Most of the beginners get confused while choosing a theme for their WordPress site. Many paid as well as free versions are available. Each and every theme used is very much attractive. Then, which one to select for your WordPress website? Choosing the proper theme for your WordPress is very much important. However, out of so many gorgeous themes available, it can be a bit hectic to select the right one keeping in mind the responsiveness of several devices. Therefore, before purchasing a theme, please go through the Do’s and Don’ts which will be portrayed in this blog. Here, we will provide you with a list of 9 things that you should consider before making your website customized with a WordPress theme.
Why do you need to be careful while selecting a WordPress theme?
The foremost thing is that your WordPress theme should match your website content. Suppose you are starting your blog based on political know-how, you should focus to enhance the readability. WordPress themes give you a plethora of customizable options. Henceforth, if the coding part is not done properly, it will become difficult for you to modify the themes or choose other WordPress plugins. Moreover, there are WordPress themes which might look attractive but can make your website very slow. It will be a loss for you since no one prefers slow websites and Google is constantly striving to improve the rankings of the fast-loading websites. Therefore, theme plays a significant role in terms of users as well as the search engines’ perspective. Let’s get a deep insight into the advantages before selecting the suitable theme for your WordPress website.
Smart Tips To Choose An Appropriate WordPress Theme
Majority of the WordPress themes is equipped with colors, attractive animations, and customized layouts. Obviously, these features are essential but not at all time.
Seek Coherence
Always search for those themes that contain a design layout that suits your organizational goals. It must have a good aesthetic value. But also, you need to take into account the usability and simplicity. Ensure that the representation of the themes’ style is simple. The main motive of the web design is to enable users to get the required information. Moreover, it helps site owners to reach their target. If the theme is attractive but not helping you in business enhancement, then it is not a good choice. A theme also appears to be unworthy if it fails to gather more traffic.
Responsiveness of the Device
Responsive themes change the layout in a wide range of screen sizes and device. A huge number of web traffic is obtained from mobiles and other handy devices. Based on the number of topics, it will increase up to more than 50% of traffic. Google helps in taking the mobile friendly websites in the front page of the Google Search engine. Irrespective of the website’s topic, as well as demographics, each and every website, must be mobile-responsive. However, most of the WordPress themes are mobile-responsive by default. But still, there are some sellers who are selling layouts that lack responsive features.
Compatibility of the Browser
In the diversified world of browsers, people are getting acquainted with different users. It can happen that a theme is ideal for only a particular browser. But there can be something broken in other browsers. That’s the area where the compatibility of the browser plays a key role. Most of the WordPress theme developers test those themes through the use of several compatibility testing tools. They will display this particular thing on their website. However, they can perform some simple tests to identify the theme on different browsers. Also, conduct proper testing on all available browsers of your handset as well as desktop.
Supported Plugins
The main objective of WordPress is available in WordPress logins. It enables you to do anything using the WordPress site. Since there are plenty of WordPress plugins available, some must possess a WordPress plugin for their own website. Always ensure that your WordPress theme is supported by all major plugins. However, check once with the theme developer if you are not sure.
Translation
There are a huge number of WordPress sites which are not available in English. You may like to create a website in some other language. In order to flourish your business in the global market, you can build a multilingual website in the near future. Therefore, ensure that your WordPress theme is ready for translation and is supportable by the WordPress plugins.
Page Builders
Page Builders are wordpress plugins that permit you to make customized page layouts through drag and drop interfaces. There are many WordPress themes which are equipped with page builders that are pre-installed. There are some theme developers who build page builders. With the help of Page Builder, you can create landing pages that provide a large number of wanted codes. Also, when you switch the theme, then those pages will need an entire cleaning process. Moreover, you have the provision to select themes which are shipped using one of the used page builder plugins. Also, you can buy page builders separately to collaborate with other themes.
Other Support Options When Required
One disadvantage of the WordPress theme is that it doesn’t come with a guarantee. Though many developers provide excellent support assistance for the free themes, there are also free themes which do not need any support option. If you are totally messed up using your WordPress theme, then you need to identify it on your own. WordPress must have proper documentation as well as a support option. Majority of the WordPress themes provide documentation along with 1 year of email support.
