There are thousands of premium (paid for) and free WordPress themes available, here are my best tips on how to choose the perfect WordPress theme.
Many small businesses do not have a big budget to pay for a new website, but that does not take away from the fact that the right website can help your business out tremendously, by filling it with new leads and customers on a regular basis.
To be honest I do not think there is a perfect WordPress theme out there but there most probably is the perfect theme for your website – or if there is not, then choosing one that you can alter easily to suit your website is the best place to start.
Once you have a great WordPress theme, it can be customised to really reflect your brand.
Any website is only going to get you leads if it is backed up by a proper marketing strategy that is meant to get you more business.
Your website has to have compelling content and ‘speak’ to your audience and provide them with what they need to hear/know before they go on to be your customers.
Choosing the right theme will support your marketing strategy and present your content / company in the right way.
Choosing any theme and squeezing in the content in to it is not the best way to go.
Why You Should Be Careful When Choosing A WordPress Theme
There are thousands of themes out there catering for a huge range of different markets.
They each come with their own customisation options, that allow you to alter the feel and look of your website.
Choosing a theme with the right customisations you are looking for is half of the task – if you choose a theme that does not have the right customisation options (or can accommodate plugins to give you that customisation) then you will be stuck with those options in that theme or you will have to pay a developer to help you provide those customisations – this can be expensive to do.
Some WordPress themes look great with all the bells and whistles you are looking for, however all this ‘baggage’ can make your website run incredibly slow.
None of the visitors to your website will like a slow loading website – people are short of time and lazy – they will not hang around – they will look elsewhere for what they want on your competitors website – you do not want that do you?
Similarly, Google know that people do not like slow loading websites as it is a bad user experience, and they will rank faster websites higher.
Load speed is particularly important for users on a mobile phone, and more and more people are using mobile phones to look for stuff on websites – you get my point – a poorly written slow loading WordPress theme is not something that you want.
Choose A Simple Theme
Many WordPress themes come with a whole host of colours, layouts, features etc but it is quite often the case that you do not need all those features. Focusing on your content and user experience is more of a priority than any particular theme.
Look for a theme that helps to support your goal – a great looking theme that does not get you more customers is not that great is it?
Do not get dazzled by the look of a theme – many use great images but the truth is you will not be suing those images – look past the imagery and concentrate more on the layout options provided.
Think about colours – does it compliment your brand – is it suitable for your audience (pink for girls – blue for boys!!)
Would a dark website suit you? People generally prefer lighter coloured sites, but a darker site might suit your nightclub website better.
Choose a theme with fonts that are easy to read – fonts that are simple, sophisticated and easy to read – remember many people will be reading your website on their mobile phones.
Make Sure Your Theme Is Responsive When Deciding How To Choose The Perfect WordPress Theme.
As indicated above, more and more users are using mobile phones and handheld devices to find stuff on the internet. It varies with particular niches, but more than 50% of your traffic could come from mobiles.
So your WordPress theme needs to be responsive – so that is adjusts the page layout to suit different screen sizes and devices. Your website has to look good on a 24” monitor and a 5” phone screen. Google shows responsive or mobile friendly, websites on top in their mobile search results.
Test to see if a theme is mobile friendly by resizing your browser screen or trying it out on Google’s Mobile friendly test page here: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
Make Sure Your WordPress Theme Is Browser Friendly
Most theme developers test their themes on different web browsers to make sure they look good on all browsers.
Just because your website looks good on your Chrome browser does not mean it will look the same or look good on Firefox.
Make sure yours works well on Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Safari etc and mobile phone browsers.
Ensure Your WordPress Theme Supports Must Have Plugins
Your WordPress Theme can be enhanced with WordPress Plugins.
Plugins add additional functionality to your theme such as the ability to each make submission forms, helping with SEO, making an online shop, photo galleries, even speeding up your website.
If you know of a particular plugin that you want make sure your theme supports that plugins use.
Do You Need a Multilingual Website?
