Selecting a design for your WordPress website can appear to be an impossible task. Choosing the theme that is best for your website may seem tough because there are so many different options available, both for free and paid.
The subject you’ve picked is, after all, extremely important. It decides how your WordPress website will appear to visitors and how you will present your brand to the billions of individuals who use the internet and could come across your page. Your website should be viewed as the company’s online showroom. Therefore it must be appealing and cohesive with your brand. Always stay calm while choosing the theme for your website and never make any decision in a hurry.
You can change your theme later, but doing so is not the easiest task and will take time and effort. Additionally, doing so can cause your website to experience some downtime. Making the right decision from the start is, therefore, crucial.
We’ve given you nine easy rules to follow when choosing a theme for your WordPress website that, if followed, should assist you in making the best choice.
- Know Your Needs
- Responsive-ready
- Simplicity, Typography, and Aestheticism
- Plugin Compatibility
- Niche WordPress Themes
- Reviews and Feedback
- Developer Assistance
- Performance
- Regular Updates
1. Know Your Needs
When choosing a theme for your WordPress website, you must first decide what you want the theme to accomplish for you. Think carefully about the goals you have for your WordPress website. Is it required, for example, to have a page devoted to your blog? Do you want videos to be embedded? Do you have any immediate plans to acquire client data or provide sign-ups?
You may start the process of whittling down the potential options once you have decided what it is that you need from your theme. After all, there is no point in looking at several WordPress themes before you are certain of the functionality you need from the theme of your website.
At this point, it’s crucial to think about the kind of financial resources you have at your disposal. If your needs are relatively straightforward, you may find the ideal theme completely free. Free theme selections are often available. On the other hand, paid WordPress themes have a wide variety of pricing, and the overall cost for WordPress themes that give plenty of various customization options can rise quickly.
A good piece of advice to follow is to look at the designs of WordPress websites that are already up and running and similar to the one you plan to build and operate in your specialized industry. What interests you? What potential improvements do you see here? You can create a “checklist” for your theme and then move forward using this information.
2. Make Sure it is Responsive
If a theme looks and functions the same way on a mobile device as on a desktop computer, it is said to be responsive. When visitors arrive at your website, responsive themes will automatically adjust themselves to fit their device’s display without compromising the website’s functionality or user experience. Your WordPress theme should be flexible and fit different screen sizes and devices.
Amazingly today, 92.6% of the 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide utilize mobile devices to access the internet(source). You will lose out on a sizable portion of prospective website visitors if your theme does not support responsive design.
Any visitor to your website will have a good experience thanks to a responsive theme, regardless of how they choose to access it. This greatly increases the likelihood that they will return in the future.
The need for a responsive theme is necessitated for still another reason. Google declared it would first switch to indexing content for mobile devices in 2019. This means that rather than the desktop version of your website, the search engine will index and rank your website based on its mobile form. You won’t have a great chance of appearing in Google’s search results if it isn’t up to par.
3. Choose Simplicity, Typography, and Aestheticism
It’s easy to give in to the appeal of a design that offers a wealth of distinctive features and possibilities while looking for a new WordPress theme, what with the singing, the dancing, and all the other bells and whistles.
Numerous color, font, animation, and layout options are available with WordPress themes. Although these options initially seem intriguing, customers might find too many.
Remember that your target audience is the reason you are building a WordPress website. Think about how you would respond if you were attempting to read material on a website littered with annoying animations and pop-up windows that used a range of typefaces and colors.
They won’t be able to find the information they’re looking for, so they’ll leave (often finding it on another website) instead. If your theme has too many moving parts, your audience will become perplexed and unable to locate the information they need. Your viewers will become perplexed if your theme has too many moving parts.
While having an appealing website is important, you should also consider your website’s main objectives and ensure that your chosen theme won’t get in the way of achieving your goals online.
4. Verify Whether it is Plugin Compliant
You must choose a WordPress theme that supports important plugins to provide your website visitors with the best functionality and user experience possible. When choosing a theme for your website, remember that plugins typically take it to the next level and give it the functionality you need.
WordPress plugins can improve several aspects of your website, including how it looks and functions. Many WordPress plugins are available for you to choose from that can help you improve your website.
Some of the most popular and practical plugins for WordPress are the ones listed below:
- Plugin for Yoast SEO. (Helps to improve the overall SEO of your website).
- Jetpack (Includes website analytics, spam filters, and automated social media posting).
- Woocommerce (Transforms your WordPress website into an online shop).
