will influence everything from your user experience to WordPress SEO, so you’ll want to ensure your theme is lightweight and has fast loading speeds.

You can always run a website speed test to see how fast a theme loads. For free themes, you can simply install the theme and run a speed test. With premium themes, you can run a speed test on the demo URL, which will give you some idea of how well the theme performs.

5. Compatible with the Plugins You Need

Ideally, when you choose a WordPress theme, it will handle the design, and all additional functionality will be taken care of by WordPress plugins.

WordPress plugins let you do things like create a contact form on your site, generate leads, run giveaways, and much more.

Most themes will support all WordPress plugins. However, if you have a poorly coded theme or a theme that’s adding too many plugin-like features, then you could run into a conflict and experience WordPress errors. Also, if you ever want to change your site design and switch themes, you’d lose those features.

That’s why we recommend choosing the simple WordPress theme and adding functionality through plugins. 

If there’s ever a feature you want to add to your site, then chances are there’s a WordPress plugin that can help you out. 

6. Has Solid Ratings and Reviews

Another solid indicator of a WordPress theme’s quality is ratings and reviews provided by its users. If you’re searching for free themes, then you can find the customer reviews by going to the theme page on WordPress.org.

It will show the number of reviews and stars given by users. You can view a detailed breakdown of the reviews given at each star level.

If the theme is sold on a third-party marketplace, then you will see customer reviews or testimonials from users on the theme sales page.

7. Has an Active and Helpful Customer Support Team

Even if you’ve spent time learning WordPress and have some solid skills, there may be times when you need to rely on support. 

There will be different support options, depending on the theme you choose. For example, many free WordPress themes don’t offer guaranteed support, while others still provide regular support.

If you’re using a free theme, then you can check how active the support channel is on the theme’s WordPress.org listing page.

Most premium themes will offer between 6 to 12 months of support and updates after purchase, with the option to renew.

Premium themes usually have their own customer support or help desk through their website. 

Beyond customer support options, you’ll also want to check the theme documentation. These tutorials will show you how to set up the theme and answer your most common questions.

8. Optimized for the Search Engines

Your WordPress theme plays an important role in your site’s SEO friendliness. A good looking theme can still generate poorly coded HTML, which can affect your site’s rankings in the search engines.

It can be difficult for beginners to analyze a theme’s source code on their own. This is why many WordPress theme developers will let you know that their themes are optimized for SEO.

If you have a lightweight and fast-loading theme, then you’ll be heading in the right direction in terms of search engine rankings.

Then, you can use a WordPress SEO plugin like AIOSEO to further optimize your website to rank in the search engines and get more traffic.

9. Ready for Translation into Different Languages

WordPress powers over 40 percent of the internet. As a result, there are a lot of website owners who want to build a site in a different language or cater to an audience that speaks another language. 

If you’re searching for a free WordPress theme, then you can search for translation-ready themes. To do this, click on the ‘Feature Filter’ menu option in the WordPress.org theme depository.

Then, select ‘Translation Ready’ from the drop down.

This will bring up a list of themes built to make translation easy.

If you’re looking for a premium WordPress theme, then it will typically list its language compatibility on the theme page. 

However, you can also create a multilingual WordPress site by using a WordPress translation plugin.

Choosing the Perfect WordPress Theme FAQ

Do you have any WordPress theme recommendations?

Like we mentioned above, there are thousands of different themes to choose from. The right theme for you will be based on the type of website you’re building and the features you need.

How do you install a WordPress theme?

Once you download a free or premium WordPress theme, you need to install it so you can start building your website.

Can you change WordPress themes?

Yes, one of the great things about WordPress is you can switch to a different WordPress theme at any time. You are never locked into an existing design or theme. 

However, if you’ve made a lot of customizations to your site, then you’ll want to be aware of what happens when you switch WordPress themes.

We hope this article helped you learn what to consider when selecting the perfect word press Theme