How to Choose the Best WordPress Theme? – The Ultimate Guide
- 11 Minutes to read
Table of Content
- Introduction
- What is a WordPress Theme?
- What Are the Types of WordPress Themes
- Must-have WordPress Theme Features
- Why is it Important to Choose the Right WordPress Theme?
- What to Consider Before Choosing a WordPress Theme?
- How to Choose the Best WordPress Theme?
- Where to Find the Right WordPress Theme?
- Choose the Best WordPress Template & Get Started!
- FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions
Introduction
It’s obvious that you’re building your website using WordPress, the most used CMS worldwide, because you’re here to look at how to choose the best WordPress themes.
Also Bloatware, in the form of poorly written code, unnecessary pre-installed plugins, and excessive file sizes, is common in today’s WordPress theme repository. Most of these themes can slow down your site’s performance, and new visitors may not understand why. Understanding how to select a WordPress theme is, thus, crucial.
But , there are more than 31,000 WordPress themes available in the global market for download and purchase. And which one to choose for your website could be difficult. So how do you know which one to pick?
Let’s get started!
What is a WordPress Theme?
A WordPress theme is a group of templates and stylesheets that determine how a WordPress website looks and works. It decides the site’s layout, colours, and fonts, as well as how it looks and works as a whole. Through the WordPress dashboard, themes can be changed. This lets users choose from a number of already-made themes or make their own.
There are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes that can be used to make many different kinds of websites, from blogs and portfolios to e-commerce stores and forums. Some themes are made for certain kinds of websites, like news sites or online stores, while others are more flexible and can be used for any kind of site.
It’s important to choose a responsive WordPress theme that works with the plugins and features you want to use on your site. It’s mandatory to choose the best WordPress theme because the wrong one wastes your time and efforts and also lets down your website’s presence.
What Are the Types of WordPress Themes
Now you know what a WordPress theme is, but you need to know how many types of WordPress themes are there and which one is perfect for you as per your needs. Myriads of different types of WordPress themes are available, including:
Free Themes: These are themes that are freely available to download and use on your WordPress site. Many free themes are basic and may not offer as many features and customization options as premium themes.
Premium Themes: These are themes that are sold by third-party developers or companies and often offer more features and customization options than free themes. Premium themes may also include support and updates.
Custom Themes: These are themes that are designed specifically for a particular website or client. They are usually created by professional web developers or the best WordPress development companies and offer complete customization of the design and functionality of the site.
Parent Themes and Child Themes: A parent theme is a complete theme that includes all of the templates and stylesheets needed to define the appearance and functionality of a WordPress website. A child theme is a theme that inherits the functionality of the parent theme and allows users to make customizations and changes without modifying the parent theme’s code.
Multipurpose Themes: These are themes that are designed to be versatile and can be used for a wide range of websites, including blogs, online stores, and business sites.
Niche Themes: These are themes that are specifically designed for a particular type of website, such as a news site or an online store. They often include features and functionality that are specific to that type of site.
Must-have WordPress Theme Features
Each WordPress theme is unique, and you can choose from a wide variety of options for its characteristics. Some are merely for aesthetic purposes, while others can be essential to the practical operation of your website.
You should opt for a theme that includes these essential features, regardless of the specific requirements that your website has:
- Performance
- Flexibility
- Ultimate Security
- SEO-Friendly
- AMP Optimised
- Easily Customizable
- Mobile Responsiveness
- E-commerce Ready
- Translation & WPML Ready
- Fair Pricing Model
- Well Documented
- Accessibility
- Support and Maintenance
Now that you know what to look for, what are the things you should avoid when choosing a theme?
However, WordPress themes that fit your requirements are not always bad but you should avoid the WordPress theme that is bloated or with too many features, these kinds of themes are not always user-friendly. Secondly, Inactive support is bad. Official WordPress developers can help you install a theme or fix a bug. No support suggests it’s no longer updated.
Why is it Important to Choose the Right WordPress Theme?
The theme you choose will determine the functionality of your site, such as the types of content that can be displayed and the features that are available. It’s important to choose a theme that includes the features and functionality you need for your site.
The theme of your website is what it is to the people who visit it. It’s what they take in, what they interact with, and what they remember. The way your website looks and works affects not only how people see you online, but also how they think of your brand as a whole. To put it another way, you need to get your point across.
The theme you choose can also affect the user experience of your website. A well-designed theme will make it easy for users to navigate your site and find the information they are looking for.
If you don’t choose the right WordPress theme for your website, it could end up being a complete failure. For instance, if you choose the incorrect WordPress theme for your e-commerce website, it could give the impression that it is really serious and uninteresting, even though it sells whimsical and cute things. It is also possible that it will cause your website to operate more slowly and clumsily.
Then How can you ensure that you make the correct decision? Find out below.
What to Consider Before Choosing a WordPress Theme?
