Things To Consider While Selecting The Perfect WordPress Theme

There are thousands and thousands of free and paid options when it comes to choosing WordPress themes. Every “theme” is unique and can look better than another. This article shares the elements you must consider while you are selecting the best and most apt WordPress theme for your site

WordPress helps create all kinds of websites. Hence, you will see that every theme caters to a different set of markets. Your WordPress theme must complement the content you are displaying on your website. For instance, if you want to start a blog on politics or social issues, then you will be looking for a “theme” that improves readability for your users.

Several WordPress themes include a vast volume of customization options. If you do not code them appropriately, these options might give you a hard time while you try to change themes or implement other WordPress plugins. You will be stuck into that theme, or you will have to pay a developer to help solve the issue by switching.

On the contrary, some WordPress themes that might look great when you look at it in the first place, but they can make your website excessively slow. No user or search engine prefers slow websites, especially Google, which ranks faster sites higher than the slower ones.

Remember that your theme will be the face of your WordPress site and plays a vital role in how users and search engines are looking at it.

1. Look to Achieve Simplicity-

Several WordPress themes have tons of colors, flashy animations, complex layouts, and much more. You might use these elements sometimes, but most of the time, you will not need them.

As the great Leonardo da Vinci says, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”- the phrase stands strong.

Keep searching for a theme with a design layout that supports the goal of your business. The look of your site must be great but not by settling for inefficient usability.

You must choose a theme that does not have an excessively complicated style. The main aim of your web design will be to help users locate the required information and to help site owners meet their goals as well.

Even if any theme looks outstanding, it might drive traffic or subscribers; hence, it is not a suitable theme for you.

2. Making your website Responsive is not an option anymore:

Responsive themes adjust their layout according to different screen sizes and devices.

A significant number of web traffic comes from mobile and similar devices.

Google ranks and displays mobile-friendly websites on the top of its mobile search results. Devoid of the topics and demographics on your website, all sites must be responsive and fully mobile-ready.

By default, most WordPress themes are already responsive. Hence, make sure to go for a mobile-friendly website.

Test a Theme based on Mobile Readiness-

Testing a theme based on mobile-readiness is very important. Resizing your browser screen is the easiest way to check whether a theme is responsive or not. When you resize your browser screen, you will see that the layout of the theme will adjust itself to fit the screen width.

This test might display a few warnings, regardless of the quality of the theme. Keep an eye at any red flags, e.g., excessively small text, content more comprehensive compared to the screen, and several others.

3. Compatibility of the Browser :

Different users will use different browsers, and your theme might look perfect on the browser you are using, but it could have something broken in some other browser.

Here, browser compatibility steps in. Maximum WordPress developers for hire are in the habit of testing their themes thoroughly via sophisticated browser-compatibility test tools.

They may mention this on their website. If not, then you can always run some necessary tests for checking the theme on various browsers, e.g., Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.

Remember to test on different browsers with mobile as well.

4. Plugins that are supported:

The core power of WordPress is vested with WordPress plugins, and these plugins enable you to complete any task via your WordPress site.

There are several WordPress plugins. Some of those are must-have WordPress plugins for any website, e.g., W3 Total Cache, Gravity Forms, Yoast SEO, etc. You must ensure that your WordPress theme can support all popular and widely-used plugins.

5. Translation, along with Multilingual Readiness:

A massive volume of WordPress sites are not in the English language; you can create a website in any language or dialect besides English. You may have plans to build a multilingual WordPress site, with time, in the future.

Keep your WordPress theme translation-ready and ensure multilingual-supported WordPress plugins.

6. Page-Builders:

Page builders are WordPress plugins allowing you to build page layouts via drag-and-drop user interface.

Several premium WordPress themes include pre-installed page builders. That theme developer uses some of these page builders only in those pages.

When you use such a page builder for creating landing pages, it can generate an excess of unwanted code. If you ever decide or want to switch your theme, then you will have to do a lot of cleaning up

It would be best if you went for themes that involve shipping with from among the most used page builder plugins. You can also buy these page-builders individually for using alongside other “themes.”

7. Support Options for When Face Issues and Require Some Help:

One drawback of free WordPress themes is that you will get no guarantee of support. Some developers do give you consistent support for their free “themes,” but there are also several free “themes” that provide no option of help.

If you face some problems with your WordPress theme, then you have to find out a solution by yourself. You might also have to pay a third-party developer to solve even the most simple issues.

Go for a WordPress theme that comes with proper and reliable documentation, along with support options. Most of the premium WordPress themes provide detailed documentation with one year of email-based support.

8. SEO-Friendly:

Your WordPress theme has a crucial role in the SEO friendliness of your site. Even if you have an excellent looking idea, it can still produce poorly coded HTML. It may affect the performance of your website on different search engines.

You can also check if the page produces proper HTML5 with the W3C Markup Validation service.

9. Ratings and Reviews:

Another reliable means to judge the quality of a WordPress theme is via ratings and reviews that users give. If the theme you choose is sold over a third-party marketplace, then you will get to see considerable and reliable reviews from customers.

You will see the ratings section right below the download button for free WordPress themes. You can also see the number of reviews and stars that users have given. When you click on five stars, it will show you all the reviews that gave the theme five stars.