The evergrowing availability and diversity of WordPress themes are nothing shy of a blessing for the many of you looking to have a website for yourself. However, it can turn into a curse just as quickly. Finding the perfect one from an overwhelming sea of options can prove to be a daunting task. It is even more difficult when you do not know exactly what to look for.
Worry not, as we are here to help. With our comprehensive guide on how to choose the perfect WordPress Theme for your website, you will know the very basics of picking a functional as well as beautiful theme. At the same time, we will answer some of the burning questions on your mind.
Let’s hop right in:
Why Does WordPress Theme Matter?
A simple metaphor will explain this inquiry perfectly. Before opening a retail store, the biggest chunk of thought goes into the aesthetics, decor, and layout of the store. After all, a store might have the most unique products but no one would know if the storefront is not welcoming and accommodating.
A theme for a website is exactly the same. It is usually the first thing a visitor will notice and if you can’t catch their attention with the first visit, it’s game over. This is also true for the functionality and the loading time of your website. All of these things heavily matter on the theme you pick.
Sure plugins can help you incorporate more functionality down the line but without a strong foundation provided by your theme, it will always be an uphill battle.
The Basics of WordPress Theme Selection
Catering the theme to your business/purpose is of the utmost importance. But before we dwell on that, any theme anyone picks needs to have the basic grounds covered. These basics are going to be the building block for your website, regardless of your intended purpose. So you would do good to ensure that your theme of choosing gets flying colors in these following factors:
Loading Speed & Performance
Above everything, a website needs to have fast loading times. Very few people will actually have the patience to stick through with a sluggish and slow-loading website. In many cases, a slow loading time means that your message will be inaccessible to all but the 1% of customers with lightning-fast internet.
The best way to ensure good performance is to pick a simple theme. A choice with many UI elements and animations will seem attractive at first but these heavy elements will bog down the user experience unnecessarily.
With that in mind, narrow down your search by looking for only the features you need and ditch as many bells and whistles as you can. It might seem a bit counterintuitive, but trust me, less is always more when it comes to picking themes. And since you can add elements and functionality down the line with plugins, you do not need to worry much about needing a feature and not having it later.
Cross-Device Compatibility
In the WordPress world, this is also known as the Responsiveness of your website. Many themes are made with one particular device in mind (laptop, phone, or tablet) but you can not possibly know which device your users will use most often.
The best thing you can do in regards to this is to select a theme that will smartly adapt to the device screen size it is visited from. Another huge problem is that while most of the themes available currently are marked as “responsible” it is widely done half-heartedly just to check that box.
Put the time into finding a theme that will work on all popular devices/ screen sizes. This effort is entirely worth it and can improve user experience by an incredible margin.
Customization
You will never be able to stand out by just picking a theme and calling it a day. As we wrote earlier, a theme is only the foundation and for the best results, you will want to change many elements of the preexisting theme yourself.
This can be something as simple as changing the font or something as game-changing as implementing new functionalities. Go through the fine print to see exactly what customization a particular theme supports and if that is sufficient for you. But if that’s too much for you, just pick a theme with WordPress Customizer support.
Looking for the proper plugin support is also important. You should already have a rough idea of what your website is supposed to be. Try knowing what plugins you need to achieve that. The last piece of that puzzle will be to find a theme with appropriate plugin support. Plugins like WooCommerce are an absolute must for online stores while if want to open an online course business you will need something like LearnDash.
Basically, your theme does not need to support all the plugins out there, it just needs to work well with the ones you need.
Developer Support
At the end of the day, themes are just codes. And codes can have bugs no matter the expertise of the programmer writing them. Or even if your theme is free of bugs, support is something essential as it includes everything from technical assistance, to visual customization.
Know the support policy of the dev you are choosing. Premium themes or themes with support packages do have the upper hand in this case as you get upto a year or two of support by paying the full price. Even then what that support means is different according to the dev. So again, read the fine print.
Free themes are notoriously susceptible to abandonment by the developer. That is preciously why picking your developer wisely is important and you should always check the “support request answered” tab on the theme front page.
This support also extends to how often the theme is updated. The more frequent the updates, the smoother the experience you will receive. Always check the “last updated” from the theme store page and do not pick any that have been without an update for longer than 4-6 months.
