How to Choose a WordPress Theme 1

byDreamer56

2.8K followers

Updated 8 years ago

With the thousands of choices available it is hard to know how to choose the best WordPress theme for your website. There are many factor to consider.

Today in our quest to find the perfect WordPress theme let's look at the importance of simplicity, reviews and ratings, support, and speed.

Hey Y'all,

Hope everyone is having a tremendous day! If not try to remember this. There is no such thing as a bad day: just a bad moment we choose to carry with us all day long.

So let that moment go, smile even if you don't feel like it (you will be surprised at the result) and think of at least one thing you have to be thankful for and allow your day to get better.

At least you don't have your ex's name tattooed on your arm! Oops sorry sore subject.

Simplicity

There are so many WordPress themes out there that look incredible. They have all the bells and whistles. They offer sliders, every color of the rainbow. every font known to man (or at least Google), animation and much more.

You might think you need all this in some cases, and you may be correct. But do you really?

You can have the best looking theme on the internet but if it doesn't help bring visitors to your site it is of no value to you. If your visitor can't find what they are looking for due to an overly complicated theme they will go down the road

Not only will the wrong theme make it difficult for your visitor to find the information they are seeking it can also be incredibly slow to load.

Let's keep in mind why we are sweating blood to create our websites. We are providing answers or products that consumers are searching for. In return we hope that they will purchase the product or service we are promoting. If they can't find our information there is no way this can happen.

A simple clean, crisp theme will help us do that.

Ratings and Reviews

Your WordPress dashboard is a great place to start looking for themes, but you can only learn so much about a theme there. I would suggest after finding a theme or a few themes you are interested in, write them down and let Google do the rest.

For example: simply enter Iconic One WordPress theme and view the results.

One of the first things I noticed when I Googled this theme was the entire first page was all Iconic One. No pages about the top 5 themes or anything else. If you look at the first position you will notice it is from WordPress.org.

If you search a theme and you can't find it referenced in WP that should raise a red flag. If only the theme's website is available proceed with caution. I am not saying it is a bad theme but you need to take notice.

Ratings and reviews are a great way to judge a theme. You can learn what other that are using the theme actually think about it. Take the time to read the reviews. Remember the theme you choose is the foundation of your business. Investing a bit of time now will pay off down the road.

Also on this page you can see the last time the theme was updated. This is very important it can show if the theme is still being supported by the developer. This is also very important with plugins.

In most cases there will be a link to the theme's home page another great place to get information on the theme. Most of the better themes will have a demo site to look at. This makes it easy to test for load speed and SEO friendliness.

Support

On the https://wordpress.org/themes/iconic-one/ page you can also check out the support forum. Take some time and read what problems users are experiencing with a theme. Open a few of the questions up and see if they were resolved in a timely manner. This theme appears to have excellent support.

You can also learn a lot about theme support at the theme's web page if available (which is another indication of a good theme). The Themonic Theme developers offer excellent support.

As you can see the support team answers the questions in 12 hours that is impressive. That is for all users not just for the people that purchased the upgrade. It appears questions are answered 24/7 for pro members.

This brings up one more point about support forums. Check to see who is answering the questions. Is it a member of the development team? Many theme forums are answered by anyone one in attendance. There is a big difference.

I know we have an excellent support forum within WA. Many members myself included will load a theme and offer all the they can. That being said it is much better to be able to get the answer straight from the theme developer's mouth.

No, I am not trying to shove the Iconic One theme down your throat. This information is offered as examples of what to look for as we learn how to choose a WordPress theme. I would however suggest this theme if you are just starting out. It may not be the theme you will stay with, but it is a great start.

Please remember this. There is not a theme in the world that will attract visitors. That has to be done with your content. If you are just starting out grab a theme and go.

Don't worry about the color or size of the font of your title. Don't worry about sliders. Don't worry about the bells and whistles.

Concentrate on creating CONTENT. As you create content you will develop a better feel of the direction you want to take your site which will make it easier to choose a theme.

Also please never upload an image to your media library that has not been optimized. Not resized even tho that is a good practice too, but optimized. If you don't quite understand what that is all about holler. That is one of the biggest speed killers on your site.

I was going to add speed to this post but I am sure you are tired of scrolling down the page. I will add it to the next post.