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How To Choose the Best WordPress Theme (& Things to Consider)

This is a dilemma, we know! 

The WordPress directory currently lists more than 10,509 themes. While there are over thousands of more WordPress themes that are not listed in this directory. 

It is difficult to choose and pick one perfect theme out of thousands of choices for your business website.

Use this easy, quick guide to get some assistance on how to choose the Premium WordPress Themes and also free WordPress theme,

Later we have also listed some considerations making it possible for you to select the right theme for your official business website.

How to Choose Best WordPress Themes for your Site?

Have you searched for “best WordPress Themes” on Google before perusing this guide? If yes, the results must have perplexed you even more. You would have found different articles listing various themes leaving you confused.

Well… That’s not how it is done! 

There are a few queries you should always ask yourself before selecting a theme, whether you’re building your first WordPress website or your 50th. So we have 4 pointers for you in this regard:

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1. Structure and layout according to the website’s content:

The first and most crucial factor when choosing a theme is the type of content that will be posted on your website.

Are you creating a blog, a business page, a portfolio, or an e-commerce store? This would significantly influence the theme you choose because they require different structures and layouts.

Therefore, WordPress offers different templates keeping in mind the need of each type of site. 

To get a clearer idea of the web designs, evaluate a few websites owned by your competitor companies.

If any of your competitors have built sites with WordPress, you would be able to find out the theme they are using.

2. Functionality and purpose of the website:

The second most crucial thing is that you should be certain about the purpose and functionality of your website.

Do you require a design that works for e-commerce stores, restaurant menus, or some other features?

Although plugins can be used to add these features, it is preferable to start with a theme that already has them. This would save you time and won’t increase the total size of your business website. 

Also, Extra plugins can slow down your site! So, it is recommended to go for themes that include almost all the functionality you want your website to have.

3. What’s your brand style?

WordPress allows you to customize your themes according to your preferences, but that’s not advisable in every case.

Themes have their distinctive fonts and color schemes, so it is recommended to purchase them rather than investing the time and effort in customizing a theme, otherwise, what’s the benefit then?

Is your brand’s aesthetic classy and refined? – Look for a light theme, simple font, and good use of white spaces. 

Or is your brand’s aesthetic bold? Look for a theme that has a dark bright color scheme with bold and overlapping shapes.

4. Your Budget:

There are countless free theme choices available, which can be useful at the start for some businesses like blogging sites. Later website can be upgraded with increasing traffic and revenue.

Freemium themes don’t allow you to enjoy all features, that’s a drawback here!

Therefore, most people advise buying a premium theme if you can afford it from $25 to $30. This will unlock a lot more features for your professional business website.

Also, a yearly fee is required for premium themes with unique designs or features. Keep in mind that this charge will be in addition to other website expenses.

All these points will help you to narrow down the choices.

The next step is to pick one right theme after considering the following factors!

10 Considerations for Selecting the Best Theme

After learning how to choose the best WordPress themes, let’s evaluate your shortlisted themes. Consider the following factors for evaluation, and select that best fits your requirements.

1. Available Features

It is crucial to determine which theme offers you the most features you need for your business website.

For example, for your e-commerce site you need a working “add to cart” feature and a proper transaction page with some security features. Also, requirements can be a good product listing page with various filters and comparison tools.

2. Customization

All themes offer some degree of customization, but having few options will constrain your ability to distinguish your website. 

Test to see if you can add the page components you want and alter the appearance to fit your brand if a theme description includes a customizer demo.

3. Responsiveness

This is one of the features that WordPress recommends itself. 

A responsive WordPress theme adapts the website structure to the height of the browser window to enhance browsing.

You can’t just rely on the statement in the description of almost every theme that says technically responsive.

There are a few methods to test responsive design using a theme’s demo. To see how the layout alters, you can view the demo on a mobile device and reduce the area of your browser window.

4. Cross-Browser Compatibility

We mostly check our website’s compatibility on Chrome ignoring other modern browsers like Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox.

You never know which web browser your visitor is preferring. Therefore, showing negligence can harm the UI/UX of your website and this could negatively impact your business.

Popular themes are mostly compatible with all browsers. This is also mentioned in their respective description. You can also check the theme by opening the demo in a few separate browser tabs.

5. Plugin Support

It is recommended to select a theme that is compatible with most or all WordPress plugins

Other than basic blog editing plugins, the theme should also support SEO tools, contact forms, social sharing, e-commerce features, and more.

6. Code Quality 

Your website’s SEO rankings may suffer if your theme has messy code, which signals to Search engine algorithms that your site is of poor quality.

Not Just this, the functionality of your website may suffer from a WordPress theme that has been badly written. It may cause sluggishness, clutter your database with useless data, and even leave it vulnerable to hackers.

W3C Markup Validator is one of the helpful tools to examine the theme’s code quality.

7. Performance

The theme should not make your website load slowly. 

As it can offend your visitors and SEO crawlers can rank down your website on the basis of your website speed

Google Core Web Vitals update measures the performance of any site on how much time it takes to load, as it directly links to user experience.

To make sure a good performance, select a theme that only has the necessary features for your business website. Extra features will cost you in any way, providing you with no benefits.

Also, as said in the previous point, code quality plays a key role in a website’s performance as well.

8. Updates

WordPress themes should update every 2-3 months with new security features, performance improvements, bug fixes, and more.

It is recommended not to use themes that are not updated for at least six months.

9. Customer Support

Most WordPress free themes don’t come with customer support. 

While paid themes offer this feature for a limited period (say a few months or so). Later you can renew the premium customer support feature with a monthly or annual fee.

10. Theme Reviews

Last but not least, you should look for other people’s opinions on the theme.

Consider a theme with five-star ratings, good installation numbers, and a lot of positive reviews – All this indicates the high satisfaction level of users giving you the confidence to purchase.

Final Words:

That’s it from this guide; how to choose the best WordPress themes. It’s time for some final words.

Selecting a theme for your WordPress site can be difficult and time-consuming. But that is totally worthwhile!

Keeping in mind the significance of theme in building your business website, it’s always wise to do some study before choosing one.

After making a short list of themes and narrowing choices based on the 4 points mentioned above, choose the best theme by weighing it against the 10 factors stated.