If you check the internet, we could see a lot of WordPress themes. When you check the WordPress themes repository, you could find thousands of free WordPress themes there. On top of that, several premium theme clubs are also available in the market. For a beginner, choosing the right theme for his blog might be a little hard task. Well, we are here to help you!
In this article, we are going to show you how to choose a WordPress theme for your WordPress blog/ website. We will be covering the main topics you need to consider while purchasing a theme.
How To Choose a WordPress Theme?
Go For a Premium WordPress Theme
As I mentioned earlier, the WordPress themes repository is full of free WordPress themes. And most free WordPress themes come with some limitations. But for taking full control of your website, we always recommend using a premium WordPress theme on your blog.
As an example, let’s take a look at the GeneratePress theme. It is a freemium product with lots of features and customization opportunities. So, when you have installed and activated the free version theme on your blog, you will get only limited features.
If you have access to their premium add-on, you can unlock features like:
- Typography customization.
- Color customization.
- WooCommerce compatibility.
- Site library.
- Backgrounds.
- Menu navigation.
- Import/ Export.
Etc.
Most free WordPress themes come with this type of limited feature. So, if you need to control the whole website, go for a premium WordPress theme.
On top of that, the premium themes got better documentation, security, and support teams. There are so many premium theme clubs are available. We recommend checking out StudioPress, Elegant Themes, MyThemeShop, CSSIgniter, etc.
Responsive
Responsive themes are not optional anymore. You need to choose a responsive WordPress theme for your site. Most WordPress themes in the market are responsive. Studies show that mobile traffic is increasing than computer searches.
So, when your website is using it, the theme will detect the visitor’s screen size, it will fit on the screen correctly. This way, you can improve your overall user experience. No matter you are running an online shop or a personal blog. A responsive WordPress theme is mandatory.
Performance
Nobody likes slow loading websites. For making a WordPress site faster, there are several optimization tricks available like using a caching plugin, minifying the static files, lazy loading images, etc. However, if you are using a big theme, these methods won’t work for you.
Always look for a lightweight WordPress theme. Several tools are available for testing the website speed like Pingdom, GTmetrix, Google Page Speed Insights, etc.
You can utilize those for testing the demo website’s speed. If a demo website is loading under 2 seconds, that’s good. By compressing images, and with the speed optimization methods we mentioned, you can score better on your live environment.
Security
Choose a WordPress theme that will get regular updates. The WordPress core is getting frequently updated with new features, bug fixes, and security improvements. So, you might want to consider purchasing a WordPress theme that will help you with security.
Some security plugins and services are available like Sucuri, Wordfence, etc. for protecting a WordPress site. However, your WordPress theme also needs to comes with a secured code. If you purchase the WordPress theme from a reputed seller, it will be secured with the best practices.
SEO Friendly
After starting a blog, all of us will be thinking about ranking our content higher on search engines. That’s how we can get more page views, website visitors, conversions on the site. With a plugin like Yoast SEO/ Rank Math/ All In One SEO Pack/ SEOPress, we can take care of the on-page SEO.
However, your active WordPress theme also can affect the whole website’s SEO. If it comes with a lightweight and optimized code, your website will load faster, and help search engine crawlers to understand your content better, rank them accordingly in the search results.
Using a heavy theme is not recommended. On top of that, these days, most themes come with integrated Schema.org codes. That will help you too. You can always rely on a schema WordPress plugin for better optimization.
Translation Ready
If you need a massive amount of traffic to your site, you might want to consider making your website a multilingual one. For example, let’s say that you have a product review site. And you are reviewing products available all around the globe. While you translate your guides to another language, you can target that specific country!
This will probably help you to get more country-specific traffic to your site. When we tried the same on some other site, we have seen more page views. All you need is a translation ready WordPress theme or a plugin for translating your blog.
Polylang is a free WordPress plugin used for that process. However, you can get premium services like Weglot if you need more control and features.
Always make sure that your theme accepts translations. In most theme’s product pages, the author team will add this – is the theme translation ready or not. If you can’t see it, you can reach their support team, ask for the same.
Thankfully, most themes in the market are multilingual – especially the premium ones.
Page Builder Optimized
If you want to design a custom homepage for your website or a landing page, you could use any page builder plugins. There are so many WordPress page builder plugins are available like
- Elementor.
- Beaver Builder.
