Tips and Tricks for Finding the Best WordPress Themes
21st Oct 2011 | Posted by Eko S. | 3 CommentsWith hundreds of WordPress themes to choose from, you might think that selecting the perfect one would be a breeze, but that’s not usually the case. Some WordPress site owners change their themes almost as often as they change their underwear – at least that’s how it seems.
So how can you stop treating your site like a theme carousel and find a design that you can finally stick with? The answer is the criteria you use to select the theme in the first place.
1. Design Issues
One of the most popular wordpress theme: UDesign
It goes without saying that the theme has to have a great design, and that design has to be appropriate for the content you have. There’s no point in choosing a great magazine theme if your site is mostly text, or selecting a photoblog theme when you don’t use pictures. A great theme will make your content look attractive to readers, with excellent typography and styling for comment boxes, widgets and more. This is not about color, because you can change color. This is about showcasing your content and making sure the site is usable.
While you’re at it, check to see what social media functionality is included in the theme. It’s not a deal breaker, but having built-in, nicely styled social media sharing options can be the reason you choose one theme over another. And that includes styling and functionality for RSS and email subscription and newsletter forms.
2. SEO
Image credits: 123RF Stock Photos
Most decent themes are search engine optimized. If you want to run a quick check, check out the demo site and see how it handles the titles of individual posts and things like category archives. Some themes, especially the premium ones, have even more SEO features built in, so that you get the maximum Google juice from your blogging efforts. While you can get plugins such as Platinum SEO, All in One SEO Pack and others to handle the heavy lifting, it’s also great when you can manage without it. Check for features like being able to no-follow pages, change keywords and descriptions, use canonical URLS and use excerpts on archive pages.
3. Works with Plugins
Image credits: 123RF Stock Photos
Speaking of plugins, a good theme will reduce your plugin load by incorporating some of the functionality directly into the theme. Some themes do this with related posts and social media functions. It’s always a good idea to cut down on plugin load, but if you do have to use plugins, you want to make sure that your chosen WordPress theme will play nicely with it. Check the WordPress plugins directory and see if there are any known issues. It’s heartbreaking when a favorite plugin doesn’t work with your new theme because some piece of code needs to be tweaked.
4. What About Updating?
Image credits: 123RF Stock Photos
One of the best tips for theme choice is to check the changelog and see how often the developers update the theme. Try to match this with changes in WordPress, which is always being updated. That’s how you can tell if your theme is likely to make it through the long haul. If developers are not updating a theme regularly, the chances are that at some point a WordPress update will break your theme. (C’mon, you know this has happened to you before!) If they are updating, then you won’t have a thing to worry about.
5. Ease of Use
Image credits: 123RF Stock Photos
It may seem funny to leave this for the end, but unless you solve all the other issues, there’s no point in getting a theme. When you build your moving services site, you want to be sure that you have solved design, SEO, plugin and updating issues in advance. Then it’s time to assess the final issue – how easy is it for you to use the theme? A good theme will make it easy for you to include a header image, edit menus, include scripts, change colors, change layouts and more. Ideally, it will be hassle-free for those who don’t want to code, while leaving enough in-depth options for those who like getting their hands dirty.
So there you have it: five issues that you need to consider finding the best WordPress theme for your site. What would you add?
Our Recommendation
Below are some themes which we highly recommend you use:
- Best WordPress Themes to Build Responsive Website
- 10 Best Minimalist WordPress Portfolio Themes
- 10 Creative Personal Blog WordPress Themes
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- 10 Beautiful Clean and Minimalist Magazine WordPress Themes
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2 Comments to “Tips and Tricks for Finding the Best WordPress Themes”
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Assalamu’alaykum.
That’s simply very good tips for the beginner with wordpress themes.
Great article. this would help me to select my perfect theme for my new blog! thanks