Searching for the “ultimate wordpress theme” on Google results in millions of hits. Searching for “the best wordpress themes” results in pretty much the same number of sites. It’s time to narrow the field down, and being an SEO blog, we want to give you the heads up on 10 of the best SEO friendly wordpress themes – all of which you can buy from ThemeForest, except one which is from Elegant Themes.
Our criteria for this Top 10 WordPress Theme blog is pretty simple; the site should be responsively designed, it should have a nice clean code base & utilise some nice SEO features. Below the screenshot of each theme we’ve talked a little about the theme and why it’s worth a look, and also which type of site it is likely to suit best.
SEO Friendly WordPress Themes
5 – Qshop – SEO Optimized WooCommerce WordPress Theme
This search engine friendly WooCommerce WordPress theme is fully responsive, loads amazingly quickly, WPML (translation) ready and makes great use of Microformats / Schema. Qshop really is a fantastic option for anyone looking to advance their search rankings & make a great impression on potential customers. Qshop is also designed with product affiliate marketers, as well as general online shop owners.
Qshop is available from ThemeForest for $59 (around £41), they also offer a free Try Before You Buy scheme.
4 – Zero – SEO Friendly Business WP Theme
Zero is a well designed corporate, yet creative, wordpress theme – it comes with 8 pre-designed structures, but you can of course create your own if you prefer not to be “out of the box” in design. Zero is one of the few premium themes that actually shows you some working examples of the site in their listing, this gives me some confidence in what they do, it was also where I went to look for how seo friendly the theme was. This wordpress theme is really well designed from a code point of view, there isn’t much mess caused by 100’s of plugins that some themes seem to require and the theme is deeply embeded with microformats – indeed pretty much all of the content is marked up, this is superb. The theme is ideal for those who have a short time to get a website live & there isn’t a developer to hand, this is a great partner for any DIY website creators.
ZERO costs $59 from ThemeForest & is marked as a “most wanted theme”.
3 – Bitz – SEO Friendly News Publishing Theme
The SEO optimised magazine theme is jam-packed with SEO goodness. Built from the ground up with schema/microformats in mind, the website is lightning fast, is ready for multi-lingual translation & comes with a bunch of goodies including a really nice social sharing plugin. This is another great theme developer who is happy to share the success of those using his theme by showcasing them. The other great thing about this premium wordpress theme is that it is constantly updated with the last update on Jan 26th 2016, just a few days ago.
BITZ is available for $59 from ThemeForest.
2 – Ruby – Flat Design WordPress Theme
Ruby is a joy to behold, whilst it doesn’t have schema built-in it is very cleanly coded which would allow any developer to implement schema very simply, I suspect the next update will include this. The clean code lets the content really stand out and makes the work of a search spider a little easier. The theme is also tested to pass Google’s mobile algorithm and given its a responsive theme it passes with flying colours. Ruby is also super quick to load and appears to be light on DNS calls, though if you add plugins this could obviously change.
Ruby is available for $44 (£39) on ThemeForest.
1 – DIVI – Perfect for ANY Website
This is the only theme not from ThemeForest and honestly it is my favorite WordPress theme, simply because it is ultra-flexible. I’ve helped to build a ton of websites with Divi, these few will give you an idea of just how flexible it is – Manchester Wedding Photography by Mick Cookson, The Angel Centre & The Oomph Portable Coffee Maker. The system is based on shortcodes, like most other premium wordpress themes, however Divi’s controls are infinitely more flexible and user friendly – add to this that you can change individual styles of a module with a few clicks and without leaving the editors and Divi nears perfection.
Divi is available for $69 (£48) from Elegant Themes.
Original SEO Content by SEOAndy @ Top 5 SEO Friendly WordPress Themes for 2016
