What to consider while choosing a WordPress theme for your site

Choosing a WordPress theme is the first step to your online venture success. A good theme can put you miles ahead of your competition and as such should be carefully chosen. A good WordPress theme will in several ways improve your site search engine ranking, appeal to your visitors and can get them to return always. Whether you are choosing a free WordPress theme or a premium theme, there are some factors you really need to consider while making your choice and I want to discuss them here in this article.

There are thousands if not millions of WordPress themes out there with all promising to be the best, but are they? The answer is definitely NO! Some WordPress themes lack several features that can help your blog succeed and you should be informed on the things to watch out for while choosing a WordPress theme. WordPress theme is not just all about its looks and design, in this article I will be discussing other important factors to consider while choosing a WordPress theme for your site.  So here is a complete guide o what to consider while choosing a WordPress theme for your site.

Things to consider while choosing a WordPress theme

SEO Features: You shouldn’t be surprised I placed this one first, yes the SEO features of every WordPress theme should be considered before deciding if to use it or not. Would you be surprised if I tell you that some WordPress themes are poorly coded? I bet you won’t be. SEO is a very important factor in every website, it won’t be nice to labour hard and yet rank poorly in search engines as a result of the poor choice of WordPress theme you designed your site with. Ensure the theme assigns a H1 and alt tags to your post titles and images respectively. No matter what WordPress theme you choose, it should be SEO friendly. So try and read reviews online about any WordPress theme before choosing it.

Responsiveness of the Theme: Here is my second most important feature to check out in choosing a WordPress theme for my sites. A god WordPress theme must be responsive so as to fit into any screen size or device and save you from having to design different sites for different devices. Here are more reasons why you should use a responsive design for your website. With more and more people accessing the web via mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, it is imperative your site is mobile-friendly and to achieve this easily at no cost is to choose a responsive theme while designing your site.

Speed: Search engines and humans loves fast loading sites, not only will a slow loading theme increase your site bounce rate, it will also affect your site search engine rakings generally. Google and other search engines have reiterated the importance of fast site loading speed, so would you shoot yourself on the foot by choosing a slow loading WordPress theme for your site? Remember by the time you add plugins it is going to eve load more slowly. Your site visitors do not like to wait for so long to open a webpage, so as not to lose your visitors and perform poorly in the SERP ensure to choose only a fast loading theme while choosing a WordPress theme for your site.

Theme Design/Looks: This is also an important factor to consider while choosing a WordPress theme for your site. A good WordPress theme should at least be appealing enough to attract and catch a visitor’s attention to read your content and even go ahead exploring more pages of your site. Your theme design is the first impression you make to a first time visitor, if your site looks poor I design and looks, the visitor may quickly hit the close button and move on to another site. Consider the theme colors, the layout, navigation, widgets, footer and header areas before choosing a WordPress theme for your site. Avoid themes with clusters and poor color combinations; avoid themes with poor designs and layouts.

Support: I once encountered a client whose WordPress theme has never been updated and wasn’t compatible with the latest WordPress version at that time, I tried contacting the support for help but to no avail, at the end of the day I had to change the theme entirely to Genesis theme. I strongly advise people to use only WordPress themes with good developer support 24/7. The WordPress theme developer should be able to update his theme on regular basis to meet up with the WordPress version at every point in time.

Other factors to consider while choosing a WordPress theme for your site include easy customizations, browser compatibility, prize of the theme, social media integration etc. If you watch out for all the listed tips here you will surely choose a good WordPress theme for your site and this can greatly improve your site both in user experience and search engine ranking.

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