What To Consider When Choosing A WordPress Theme

What To Consider When Choosing A WordPress Theme

• By Marcus Taylor


• December 4th, 2014


• Techniques (WP)Themes


• 3 Comments

Economists have taught us that a lot of choice is not always a good thing¹. Having many options can lead to “analysis paralysis” and a feeling of being overwhelmed, due to a increasing bid compulsory and a turn of doubt in creation a right choice.

With a scarcely total pool of WordPress themes to select from, it becomes so easy to feel impressed and review to inaction or selecting a low-quality theme. In cases where we have a lot of options, it pays to know accurately what we need.

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“Premium WordPress themes” Google search. (View vast version³)

Put another way, how many easier is shopping a bottle of booze when we know that we cite reds and that your favorite red is Australian Shiraz? This tiny volume of trust cuts a choice between 500 bottles in a store down to 10.

In this post, I’ll share what we trust are a many vicious factors to consider, so that we know accurately what to bear in mind a subsequent time you’re on a hunt for a good theme.

To start off, let’s answer one of a many common questions asked: Is it value profitable for a WordPress theme, or can we get divided with a giveaway one?

1. Price: Free Vs. Premium Themes

Several years ago, a cost of a thesis was a good indicator of a quality. Free themes were mostly feeble coded during best, and were used to constraint supportive user information during worst. But times have changed, and developers in a WordPress village have combined thousands of good giveaway themes to select from.

As such, there is no decisive winner. Both giveaway and reward themes have their pros and cons, that are minute below.

Pros of Premium Themes

• More updates
  
  Perhaps a many constrained reason to select a reward thesis is that such themes are typically updated some-more often. Given a quick expansion of a WordPress calm government complement (CMS), carrying a thesis that is frequently updated to patch new confidence issues is critical.


• Less tangible design
  
  Because giveaway WordPress themes are so popular, it’s not odd for tens of thousands of websites to use a same giveaway one. Premium themes are reduction common, that set them detached a bit more.


• Better documentation
  
  Most reward themes embody a minute PDF explaining how to get a many out of them. Such support is reduction common with giveaway themes.


• Ongoing support
  
  Premium thesis developers positively offer a best support, customarily by a mixed of a open forum, live plead and an email ticketing system. Free themes customarily usually have a open forum for support.


• No detrimental links
  
  Many giveaway themes mostly need a couple to seem in a footer crediting a theme’s author. While this is apropos reduction common in giveaway themes, we can be certain that no links are compulsory in reward themes.

Cons of Premium Themes

• The price
  
  You’ll have to deposit anywhere between $50 to $200 in a reward theme.


• More configuration
  
  Most reward themes have their possess tradition administration panel, with a accumulation of customization settings, that can take a while to learn and set up.


• Unwanted features
  
  Premium themes tend to embody a lot of bells and whistles, such as mixed slider plugins, a portfolio manager and additional skins. While these do make a thesis unequivocally versatile, a lot of neglected facilities will grow a theme.

In general, a many vicious aspect to demeanour for in a theme, either giveaway or paid, is a peculiarity and caring that’s left into creation it. The peculiarity of a formula will change all we plead in this article, from confidence to page speed.

The easiest approach to sign peculiarity is to review what business are saying. If a thesis has a open support forum, review what kinds of issues people are having, and how manageable a developers are in solution them.

2. Speed: Lightweight Vs. Feature-Heavy Themes

In my final post here on Smashing Magazine, we emphasized a significance of optimizing website speed⁴. Fast page-loading speed does not usually urge a ubiquitous user knowledge of a website, yet has also been reliable to urge hunt engine rankings, acclimatisation rates and, thus, online revenue.

It should come as no warn that we endorsed avoiding indolent themes like a plague.

Understanding a problem is a initial step to avoiding it. So, what causes a thesis to drag a website’s page speed into a gutter?

In general, it comes down to 3 things:

• Too feature-heavy
  
  Be heedful of themes that exaggerate 10 opposite sliders, 20 preinstalled plugins and a lot of JavaScript animation. While this competence sound like a good deal, no website that creates HTTP requests to 50 JavaScript files will run optimally.


