How To Pick The Perfect WordPress Theme
Before your WordPress website can be ready for site visitors, you must first pick a WordPress theme to support your site. When setting out to search for your new theme, it is easy to become overwhelmed. The options for WordPress themes are absolutely endless. The internet offers tens of thousands of themes to choose from with a variety of functionalities, organizations and color schemes at an assortment of prices.
Before you throw in the towel and settle for just any old WordPress theme, take a look at our collection of helpful tips below.
#1. Make a list of must-have features.
Before you begin, it’s important to know exactly which features you will need on your WordPress website. While WordPress is known for its blogging capabilities, there are also other options such as scheduling calendars and easy-to-use forms for Contact Us pages. By deciding which features you definitely need to include, as well as what you don’t, you can easily eliminate many of the options available. Websites that offer WordPress themes often have search abilities to allow you to select which features are most important to you and get rid of the rest.
#2. Don’t choose too many features.
Themes that have too many features are often referred to as page bloat. Too many options and elaborate themes can be a lot to load onto a page and will slow down your website. Only include the options that you will use instead of selecting options that might be nice in the future, and pay close attention to the size of the themes you are considering. You can also minimize page bloat by optimizing images and linking to video rather than embedding. It’s better to be aware of page bloat as you build your website than trying to reduce it once your page is finished.
#3. Pick the perfect color.
Website designers often underestimate the power of color. From brand recognition to the emotions automatically associated with certain colors, the hues that you choose for your website are important. If possible, try to use the colors already established in your brand logo. Consider McDonald’s golden arches or UPS’s brown vans. Colors are an important part of visual memory cues and instant recognition. Also, keep in mind that website visitors prefer lighter websites, so try to go easy on blacks, browns and other saturated colors.
#4. Remember to optimize for different sized screens.
A huge portion of internet surfing is accomplished via mobile or tablet. It is crucial that you choose a theme that automatically optimizes for a variety of screen sizes. Once you add your content, complete a series of A/B testing to check for accessibility and legibility. Search engine optimization prioritizes optimized websites, so a theme that does the work for you will automatically boost your search engine results. For more information on Google’s mobile requirements visit the Mobile-Friendly Test page.
#5. Don’t be afraid of spending a little money.
Your WordPress theme is a crucial aspect of your new website, and it is important that you get a theme that covers all of the necessary elements previously mentioned above. However, a really great website might cost you up front. Some themes are paid for by the month, while others incur a one-time download fee. It’s absolutely worth spending a little bit of money to make sure that you get all of the features your website will require to be successful. It is important to research the theme that you have in mind before purchase to be sure that users are getting what they paid for.