When choosing a WordPress theme, you should keep in mind the following details:
Purpose: Why do you have this website? Create a blog, an online shop, a company site, or something else you have in mind? It’s important to pick a theme that’s appropriate for the purpose of your website.
Design: Conceptualize by keeping the theme’s aesthetic in mind. Does it seem well and fit nicely with your site’s identity? Do you get what you need in terms of features and functionality?
Responsiveness: Make sure the theme is responsive, meaning it scales to fit the viewing device’s screen. For optimal usability across all platforms, this is a must.
Compatibility: Make sure the plugins and functionality you intend to utilise are compatible with the WordPress theme you’ve chosen. It’s possible that certain themes won’t have all the features you’d like or won’t be compatible with some WordPress plugins.
Performance: Think of the theme’s performance, including how fast it loads and how well it runs generally. To make sure your site loads quickly and functions correctly, you should use a theme that has been optimised for performance.
Updates and support: try to find a theme that has both. This is especially crucial for paid WordPress themes; you’ll want to be sure you can get in touch with someone if you run into trouble, and that the theme is always updated to take advantage of any new features WordPress rolls out.
Budget: Consider the theme’s price, especially if you’re going for a paid option. Verify that the value you’ll receive exceeds the price.
Choose a theme that fits your needs in terms of appearance, responsiveness, plugin compatibility, feature availability, and overall performance. You should also try to find a theme that has both support and updates built in.
How to Choose the Best WordPress Theme?
Need a little more help? Because you know what your website will be about, how it will look, what it will be used for, and how much it will cost. The next step is to come up with a theme that you like.
When looking at your options, think about how well each theme does in the following areas. Once you have a short list, it will be easy to see which option is best for your WordPress site.
1. Fulfil Your Requirements
Before searching WordPress themes, determine your needs. Don’t start a WordPress site without a goal. Is a blog section essential? Do you need embedded videos? Do you want client data or signups?
After determining your needs, you may start filtering out themes. Before exploring WordPress themes, you need to know your site’s needs.
Consider your budget constraints now. If your needs are simple, a free WordPress theme may work. Depending on features, premium WordPress themes might cost a few dollars to hundreds of dollars.
Examine the themes of WordPress websites that are similar to yours and work in your industry. Share your favourites. Please offer recommendations for improving the service. This will form your theme “checklist.”
2. Simplicity
WordPress themes have many colour, font, motion, and layout options, which can be distracting to users.
You’re developing a WordPress website for your audience. Consider how you would react to reading text on a website with distracting animations, pop-ups, and changing colours and fonts.
The most important thing is that your site works, is easy to read, and does what it’s supposed to do without looking boring and generic. Choose a theme that is simple but beautiful and has enough options for you to add your own touch without going off the track.
3. Functionality
The theme you choose should be easy to navigate, especially for first-time visitors. Simplifying matters greatly.
Users should be able to easily find what they’re looking for on the homepage. Many visitors will immediately abandon a website if your theme is overloaded with unnecessary effects and functions. While special effects come and go, a focus on the user experience should remain.
To verify this, you can easily test the theme’s demo, which should be accessible from the main listing page. You may see how the theme looks and functions in action and get a sense of how it can work for your own site.
In certain cases, a theme will come with a number of pre-built demo sites that can be imported into your own domain and customized to reflect your own information.
4. Responsiveness
To ensure that each and every visitor has a positive experience, a high-quality WordPress theme will be able to accommodate a wide variety of operating systems, browsers, and devices.
You will need a design that reorganizes material to create a single column layout on smaller displays. This type of layout is far easier to read on mobile devices and is crucial for effective SEO.
Even better, opt for a theme that was built with “mobile first” in mind, which simply means it was created with more compact screens in mind. Because more than half of your traffic comes from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, you’ll be able to effectively communicate with the bulk of your audience.
5. Compatibility
Keep in mind that plugins frequently help to enhance your chosen theme and provide the functionality that you are seeking for when making your selection.
Even though it happens everytime, there are situations in which a plugin and a theme do not get along very well when used together. It is important that you carefully read the documentation in order to determine whether or not the WordPress plugins that you wish to use are compatible with the theme that you have selected.
You could also want to look for themes that are compatible with particular plugins that you intend to use. A theme that requires dozens of plugins can be a warning sign; on the other hand, if it works well with popular plugins for caching, security, and ecommerce, that can be a plus.
6. Customization
With WordPress, you may modify the appearance of any theme to suit your needs. Make sure you can change things like the theme’s font, colors, photos, layout, and pages before selecting a WordPress theme.
Adding your company’s colors and style by customizing your theme is a great way to make a strong first impression and establish a sense of continuity throughout your website.
Choose a theme that works with a drag-and-drop page builder like Elementor to make these modifications easily. You can change themes while using the best website builders.