• Overuse of vast record formats
  
  The keyword here is “overuse,” that admittedly is a bit subjective. Try to drive pure of themes that use a lot of full-width images, credentials videos, etc. Less is more.


• Poor coding
  
  From extravagantly scaled images to inline CSS injection, bad coding has a poignant impact on website performance. As mentioned, bad formula customarily means that a thesis hasn’t been updated in a prolonged time, so always check a theme’s refurbish history.

Here’s a litmus exam we can use to figure out how magisterial a thesis is. Go to a Pingdom Website Speed Test⁵, enter a URL of a theme’s demo and see how prolonged a page takes to bucket and how many HTTP requests are made.

Let me give we a discerning comparison as a benchmark. Earlier this year, we built dual websites with unequivocally opposite thesis frameworks. The initial website, BrokerNotes⁶, was built with a Frank⁷ thesis (a unequivocally lightweight thesis designed for speed). According to Pingdom, a home page creates 38 HTTP requests and loads in underneath 1 second. 3.9 Mb in bandwidth is approach too complicated though.

⁸

BrokerNotes’ website statistics. (View vast version⁹)

Now, let’s review this to Qosy¹⁰, a website we built regulating a comparatively feature-heavy theme. As we can see, a home page creates 61 HTTP requests and take usually over 2.5 seconds to load. While still not bad, that’s a conspicuous boost in loading time.

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Qosy’s website statistics. (View vast version¹²)

Themes that make hundreds of HTTP requests before display any calm are not uncommon. Avoid them unless you’re assured that we can cut off some of that fat.

3. Design And User Experience

Of course, a purpose of a thesis is to make your website demeanour good and uncover off your formula in a best probable light. While pattern can be utterly subjective, we will boost your contingency of anticipating a well-designed thesis by following a few steps.

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Not a flattering website during all! (View vast version¹⁴)

First, hunt on websites where a best designers sell their themes. This competence sound apparent yet is still value mentioning. ThemeForest¹⁵ is my personal favorite, yet copiousness of other good ones are out there, including StudioPress¹⁶ and Elegant Themes¹⁷.

Secondly, spend some time browsing a demo. Does a website feel easy to use? Is there adequate white space? Do we get a headache looking during it? Does it excite you? This is where your tummy feeling plays an vicious role.

Finally, be certain to select a thesis that is cross-browser concordant and has been built with accessibility in mind.

4. Responsiveness

While mobile trade varies between industries, many reports seem to establish that, on average, about 30%¹⁸ of all website visits now come from mobile and inscription devices.

Regardless of a accurate ratios, there’s no forgive to use anything yet a manageable theme.

Thankfully, substantially all creditable themes are mobile-friendly out of a box, so a miss of responsiveness in a thesis is unequivocally a red flag. Most thesis vendors concede we to filter out themes that are not responsive. Another good choice is to demeanour by a curated list of manageable themes¹⁹.

One of a best ways to establish either a manageable thesis is good or not is to run a demo by Google’s new mobile-friendliness tool²⁰.

5. SEO

When enabled with one of a many good SEO plugins, WordPress is one of a many SEO-friendly CMS’ around.

However, copiousness of themes describe all demeanour of on-site SEO mistakes, such as a repudiation of header and alt tags, full-blown repetitious calm and energetic URL errors.

When selecting a theme, demeanour for “SEO optimized” or “SEO ready” in a thesis description, yet don’t trust it blindly. A lot of developers embody this to check of a box and sell their theme. That being said, meaningful that a engineer has during slightest deliberate SEO when building their thesis does offer some assurance.

A good use is to implement an prolongation for a Chrome browser, such as MozBar²¹ or SEO Site Tools²², to run some discerning SEO checks on a theme’s demo.

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MozBar in action. (View vast version²⁴)

Explaining what to demeanour for is over a range of this article, yet that has been lonesome in abyss by Joost de Valk²⁵.

