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How to Choose the Right WordPress Theme for your Blog

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WordPress Themes

One of the first things that needs to be done when starting any new blog is deciding what WordPress theme to use. This can at times be a bit challenging due to the ridiculous number of themes currently on the market.

And because absolutely anyone can now design and distribute WordPress themes, you are no longer guaranteed a high quality design just because you have chosen to base your blog on the WordPress platform.

Therefore choosing the right WordPress theme for your blog requires both patience and an understanding of the key features to look for. While I sadly cannot offer you patience, I can easily outline the factors that I always consider when making my choice.

Theme Price

The first thing to consider is whether or not to pay for a theme. It would be nice to say that the free wordpress themes are just as good as the paid variety but this sadly is not the case. If you want a top of the line theme, you will have to pay for it.

I use both free and paid themes depending on how serious I am about the blog in question. It is worth noting that if you are not yet sure whether your new blog warrants such an investment, there are a number of free themes that though not quite as good as the paid variety, they do come pretty close.

Blog Navigation

Just because a particular theme looks fantastic that does not make it the best choice. Some WordPress theme designers focus almost entirely on the aesthetics of their themes with little thought of usability or just how slow a website becomes when excessive graphics are used.

Remember that ease of navigation is vital if you want visitors to your blog to actually take a look around. Check out the demo of the theme and if you don’t know where to go almost immediately, the theme does not rank very highly in the usability department and should be avoided.

Whether Customization is Needed

I tend to avoid themes that I will need to modify to fit my blog.

This may sound lazy but there are just so many wordpress themes available now that it is relatively easy to find one that is almost perfect right out of the box. Therefore always consider how much customization you will need to do to a theme before it suits your needs and don’t waste time on one that requires an extensive amount.

How Much HTML Knowledge is Required

While I don’t use themes that immediately require customization to suit my needs, I do like themes that will allow me to make changes in the future. Many themes make it incredibly easy to do so. Such themes often allow you to make changes such as alterations to the overall colour scheme, the background image, even the number of columns with just the click of a mouse. On the opposite end of the spectrum.

Some WordPress themes require knowledge of HTML to make even minor changes. If you are not particularly tech savvy, such themes should obviously be avoided.

Browser Compatibility

Browser compatibility is frequently forgotten by many bloggers when making their choice. Most professional WordPress theme designers test their creations on almost all browsers before releasing them but some designers don’t bother to do this.

Remember that themes can look completely different on browsers other than your own so don’t use any theme that hasn’t been extensively tested for browser compatibility.

AdSense Optimization

Finally, I use Adsense on all of my blogs so I generally stick to AdSense optimised themes.

Such WordPress themes include specific spots to display your AdSense ads that have been proven to lead to higher levels of clicks. Such themes are also generally easier to add your AdSense code to which makes them ideal for those with little knowledge of HTML.

In conclusion, my final piece of advice is to not spend all day looking for a WordPress theme for your blog. There are so many sites offering WordPress themes at the moment that you can easily waste far too much time searching for the perfect choice. It may seem like you are working but you are not and your choice of theme is only a small part of building a successful blog.

Also, I understand there are many more reasons to look for the right theme. How about a discussion below?

About

Althaf Ahmed, the owner of Social Hacksis an organic marketer who specializes in Search Engines and Social Media. Althaf has helped dotcom companies, big and small make a positive difference in their marketing campaigns. He is also the author of the Twitter Marketing Guide for 2012.