7. Cross-browser Compatibility
You never know your visitors will visit your site from which browser, and there are a lot of web browsers available worldwide. In order to show your WordPress website as it is in every web browser, you should check the theme’s browser compatibility.
Always keep multiple browser compatibility in mind. In terms of web browsers, you may expect a wide variety of preferences from your audience like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc.
Many popular WordPress themes are supporting every latest web browser, all you need to do is check them out in every possible browser for testing purposes.
8. Support and Maintenance
Try to find a theme that is still being actively developed. You should make it a habit to update your theme on a regular basis, since this will ensure that it is compatible with the most recent releases of PHP and WordPress and will keep your website safe.
When viewing a theme in the WordPress library, a date indicating the time since the theme’s most recent change should be displayed. Support packages are something that is offered by a lot of third-party themes, and they can be especially helpful for beginners.
9. SEO-Optimized
Not all themes claim to be SEO-friendly. You may not know if it’s well-made unless you know HTML5.
But It’s best to choose an SEO-friendly theme, although it’s not always obvious. Under-the-hood SEO optimization involves page structure.
SEO-friendly themes are compact, responsive, and well-structured.
A poorly structured page has inadequately nested headings/multiple H1 headings, complex navigation menus, and untidy HTML code. You must create high-quality content for SEO optimization.
10. Ratings & Reviews
Look for a theme that already has a solid standing in the industry. You should conduct a search online to check for reviews and comments on the theme that you have chosen; did it function well, was it simple to use, and was the developer receptive to reports of difficulties or bugs?
Look for a theme that has a lot of installs and has received positive reviews; the more people who have used a theme, the more likely it is that any problems with it have been worked out, and the more likely it is that there will be a lot of people who can answer your questions or assist you out.
Where to Find the Right WordPress Theme?
When it comes to choosing the right WordPress theme, there are many marketplaces. But here I’ve listed the best marketplaces for WordPress themes.
1. WordPress.org Theme Directory
Most people who want to find a WordPress theme start at the source, which is the WordPress.org theme directory. This marketplace has great free and paid themes for all kinds of websites, 5,000 and the number of themes is still growing.
One of the best things about choosing a theme from this source is that WordPress carefully looks over every theme that is submitted. This market has strict rules that themes must follow, so you can be sure that any product you find here is of good quality.
2. Themeforest
If you thought that 5,000 themes was a lot, Themeforest will blow your expectations out of the water. Due to the focus on premium themes, you do have to buy everything here, but prices range from $10 to $1000.
Themeforest, which is owned by Envato, has some of the most popular WordPress themes. It also has a site layout that makes it easy for users to find the themes they need, and it has curated choices.
Still, because there are so many themes to choose from, it’s a good idea to look at the developer’s update logs and documentation before buying any WordPress themes you’re interested in.
3. Themify
Themify sells premium WordPress themes and plugins. They offer themes for eCommerce stores, business websites, personal blogs, and more. Some of their themes also come with ready-made WordPress templates for making websites for restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, marketing agencies, and so on.
It comes with a Themify Builder that can be used to change any theme. The drag-and-drop page builder works with all of their plugins to give your site powerful new features.
You can use all of their themes, plugins, add-ons, and design files for just $89. For $249, you can use all Themify resources for life and get support and updates.
Choose the Best WordPress Template & Get Started!
The process of selecting a WordPress theme can be daunting and time-consuming. However, given the significance of your theme, it is usually advisable to do some primary research. Use the above as a framework for refining your search.
What happens after installing a theme? Most themes won’t immediately match the demo. Demo sites are filled with material to demonstrate the theme’s capabilities.
Take your time learning your theme, and don’t hesitate to ask the WordPress community or theme developer for advice. Use the Customizer to establish basic fonts and colours, add blocks as needed on each page, and remember that plugins might add missing functionality.
Your site will be live and available to the public in no time.
FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions
1. How to Install a WordPress Theme?
Your website’s look and functionality can both benefit from using a WordPress theme. You may find and download a free WordPress theme from WordPress’s theme directory.
Follow these steps to Install WordPress theme:
- Log in to your WordPress account
- Navigate to Appearance > Themes
- On the Themes page, select Add New at the top of the page
- Choose a theme
- Click Download to begin the installation process
- Click Activate
2. Do you have any Best WordPress Themes in Mind?
Nowadays, the vast majority of WordPress themes are mobile-ready right out of the box. The problem is that there are so many options that picking one is difficult, that’s why here are the best WordPress themes:
- Astra
- Divi
- SeedProd
- OceanWP
- Ultra
- Authority Pro
3. Is it possible to Change WordPress Theme without Losing Data?
You might worry that changing themes will lose all the content on your site if, for example, changing themes triggers a feature that gets rid of all content when you change themes. But, as luck would have it, that is not the case. Changing your theme won’t lose any of your work either its posts or pages.
