Choosing a beautiful theme is as important as building a website. If it is your business or something people need to be attracted to, then design and functionality of your website play a vital role that largely depend on the theme you choose. Once you have decided that you would build your website with WordPress, you are one step ahead of your competitors as there are a lot of themes for you to choose from. Sometimes this large number of themes could make you confused.
Chances of selecting a wrong theme are at its highest. But if you consider some certain factors, you are highly likely to choose the right theme for you. Here in this article, we describe some of the must-have features for your website.
The most important factors to consider
Design
Design is the first thing to be considered while choosing a theme. You should find a theme that matches with your business category and can hold the site contents in the proper place. If you are going to launch a WordPress site for your company, the TransPress theme can be the best one to choose. Any ideal theme must have smooth navigation options and clean interface. Visit the demo of the target theme to get a hands-on experience with it. You can test the speed of the demo website using the Pingdom speed testing tool to see whether the theme is slowed by heavy design elements.
Fully Responsive
A lion’s share of the searches are made from mobile and other handheld devices that account for a huge traffic to your website. Google tends to top mobile friendly websites in their mobile search results.Your website needs to be fully responsive and mobile ready. Check carefully whether the theme you want to buy is fully responsive.
SEO friendliness
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the system to ensure effective online presence. SEO helps you rank higher in search results. It largely depends on the theme. Almost all themes in the market are labeled SEO friendly, but it’s better to check the demo page of a specific theme with some SEO tools like MozBar, SEO Site Tools etc.
Translation & Multilingual
Your website might have a variety of audiences of different languages. So having a theme that is translation and multi-language ready is a plus for you. Your visitors will be able to switch to any language of their choices. There are some plugins to add this functionality to your website. Make sure your theme is compatible with such plugins.
Cross Browser Compatibility
Carefully check the browser compatibility details of the theme you intend to buy. Developers might limit browser support due to many reasons. The more browser support requires the more development and maintenance time. Compatibility with older browsers might also limit the theme’s ability to support modern design elements.
Support
It’s not like you buy a theme and everything is done. You are highly likely to face different issues along the way. Solving such problems might be scary for different users. Check whether the theme author provides timely support. Buying a theme having support saves your maintenance time and a lot of money.
Ease of Customization
Customization will turn the theme into your website. A theme without customization is not simply yours. Know whether a theme has customization flexibility. Some themes are so smart with customization that anybody with a little technical knowledge can turn the theme into an awesome website. Check the customization system.
Drag and Drop Page Builder
Page builders are very popular nowadays because of drag & drop system. These are also very user-friendly. Themes that are built with a page builder are so easy to customize. It gives you the facility to make awesome webpages without even writing a single line of code. Just drag and drop and make awesome things.
Price
Your decision depends on the budget for your site. You may decide on getting a free theme to have just an online appearance. But if you want more flexibility and lots of advanced features, integration and support, we recommend you to go for a premium theme. Free themes may serve your purpose for the time being but they will come with a lot of ads in the dashboard and would be devoid of features you need.
The theme plays a significant role in identifying a specific entity of your site on the web. It is considered to be the entrance to your business online. So, choose a suitable theme for your WordPress site and your business category. A premium theme will cost you some money, but it will also get you many benefits including expert support from the author. So take your decision wisely.