Community Feedback
Community feedback corresponds to the reputation a theme has with other users/customers. Reading the comments or reviews will give you a bigger picture of what other users faced while using the theme. It will also tell you most of the things you need to know in regard to performance, customizability, ease of use, and the number of bugs (or lack thereof).
Nevertheless, a theme with a big number of users and good reviews will provide you with a more hassle-free experience than themes that are relatively new and untested.
How to pick the right WordPress Theme for your Intended Purpose?
Thus far, we talked about some bare minimums that are a must in any theme that you are even considering. However, a perfect theme not only ticks the basics boxes but also gives you a curated experience for your intended use.
Aesthetics
Having the right aesthetics is important because you want your site to come across as well-curated to your brand. The colors everywhere should match your logo and the design should also be picked accordingly. For example: If you have a minimalistic logo, you will need to pick a theme that looks minimalistic enough to go your brand identity.
Thankfully, colors and elements are easy enough to change for most themes out there. The Font is just as important. Do not pick the basic Ariel or Times New Roman and call it a day. Look for fonts that speak to your brand in ways others can’t.
Website Type
If you are trying to build an eCommerce site, you should pick a theme that already has a store page template. Similarly, for a portfolio, the picked theme needs to have a robust gallery template. Similarly, if a theme has too many templates/features you do not need, look for a different theme as these unneeded features will only slow your site down.
Filtering for website types can also be done very easily as most theme vendors. There will be built-in filters and spend a couple of minutes extra on the filter page to really tune it to your particular website.
As long as you pay close attention to these two factors at hand, your website will look, feel, and perform exactly according to your need. Now let’s move on to answering some other important questions.
Are Paid WordPress Themes Worth It?
Paid themes cost money for a reason. Usually, paid theme developers’ efforts will be focused on a theme for longer because there are actual paid customers. They will often provide you with superior support and quick bug fixes and ensure compatibility for a good while.
But none of this answers the header question. What you need to understand here is that free themes might be really good for the time being and offer everything some paid offerings do. However, where the free ones really fall apart is in longevity. Free devs are under no obligation to keep working on a theme for a long time.
So yes, paid WordPress themes are absolutely worth it. Usually, they will provide you with exactly what you paid for and offer a better experience for a longer time. Although, we do understand that not everyone can afford paid themes and for those people, we suggest picking a free theme that also has a paid version. That will at least offer proper support if not robust features. Astra and Ocean WP are the two best free themes I recommend.
How to Check if a Theme is Working Properly?
Picking a theme might be tough but under no circumstances should you just pick one and let it be without carrying out proper testing. Testing for abnormalities in your website and by extension themes will ensure you are informed about the problems and know what to change. Here are a few things that you should check before you deploy your website:
- Performance: This will test the speed or page load times of your website. It can be done pretty easily with the help of tools such as GTmetrix.
- Responsiveness: After selecting a theme, you should visit your website using as many different types of devices as you can to see if your site is playing nicely with all of them. A laptop and mobile are the most important but do not forget big-screen devices like desktops and tablets/iPads.
- Browser Compatibility: Not all browsers use the same standards and that is why you should visit your website using all of the popular browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Brave Browser, Safari, and more.
Where to Get the Perfect WordPress Theme?
Most newbies keep their search limited to the first-party WordPress theme gallery. These first-party themes are guaranteed to work well and are updated pretty frequently. The marketplace even has proper filtering options, one-click activation, and everything else you need to get up and running.
However, the world of third-party WordPress themes is even more vast and provides a lot more quality options than the basic WordPress ones. In these theme stores, you have options for basically every single niche you can imagine, and most beat the WordPress catalog by a huge margin in terms of selection. Here are the best third-party WordPress theme stores:
- WordPress Theme Repository
- ThemeForest
- TemplateMonster
- Mojo Marketplace
- Elegant Themes
- StudioPress
Aside from these few, google will be your best friend. Just search for theme marketplaces according to your website types and you are sure to come across a lot of great options.
Conclusion
Hopefully, with our help, you are on your way to building the most perfect website for your business. Theming is not everything when it comes to WordPress websites but it surely contributes a lot to any website. Just remember more often than not, the perfect WordPress theme is not the one that gives the best out-of-the-box experience but the one that is flexible and open to customization!