Choosing a WordPress theme for a website is a crucial part when you are starting a business website or blog. It’s important to choose the relevant theme for your business or personal website or blog. It does not only affect your website appearance but there are lots of hidden pitfalls which impact the overall user interface and ultimately your business (Do I need to mention – retention rate, bounce rate, UI and UE)?
No matter whether you are choosing a free WordPress theme or choosing a premium WordPress theme, you need help selecting a WordPress theme. The marketplace is flooded with various themes and most of the newbies feel overwhelmed with fancy themes which do not fit their business website.
Here are tips on how to pick a WordPress theme for your business,
1 – Understand Your Site Requirement and Have a Clear Vision
You must know what things to consider while picking a WordPress theme. Your website vision helps you to stay focused on your WP theme hunt and shortlist the list. You need to understand your business needs. Make a list of features you want in your theme like social media sharing, sidebar, responsiveness, footers, et cetera. Divide the list into must-have and nice-to-have, it will make you concentrate on a few but important elements of your site which are essential for your website.
- User Experience and Interface:
You are designing your site for your visitors so put yourself in their shoes and think about the things you would like to see on anyone’s website. Everyone likes a simple user interface and best user experience for themselves.
- Responsiveness
About 30% of all website visits now come from mobile and tablet devices. Source – marketingland.com so make sure your site is mobile-friendly (responsive). You don’t want to make your mobile visitors leave your site just because your content is not readable. So always find out a responsive theme for your website or blog.
Your content should be readable on all devices. Check your website mobility on Google mobility check
- Put Yourself in Your Audiences’ Shoes
You have to think from your audience’s perspective. For example, If you are building a site for photography learners, you would need a theme which showcases your photography skill through its visual elements. Your audience wants to see your work, your skills and your expertise in your photographs.
- Colour Schemes and Combinations
A colour harmony guide or colour scheme guide will help you to get a perfect colour combination for your website. Your website colours impact your audience’s behaviour, for example, Orange = warmth and ambition, pink = femininity, love and romance that’s why most girly sites have pink colour combinations.
Your text colour should be in contrast to your website background colour which makes it readable.
- Easier Navigation Options
Your site navigation has to be easier, all of your website pages should be easily accessible and your visitors should be able to understand how to reach specific pages.
- Usability of Sidebars
Sidebar is an important part of any website you can run your ads, webinar invitation, popular posts, social media feeds to engage your audience and convert them into your lifetime customer or visitor.
2 – Don’t Get Distracted (content is not going to be the same as the demo)
The theme market is flooded with visually attractive themes which don’t suit your business. You should avoid themes which is not a fit for your business requirement. For example, a Photo Grid theme looks attractive but it is not a perfect fit for news websites or technical blogs. Your content is not going to be as you see on theme demos.
Remember point number one – Have a Clear Vision. It reduces your search hours and helps to stay focused on the process. You should always choose the template you need not the one you just visually like.
- Think Out Of the Box – Be Unique
Your uniqueness sets you apart from your competition. If you are going to copy a website without a distinctive value, you need to give a second thought to why you are doing this.
By having a unique website theme you can approach your visitors differently so think out of the box and try out things which no one is doing. Your unique theme would add a unique user experience and interface which impresses your audience and make them visit your site again and again.
Here is a video which focuses on what kind of colour your blog or site should have.
Free or Premium Pros and Cons of Free and Premium WordPress Themes
You need to consider theme rating, reviews and support before choosing a theme on WordPress. This data gives us insights into whether users are happy with the theme or not. There are many pros and cons of free and premium themes but it is one of the decisions you have to take.
Premium Themes
Pros
With the Premium theme, you get support from theme developers/providers. These developers also update the themes for various reasons (security, bugs etc). It’s easier to check updated history by changelog.
Cons
Premium themes are not free.
Premium themes are loaded with CSS, PHP and other codes which are harder for customization, especially for non-programmers/non-coders.
Free Themes
Pros
Free themes are free and they are easily available on wordpress.org and other resources.
Cons
Free theme providers do offer very little to no support.
No updates – free themes rarely get updates and that can cause security and compatibility issues.
SEO-Friendly or Ready Themes
Everyone wants to be on the first page of Google but it would be harder if you don’t choose an SEO-friendly theme. There are many factors which you need to consider while choosing a theme on WordPress
- Website Speed and Basic Load Time
No one likes the slow site and you have only a few seconds to grab your visitor’s attention. Slow site results in an increased bounce rate which affects your search engine ranking. Your theme should be lightweight and easy to crawl for search engines. Check your website/theme’s speed on Google Page Speed Insight
- Cross Browser Compatibility
You have visitors from Chrome, Firefox, UC browser, Opera and many other browsers so it has to be cross-browser compatible. Here is a free solution to check any theme’s cross-browser compatibility.
- Advertisement Space
If you want to run advertisements (Google Adsense, affiliate marketing etc) on your website you need to understand where it should be and it should merge seamlessly so choose your theme wisely.
So here is a short checklist of how do I choose a WordPress themes
- Understand Your Site Requirement and Have a Clear Vision
- Don’t Get Distracted
- SEO-Friendly or SEO-Ready Themes
- Put Yourself in Your Audiences’ Shoes
- Colour Schemes and Combinations
- Website Speed and Basic Load Time
Conclusion
What Type of Website Are You Building? It’s a business website, personal blog, eCommerce site or a single-page website? What is the purpose of your website? You want to earn money, run a personal blog, influence people, share knowledge or do any other thing.
What would be the MUST-have elements? Social media integration, slider, sidebar or any other.
You must have answers to all these questions to pick a perfect WordPress theme for your next blog or business website.
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