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{ 30 Responses }

  1. Gurwinder says:
    That was a great post Althaf Ahmed. A good theme and logo are must for each and every blog. Thanks 4 sharing :)
  2. Iklan says:
    So finding a theme that is SEO friendly and gives you the ability to easily tweak SEO options is very important..
  3. Robert says:
    Selecting a suitable theme for your blog is a hard task. You always to change your theme unless you make it right at the first time. Thank you for these nice tips :)
  4. balaji says:
    Awesome recommendations, Actually when i am going for free template, it seems should not be a worth on it,
  5. Ankur says:
    Its a very relative matter. FOr tech blogs, a good navigation is needed but for a CSS or design blog, you ought to have great look. FOr new site, tons of links and content should be displayed.
  6. Piala says:
    everybody wants the best but it depends on the budget, see how when a man with low budget - how can he takes good web hosting at first to host his website and now then when he starts to blog...choosing theme but how can he buy a wonderful theme.....but everything is step by step :)
  7. Mohsin Ali says:
    At the end of the day i think blog theme should be neat, clean and fast otherwise it may be penalized by search engines.
  8. Rob Rubin says:
    I recently moved my humor blog off of WordPress.com and onto my own server. For me, having complete control over the design was what I wanted most. I played around with a bunch of free themes at first, but I hated them. I wanted my site to look more like a news/zine than a personal blog. Eventually I coughed up the cash and went with ThemeJunkie. I used to be a web developer back in the day, so I know a bit about CSS. And they have some basic SEO stuff, though I use Yoast SEO instead. Since moving the site, people have commented how awesome it is. Now, I just need to hope most of my previous followers come back.
  9. Navin Kunwar says:
    I always think on my own prospective on this, these things will effect on blog future. theme is the most import part of success too. thank you Althaf Ahmed for this awesome post. it will surely help new beginners.
  10. Kimberly Gauthier says:
    I've been using premium themes for a while and I love it. I've learned to look long and hard at a theme before buying, because each one is different. I like sites that have a good organization so that I can look at the themes best suited for blogging. Thanks for the tips Kimberly
  11. James says:
    Great post, the best reason for looking the right theme is to look unique and different from all other websites and blogs. thanks for sharing
  12. Trung Nguyen says:
    Yep, here are a good advice to help us choose the best WP theme for our blog. Thanks for the share.
  13. Mrchichester says:
    I don't know if someone else mentioned this but not all Word Press themes are create equal when it come to SEO. So finding a theme that is SEO friendly and gives you the ability to easily tweak SEO options is very important.
  14. Ezra says:
    Informative post and for that i would also say that There are a variety of choices to go with when you are picking a Wordpress theme for your new blog, there are what is known as “premium” themes which are themes that you are going to pay for, there are search engine optimized themes which you are also going to have to pay for but you will see more benefit from, and lastly there are free themes – which obviously you don’t have to pay money for. The theme of your new Wordpress blog is not only a reflection of you but it is also what is going to initially draw your readers in to your blog. As the first thing that your blog readers are going to see, your Wordpress theme should be simple but eye catching enough to pull visitors to your site in and make them want to read more. Thanks...
  15. Phoebe says:
    Thank you for sharing these considerations in choosing WordPress Theme. There are many themes out there that could confuse us in deciding what to purchase.
  16. neojit says:
    WordPress perfect theme have a good role in entire traffic, income, advertisement settings. Thanks for giving these perfect article
  17. kyriousrobert says:
    i think i'm stuck with heatmap because it's the one that gave me my first adsense payout although i'm looking for a customized one that is related to my niche
  18. doug_eike says:
    All true! I would add only one thing--customer service or the existence of a good forum. One of the advantages of using the Thesis Theme is that the DIY themes forum is so strong. I get great answers to my questions there, and the responses usually appear within a couple of hours. I am reluctant to try other themes that lack this kind of community support. Thanks for the tips!
  19. Sharyn Sheldon says:
    I agree that your choice of theme is important, but it can also seriously slow down the start of your business if you spend too much time. Better to pick something simple or pay someone to set up a customized one than to spend hours finding just the right theme. When I did my first niche site I must have spent a ridiculous amount of time finding the right theme and then messing around with all the settings to get it the way I wanted. Another big consideration is the frequency of theme updates and the amount of support provided. There are some free themes that are very popular and are updated on a regular basis. Then there are paid ones that have terrible support. Check the last time a theme was updated so that you know whether it is keeping up with security issues.
  20. Beau says:
    Thanks for this Althaf! Finding the right theme is sometimes the most time consuming process of building a new blog.
  21. Bishwajeet says:
    After a certain period of time, you need to create your own custom theme that you can use only on your website.
  22. Kevin says:
    Thank you for this great post! A part with AdSense Optimization is my favorite and as for me the most important one because it earns money for us!
  23. Asif says:
    I was never able to find a suitable theme for my blog, so I decided to hire someone to create a custom one for me. Everything about custom themes are good but you can't do little customization on your own. A paid theme gives you an option which makes it easy to do the needed edited every now and then.
  24. Bartek Fotografia says:
    Hi I bought a beutifull theme on theme forrest it's called DK and it's great. I think the stocks with themes are really great place where you can buy cheap templates.
  25. Stephen Jeske says:
    Althaf, one thing that you didn't mention regarding free themes is that they can often contain malicious code, sometimes inserted inadvertently, other times not. The price of themes as become so inexpensive that there is practically no reason to take the risk of getting an infected theme. Just my two cents!
    • De says:
      Hi Stephen, It's not always the case, Premium themes can have just as many security holes as free themes. Most of the free themes that are listed in WordPress Respo are reviewed by the best WordPress practices thus makes it more secure. -Dev
      • Stephen Jeske says:
        Interesting, I guess I just took it for granted that paid themes would be safer! Regarding free themes, I should have been more clear. I was talking about the free themes that you can pick up anywhere on the web, outside of the WordPress Repository, where it's not as safe.
  26. NiceBlogger says:
    I've choosed a theme from Elegant Themes and I really like it.It's simple, but in the same time it looks professional.I'm hardly finding some right themes for my blogs ...
  27. rawat says:
    yeah we have to work hard on selecting themes because theme plays a vital role in our blog. nice discussion to choosing a blog theme. thanks for sharing