- Using WP Forms (Creates a contact form with a dynamic drag-and-drop interface).
It is smart to confirm that any WordPress theme you select supports both these and any additional plugins you determine are essential for your website. Before making a final choice, it is essential to speak with the theme creator to ascertain which plugins are compatible with your selected WordPress theme.
5. Choose a niche that you can personalize:
If you use WordPress as your content management system, you have extensive control over virtually every theme on your website. (CMS).
Ensure the WordPress theme enables you to modify various site elements, including the font, colors, pictures, layout, and pages. When choosing a theme, this is a crucial factor to consider.
Changing your theme may include your company’s branding on your website. You can do this to ensure each page maintains the brand’s design and color scheme.
You can select the particular pages that will be included on your website if you select a theme that can be altered. You may decide that an About page is not necessary, or you may decide to emphasize your blog page instead. Regardless of what that may be, you need to be able to create whatever navigation layout you desire to utilize a WordPress theme’s customization features.
Every niche has different features and functionality to fetch the best solutions for your business. Such as best wordpress themes for saas, education wordpress themes, etc.
6. Always check online reviews for WordPress themes
Before buying anything online, it’s often a good idea to read reviews, and buying a WordPress theme is no different. Before making any online purchases, read reviews. Because they were posted online for a reason, you should take advantage of that fact and use the evaluations to help you with your purchasing decision.
Make careful to read the reviews of any theme you choose if the design appeals to you to get a sense of what other users who have used the theme think. Positive reviews are good to look at but never ignore the negative ones., as they are the ones that will help you in recognizing the best one.
The last thing you want to do is download and install a theme to discover later that it is unsupported or includes malicious content. If you select an old or subpar theme, your website may be more vulnerable to cyberattacks. This might also affect how well your website functions, including how quickly pages load.
You should typically avoid a theme if there are no reviews and choose an alternative instead. You can be more confident that a theme will enhance the look of your website the more favorable evaluations and ratings it receives. Take this point quite seriously, or else the chances are high that you will end up buying or downloading the wrong theme which will waste your time and money.
7. Developer Assistance:
No matter what topic you choose to concentrate on, there will eventually come a time when you need help.
It is in your best advantage to research a host’s support policy before choosing them because you will need to be able to get in touch with someone for assistance if this happens.
Most premium themes typically offer between six and twelve months of support and updates as part of the initial purchase, with the option to renew to continue receiving support. You risk not receiving what you want when using free themes. Some theme developers do not offer assistance to free users of their goods, despite some offering support for their themes through the WordPress.org forums. It would help if you considered the scope of the support you receive in addition to whether or not a developer offers it and how long it lasts.
8. Performance
Search engine optimization is closely related to how quickly your website loads its pages, a performance measure. (SEO). Faster load times favor greater conversions, increased visitor engagement, and improved search engine results. Why? Internet users are impatient, so they utilize the Internet.
“The user must be able to appreciate the speed of your page,” the expert advises. It doesn’t matter how well the content and graphics are designed.
The typical load time for modern websites is less than three seconds, though this might vary depending on how much content is on each page.
What does that imply specifically? Avoid themes with many features to keep your website’s loading speed high. Most of the effects they offer are likely to go unused, resulting in your theme files being needlessly large. Individual pages will load more slowly the larger your website’s files are.
To avoid this problem, stick with themes that load quickly and remember that themes with poor coding might also affect speed. For additional help with quickening your website’s pace, see our tips on how to make WordPress operate better.
9. Always check that your website should be constantly updated
Any WordPress theme you use for your website must always be maintained up to date. You must ensure that the authors of your theme keep it updated in a way consistent with the modifications because the core WordPress software is constantly changing.
Themes must undergo frequent updates to fix any bugs or security problems that may have developed and guarantee that the theme performs as efficiently as possible.
A good rule of thumb to follow when it comes to theme updates is to pick a theme that has been updated within the last six months. If you decide to go with a theme with a timeline like this one, you can be confident that you won’t be installing something on your website that is already outdated because it implies that the author updates the theme frequently.
How to Choose the Perfect WordPress Theme?
The sheer variety of WordPress themes that are offered might easily overwhelm one. However, remember that the theme you choose will greatly impact the look and functioning of your WordPress website; as a result, you should give the decision some serious thought.
We hope that this essay will be helpful to you in navigating the process of choosing a WordPress theme because it entails more than just choosing one that looks good. Good luck, and enjoy yourselves!