SEO-Friendly
WordPress themes play a very vital role in enhancing SEO-friendliness. Even an attractive theme can produce poorly built HTML codes, which can affect a website’s performance on several search engines. It becomes very much difficult for the amateur to inspect the theme’s source code on their own merit. That is the sole reason why many WordPress developers will make you understand that their pages are getting optimized for SEO. Check if the page produces appropriate HTML.
List of Do’s and Don’ts
Always prioritize on the Do’s and Don’ts before going ahead with purchasing a WordPress theme. The WordPress feature filter eases the process of searching free themes based on a particular feature you want, such as translation-ready and permitting a good header. It’s necessary to build a design framework in mind before choosing a theme. You must be prepared to understand if you need a website with several columns. Building from scratch, the theme you select must contain features that will help you to reach the target easily. Not the ones which can possibly litter your theme.
Don’t choose a Bloated Theme
The thing that you don’t want is a theme messed with absurd features A theme containing attractive features is good, but it can hamper the site’s performance. Therefore, ensure to restrict yourself from installing important features which you think to be smart.
There are fancy music players which might be appealing but can demean your site’s performance. Moreover, there are developers who frequently use codes available on the internet based on these features making poor security spots. This is owing to the fact it is not focussed on the website’s security, rather they perform in a particular location.
Always Select Responsive Themes
Responsive designs always make the website super easy on laptops as well as other devices. It is handy and compatible in smartphones containing menus and other widgets which make the navigation very easy. Moreover, always search for features like fluid site grid and flexible images which can be transferred into non-desktop devices. A typical example of a responsive theme can be that one which easily translates on a smartphone without any hassle. It might happen that you picked up a theme, but it’s not that much mobile-responsive. In that case, you need to customize it a bit.
Do Keep a Color in Mind
Always remember that online marketing is done through the visual appearance. Therefore, Color enhances the brand value as well. If you have a suitable logo for your brand, try to blend the color scheme of that logo. WordPress makes it very easy for the users to modify the appearance, containing the color theme by moving directly into the file or getting inside the Custom CSS.
According to the statistics, between dark and light colors, visitors always prefer choosing light-colored sights. However, you can also choose dark-colored website designs. But it can demean the readability along with the scope of getting conventional design elements.
Do Look for a Premium Theme
Although free themes are very much useful for those who have a budget crunch, it can pose a serious threat. A free WordPress theme will not provide a theme with high-quality coding standards as per your choice. There is a risk of not getting proper updates on a regular basis. There can be a lack of support as well as a theme author ceasing the theme altogether.
Premium themes are highly dynamic, built with an enormous number of features than free ones which will help you to stand out leaving behind all your competitors.
Choose a Proper Font
This matches with your visitor’s attention so that they won’t close your site. Your website should provide an easy gateway to the potential audience for navigation. Therefore, always choose a simple, urbane, and readable font. Moreover, if you are acquainted with CSS, it will be very easy for you to adjust the fonts. However, there are also free themes available where you won’t be able to customize according to your choice.
Always Test the Theme Properly
When you have finished with all the tweaks and uploading of your content, do a proper review of the website before offering the same to the world. Therefore, reread the entire content, examine the site on your mobile, and ensure that all the images are loaded in a proper manner. A great place to begin your theme testing is to install the Theme Check plugin that examines whether your WordPress site is meeting all the standards or not.
Rating and Reviews
Another important factor for the WordPress theme quality is basically the ratings and the reviews given by the audience. When the theme is sold in a marketplace, you can view the customer’s feedback. In free WordPress themes, you will get to know the settings just at the bottom of the download button. You will get to see the reviews as well as stars provided by the users. However, all the WordPress themes receive more or less bad reviews. But if the number rises exceptionally high, then you should read it with care.
There are several free WordPress themes along with new ones which they release on a daily basis. However, this blog will guide you the best while choosing a customized WordPress theme. Kindly follow the above guidelines before selecting the WordPress theme of your choice.