- WPBakery Page Builder.
- Divi Builder.
Etc.
When you choose a theme, make sure that the theme is compatible with the popular WordPress page builders. Creating custom templates and homepage with codes will be a hard task for beginners. So, choosing a page builder optimized WordPress theme will help you to save time and money in website customization.
Reviews
Always try to hear what others are saying.
Let’s say that you are planning to purchase a new premium WordPress theme – GeneratePress, for example. So when you are new to this theme, you might want to hear what the current users are saying. Since the theme is hosted on the WordPress repository, you can quickly check out the reviews section on the product page.
As you can see in the above image, more than 1000 users rated 5 stars for the theme. Compared to the rest of the ratings, this is pretty good. Just like this, try to find reviews about the product you are planning to purchase.
You can search here our blog for product reviews. We will be covering WordPress theme reviews and plugin reviews for our website visitors!
Support and Documentation
Can you rely on a product which the author doesn’t provide support?
Well, I can’t.
While we need to make some customizations or need help with the theme, we probably need to contact the theme author. Most theme clubs got their own documentation section for helping the clients. While you go for a theme, check these things.
If you are planning to use a free version theme from the WordPress themes repository, you would need to check out their support forum. If it is active and the theme author provides support, you might want to consider that.
On the other hand, if the support forum is not active, consider looking for alternatives.
Recommended WordPress Themes
We do have a list of best WordPress themes for our users. In this section, we will be showing you some of the best WordPress themes in the market that will help!
Responsive Pro
If you are following our blog section for a while, probably you have seen our Responsive Pro review. Responsive is a faster, clean, and professional looking WordPress theme created by CyberChimps. It comes with lots of customization opportunities.
You can take control of your whole website. As I mentioned, it allows you to customize your website’s color options, WooCommerce, layouts, etc. And the support team of them is pretty impressive.
Price: $47/ Year
Get Started With Responsive Pro
$This is an affiliate link
Genesis Framework
If you need a secure code and faster loading website, you might want to consider using the Genesis Framework by StudioPress. While using Genesis, you might want to consider using a child theme too. There are so many child themes are available on the StudioPress themes section.
On the other hand, you can always rely on third-party theme clubs for the Genesis child theme or create your own with coding.
NOTE: We are also using a custom child theme made on top of the Genesis Framework. As you can see, this is pretty clean and professional looking.
Price: $59.95/ Lifetime
Get Started With Genesis Framework
$This is an affiliate link
Schema
MyThemeShop is another popular WordPress themes and plugins development company. And they created the Schema theme with the best, lightweight, and SEO friendly code. I am pretty sure that with the Schema WordPress theme, you can score better in the search engines.
A free version is available but not recommended. We always recommend you use the premium version theme on your blog or website.
Price: $59/ Year
Get Started With MyThemeShop Schema
$This is an affiliate link
GeneratePress
GeneratePress is a lightweight WordPress theme for bloggers, affiliate marketers, etc. It’s a free theme. The core is available on the WordPress repository with essential features. You can consider purchasing their premium add-on for taking your website to heights.
GeneratePress is optimized for speed, SEO and comes with lots of clean demos.
Price: $49.95/ Year
Get Started With GeneratePress
$This is an affiliate link
Divi
Divi is another popular WordPress theme in the market. It is created by Elegant Themes. Divi is a complete solution for personal blogs, business websites, etc. It comes with a free page builder called Divi Builder. With Divi Builder, you will be able to create custom, unique homepages, and landing pages.
If you need to check out the premade demos, feel free to check this page.
Price: $89/ Year
Get Started With Divi!
$This is an affiliate link
Conclusion
While you plan to purchase a WordPress theme, you need to search for these. We know a lot of nulled WordPress themes are in the market. But due to the security issues, we will not recommend any of those. If you need to improve your online business, you might want to consider purchasing a premium version theme.
The themes we have mentioned above are tested and used by millions of WordPress blogs around the globe. So, take a look at those WordPress themes.
We hope you have found this article helpful and enjoyed the read. If you did, please consider sharing this article with your friends and fellow bloggers on social media. It will probably help someone to choose the right WordPress theme for his blog.
If you need to publish an article on our website, we do accept guest authors! Feel free to check out our guest blogging guidelines for moving forward!
In our WordPress archives section, you can see more WordPress product reviews, tutorials, etc.
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