You may need your website not to be in the English language – you might need some pages to be in Polish for your Polish Courier Service – if so you need to make sure that your chosen theme is translation ready and supports multilingual WordPress plugins.
Do You Want A Page Builder?
Some WordPress themes come with page builders pre installed by the developer.
A page builder allows you to use a drag and drop interface to build your web pages. Some page builders come as a plugin you can add to your WordPress theme.
Page builders are handy for building a web page but they do produce a lot of unwanted code and can cause your web site to load slowly (a problem – see above!).
If you decide to switch theme or stop using (paying!) a page builder, then the web pages that you have built will require a lot of work to tidy them up make them looking good and functional again.
If you fancy the idea of using a page builder despite their draw backs, get a theme that fully supports their use when deciding how to choose the perfect WordPress theme.
Help When You Need It
Free WordPress themes rarely come with support when things go wrong – the developer may support the theme for a year or two but this will usually be when they get round to doing it! If you mess up a theme this could be inconvenient to say the lease.
Most premium (paid for) themes come with good documentation and email support for queries – quite often a helpful forum or Facebook group as well to keep your business running.
Good Coding Helps Your SEO
Having a solid code base produced by a reputable theme developer, will help with your sites speed and search engine ranking. A good looking site can still generate poor HTML which could affect your rankings.
Reviews And Ratings
Have a look at ratings and reviews for your theme.
See what others are saying and if they are using that theme on the type of website you are planning.
Read the good and bad ones and you will get a good idea of how the theme is viewed in general.
As with all reviews, treat them with caution, an affiliate selling those themes may give it a higher rating and their ‘competition’ may give it a lower star rating.
Get Feedback
Asking other people what they think about a theme can also be helpful.
Ask someone who does not have a lot of experience of website what they think – is it easy to use, can they find what they are looking for, is the call to action obvious, are things where they might expect them to be.
Take on board what clients are saying and suggestions for improvement.
See how people use your website and see where they get stuck and pause.
Your website traffic will come from a variety of sources and those people will have a variety of abilities, many will be new to your website.
Sometimes you, as an expert, are too close to how it works, to decide on what would work best or better on it.
Features Of WordPress Themes
Choose a theme that supports your business strategy and converts at a really high rate.
Think about your particular needs which may include:
- Adaptable layouts
- Built in lead capture forms to build your email list
- Well designed testimonial sections
- The ability to easily add videos
- Not overly reliant on images – to rank you need lots of text based sections for well written sales copy
- The need for speed
- Items to consider
- The number of pre-built page templates – you can customise these straight out of the box
- The number of different readymade sections or content blocks offered – these are building blocks you can mix and match to create the perfect webpage that is going to serve your content in the right way
- Menu options – Main menu with name / logo space – sticky menus are good with obvious CTA button in top right hand corner
- Header layouts – Hero section with great image (maybe the ability to use a background video for hero image), space fort a headline, space for a subheadline and a CTA (call to action) button
- A video player section
- A USP section showing the top 3 benefits that clients can expect to get when they use you maybe show 3 icons or 3 photos
- Lots of different sections make visitors want o scroll down to see what is next
- Logo section for different companies you have worked with – social proof
- Latest blog section
- Gallery
- A testimonials section with image of testimonial giver, testimonial, name, job/location
- A lead capture / lead magnet form
- Online appointment sections
- Footer section menu and options
Many themes are grouped into categories – such as art, business, photography etc but do not limit your choices to a particular category – an ‘art’ theme may suit your accountancy business!
Find a demo version that closely meets your need and start customising it from there.
Summary
Choose a theme that supports your business strategy and converts at a really high rate.
Some theme suggestions:
- The Pillar Theme
- Launchkit Theme
- Divi Theme – most popular theme in the world – visual page builder – highly customable but slower to load
- The Gem Theme
- Consulting Theme
- StudioPress Themes
I hope these tips on how to choose the perfect WordPress theme help you make the best choice for your own particular needs.
If you need more help, contact us for a free friendly chat.