6. Ease Of Customization

A customization dashboard has turn customary in a lot of themes. This saves we a con of carrying to make approach changes to character sheets.

²⁶

A thesis customizer. (View vast version²⁷)

In addition, plugins such as Visual Page Editor make it easy to build formidable page structures but carrying to hold code. While some of these WYSIWYG editors are rather limiting, we find that altogether they’re unequivocally profitable to removing a website looking unequivocally good with small effort. If a developer has a demo of their administration panel, I’d suggest personification around with it to make certain we can customize all we need to.

7. Security

A lot affects a confidence of a website, including hosting, plugins and cue strength. Daniel Pataki has already lonesome some good stairs to secure your WordPress installation²⁸. This should not be an afterthought; rather, cruise it when selecting your theme.

As when you’re shopping a home, one of a best things we can do to sign a theme’s confidence is to review what business contend about it. Unless a thesis was combined by a infallible developer, we equivocate any thesis that doesn’t have many downloads or reviews.

My recommendation is to weigh themes on village websites like ThemeForest, where all patron reviews are displayed by default. This turn of clarity tends to exhibit a law about themes, that we wouldn’t get directly from a developer’s website.

While shopping a thesis directly from a developer’s website is fine, do so usually after evaluating it on a village website with pure reviews.

²⁹

Theme reviews. (View vast version³⁰)

If a thesis has a confidence loophole, afterwards business have substantially picked adult on it and flagged it in their reviews for destiny customers. While a developer competence have bound such issues, a altogether ratings from business should give we an thought of a theme’s altogether quality.

Conclusion

While ticking off all of these boxes competence sound ambitious, a law is that they’re interrelated, and they all come behind to a singular point: Themes should be built with peculiarity in mind.

One of a best things we can do when selecting a thesis is to learn about a chairman or association who done it. If they have a repute to live adult to, afterwards their themes will positively be of a aloft peculiarity than developers who don’t.

Of course, no thesis is perfect, and you’ll roughly always have to make some compromises. That being said, with a recommendations in this post, we are hopefully now improved sensitive to equivocate a unequivocally bad themes and to select one that is fast, good coded and SEO-friendly and that includes all of a facilities we need.

(dp, il, al, ml)

Footnotes

1. 1 http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice


2. 2 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/1-google-search-large-opt.jpg


3. 3 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/1-google-search-large-opt.jpg


4. 4 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/06/25/how-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-website/


5. 5 http://tools.pingdom.com


6. 6 http://brokernotes.co


7. 7 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/01/16/frank-a-wordpress-theme-designed-for-speed/


8. 8 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2-brokernotes-large-opt.jpg


9. 9 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2-brokernotes-large-opt.jpg


10. 10 http://qosy.co


11. 11 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/3-qosy-large-opt.jpg


12. 12 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/3-qosy-large-opt.jpg


13. 13 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/4-uglysite-large-opt.jpg


14. 14 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/4-uglysite-large-opt.jpg


15. 15 http://themeforest.net


16. 16 http://www.studiopress.com/


17. 17 http://www.elegantthemes.com/


18. 18 http://marketingland.com/mobile-devices-generate-30-pct-traffic-15-pct-e-sales-75498


19. 19 https://www.ventureharbour.com/premium-responsive-wordpress-themes/


20. 20 https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/


21. 21 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mozbar/eakacpaijcpapndcfffdgphdiccmpknp?hl=en


22. 22 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/seo-site-tools-site-analy/femogmcmjpjkokoojcljkpfdifkpbbpp?hl=en


23. 23 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/5-moztoolbar-large-opt.jpg


24. 24 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/5-moztoolbar-large-opt.jpg


25. 25 https://yoast.com/wordpress-seo-theme/


26. 26 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/6-customizer-large-opt.jpg


27. 27 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/6-customizer-large-opt.jpg


28. 28 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/10/securing-your-wordpress-website/


29. 29 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/7-reviews-large-opt.jpg


30. 30 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/7-reviews-large-opt.jpg

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What To Consider When Choosing A WordPress Theme