Choosing a WordPress Theme; 5 Things to Consider

So you’ve decided to go down the theme route for your new WordPress website. The next step is to choose which WordPress theme to use as the base. But where do you start with the myriad of options out there?

There are a few things to bear in mind when short-listing WordPress themes. It’s essential to take the time to consider what you want from your WordPress website at this early stage to ensure the end result has the look, functionality, and usability you want.

Here at Rigorous Digital, we’ve built many WordPress websites from themes in our time. So we’ve put together a list of what we think are the top five things to take into account. Of course, all are equally important, so although numbered, this doesn’t show their order of priority. 

Our Top 5 Recommendations

1. Look

Choosing a WordPress theme you like the look of may sound obvious. You want your website to be aesthetically pleasing and aligned with your brand. There could be an entire list just for this. But the main things to think about are colours, font, and how cluttered the design within the WordPress theme is to ensure that your website is easily readable and not off-putting. The aim is to strike a balance between jarring and bland. 

2. Functionality

Do you need a check-out function or a search bar, for example? Also, think about what pages you need for your website; home, contact, blog, etc. Do these exist within the WordPress theme? If not, there may be the option to add them-bringing us nicely to the next point.

3. Flexibility

What if you find a WordPress theme that you love the overall look of but doesn’t quite have some of the features you need? Or vice versa? Maybe there is something you would like to tweak, add, or remove altogether? Whilst some are easily amended, this is an issue with fixed WordPress themes. So it’s worth checking out when short-listing themes. 

4. Speed (Both Desktop & Mobile)

Research shows that 53% of mobile site visitors leave a page that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. As just over half the web traffic worldwide comes from mobile devices, it’s crucial that your chosen WordPress theme runs well on desktop and is also optimized for mobile. You can use tools to test the page load time to ensure it’s not “clunky”. Google PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom Speed Test are a couple of our favourites. 

5. Ongoing Support

There are new WordPress themes launched regularly. But others are retiring. Although you can still use the latter, the creators are phasing out the support and maintenance on offer. Therefore, it’s best to go for active WordPress themes for the longevity of your website.

Picking a Winner

We hope this helps you whittle down your options quickly and effortlessly to find the perfect WordPress theme for your website. Is there more to this decision than you first thought? Or are you stuck between a couple of short-listed options? Your WordPress Web Design Agency can talk through this with you in more detail. Don’t already have one? Get in touch if you would like us to help. 

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