WordPress is the most popular Content Management System in the world and wordpress.org/about/features/”>powers around 32% of all sites on the web. Among other reasons, the availability of themes makes it such a powerful Content Management System (CMS). Rather than creating a website from scratch, you can use themes, which are predesigned templates making website creation simple and effective. WordPress offers thousands of themes to choose from and that makes selecting the right theme for your site a difficult but important decision. Today, we will be offering some fundamental tips and tricks to help you choose the appropriate theme for your WP website.
Look Beyond the Design
Usually, site owners browse through themes and tend to select the one which appeals to them the most – visually. While we agree that the design is important, you cannot ignore other factors like the type of content, target audience, banners, and similar elements that you need the theme to support. Your theme can also help you in your SEO efforts – search for SEO-friendly themes in the WordPress directory.
Are the Developers credible?
Being an open-source platform, WordPress has developers from around the world creating themes and plugins for different needs. While there are some professional developers, there can also be some miscreants trying to include viruses or spam links or even novices who can offer themes that have coding errors. Therefore, you must run a simple background check on the developers of the theme. If they have developed other plugins/themes, then go through the reviews and assess their work. As a practice, download and change themes only from the WordPress directory.
Try it before you buy it
Many themes have a free version or a demo version allowing users to get a feel of the theme before buying it. Make sure that you test the theme before paying for it. Some aspects that you can pay attention to are:
- Readability of fonts
- Presence of any unusual grits
- Usage of visual content
- Sync with your website’s requirements
Responsive Themes
In the current market, a user can access your website from a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone with any screen size. Hence, it is important that you develop your website using a responsive theme that can move according to the device’s display.
Updates and Support
WordPress gets updated once every few months. Therefore, it is important that the theme developer updates the theme to keep it in sync with the latest version of WordPress. A failure to do so can result in a website that does not load properly with the newer version of WP. Therefore, look for a theme that still has active support from its developer and is regularly updated.
Summing up
Before you start looking for a theme, assess your website’s requirements well. Remember, a well-performing website needs a planned approach. It also needs the service of a good host who understands the intricacies of a WordPress website and offers features accordingly. We recommend a good Managed WordPress Hosting plan with features like daily backups, automatic updates of themes, WP-core, and plugins, database optimization, minimum downtimes, and supersonic page speeds. A good theme, the right plugins, great content, and an apt host can ensure that you offer an amazing experience to your site visitors.