by The Computing Australia Group | WordPress is amazing to work with; that is, once you have the right theme in place. With more than 11,000+ WordPress themes to choose from, choosing a WordPress theme that is ideal for your site can seem an impossible task. The following 12 point guide will help you to narrow down the WP theme features that you need to look through to pick the right one for your site – whether you have e-commerce websites, corporate websites, blogs or sites for any other purpose.
1. WordPress Theme Features Compatibility
In choosing the best WordPress theme for your site, there are many considerations.
Choosing the WP theme that is compatible with your website purpose is essential for maximum performance and end-user satisfaction. For an e-commerce website, you need a theme that supports product viewing, searching, placing an order, making payment and other aspects of buying. For a blog, you need a theme that supports better readability and attractive template. If you need a multilingual website, your theme should have features for translation.
Multi-purpose themes may seem a good idea in the beginning, but they can make your site bloated and affect the speed. You will end up with a lot of features that you will never use and will only clutter your site. It may be helpful to note down the features that you feel you need in your website, before you begin your search.
Choosing the WP theme that is compatible with your website purpose is essential for maximum performance and end-user satisfaction. For an e-commerce website, you need a theme that supports product viewing, searching, placing an order, making payment and other aspects of buying. For a blog, you need a theme that supports better readability and attractive template. If you need a multilingual website, your theme should have features for translation.
Multi-purpose themes may seem a good idea in the beginning, but they can make your site bloated and affect the speed. You will end up with a lot of features that you will never use and will only clutter your site. It may be helpful to note down the features that you feel you need in your website, before you begin your search.
2. Responsive Theme
Mobile devices drive half of the internet traffic and mobile compatibility is a ranking factor for SEO. The WordPress theme you choose must be mobile-first, fully responsive,and compatible with multiple devices. The menus and widgets must be easily navigable on a mobile device as well. Most themes now are responsive, but always test them across various devices to ensure they meet Core Web Vitals standards for mobile performance. If you do come across a theme that you like, but is not mobile-friendly, check if you can customize it. Your theme must also be compatible with multiple browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge, for a seamless experience across all platforms.
3. Flexible – Easily Customizable
You will need to customize your theme at one time or the other, so choose a WP theme that is easily customizable. Too many options can make it confusing; a theme that allows for customization of branding, navigation, responsiveness, colour, and typography, works for most businesses. The theme should also be extendable to allow for child themes if you need to go beyond basic customization.
4. Plugin Friendly
The extensive plugin availability is one of the reasons why WordPress is popular. Your theme should be compatible with essential and commonly used plugins such as Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, WP Super Cache, Jetpack, and Contact Form 7 for SEO, social sharing, e-commerce, and backups. A good theme should not cause conflict with these plugins and should have default styling for common and essential plugins.
5. Speed
With speed being an important factor for SEO and user experience, your WordPress theme should have fast loading speed. Sites with a loading time of more than 2 seconds have a high abandon rate. A theme that supports features like browser caching, lazy loading, and CDN integration can significantly improve performance.
6. Premium Theme vs Free Theme
Budget is an important factor when choosing a WordPress theme. There are lots of free themes from WordPress.org and other authors. But they may lack the features and dynamics of premium themes, and security is a valid concern for free themes. There are also many good themes that have a one- time initial cost instead of renewal fees. Preparing a budget beforehand can help you narrow down your search.
7. Colour and Typography
Choose a WordPress theme with a design that matches your site personality. If your site deals with formal and professional content, you do not want a too casual design. But whoever maybe your target audience, the theme should have a simple, uncluttered, and visually appealing design. You do not want to drown your potential customers in a sea of features and design, and make them work hard to search what they are looking for.
8. SEO Compatible
While plugins fix a lot of SEO issues, having an SEO compatible theme helps a lot. Be sure to double check on the theme’s claims of SEO compatibility. Check whether the theme has clean, valid HTML5 code and built-in Schema markup for enhanced search engine understanding. The theme should be structured for on-page optimization with features like fast loading times, mobile responsiveness, proper heading hierarchy (H1, H2, etc.), and optimised image handling. These elements can make a significant difference in your site’s SEO performance.
9. Updates
With a huge user base, WordPress sites are hotspots for hackers too. Free themes can be especially vulnerable. WordPress is updated regularly, and your chosen WordPress theme should be able to keep up with the updates. If the theme is not updated regularly, you run the risk of a broken website and security vulnerability. Before you choose a theme, check how often the developer provides updates to fix issues and provide support. Opt for themes from reputable developers with a proven history of maintaining their themes, ensuring your website stays safe and functional. This brings us to the next point.
10. Customer Support
Check whether the theme developer provides adequate support. Most themes come with support documentation for installation and configuration, but you may need developer support at times. If the support is forum-based check how quickly and successfully the developer solves support queries.
11. Compatible with WordPress 6.0
WordPress 6.0 introduced several unique features and improvements that enhance the overall user experience. Here are some of the key highlights:
- Enhanced Full Site Editing: WordPress 6.0 builds on the full site editing capabilities introduced in previous versions, allowing users to customize their entire site using blocks. This includes new site-wide blocks, editable templates, and more patterns.
- Easily Switch Theme Styles: Users can now switch their entire theme style with a single click. This feature allows for quick and easy customization of the site’s appearance.
- Improved Template Creation: The update includes the ability to edit more templates within the theme editor, such as author, category, date, tag, and other custom taxonomies.
- Export Block Themes: Users can save and export all the changes made to their block theme, creating a theme zip file that can be installed on other WordPress websites.
- New Blocks: WordPress 6.0 introduces several new blocks, including the Comment Query Loop, Read More, and No Results in Query Loop blocks. These blocks offer more flexibility and customization options for site content. Improved Navigation Block: Enhancements to the navigation block make creating and managing menus easier within the block editor.
- Webfonts API: This new API allows theme developers to manage and load web fonts more efficiently, improving site performance and customization.
- Alternative Global Styles: Users can now select from different global styles, allowing for more diverse and personalized site designs.
- These features make WordPress 6.0 a powerful and flexible tool for building and managing websites and outlines the strength of choosing a compatible theme.
12. Test the Theme
Finally, once you have made your choice of a WordPress theme, test thoroughly every aspect of the theme. Test your theme’s efficiency and add all necessary customizations and plugins. Check if the plugins’ hooks are functioning properly, and the page titles are working well. Once that is done, all your content is uploaded. Test your site across various devices and browsers using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and BrowserStack to verify that images load properly and the design is responsive. Run through every test that you can think of or alternatively get professional help. And if the theme falls short, it is always better to spend some time now and get another theme, rather than making do with the current theme and postpone updates for later.
These points can get you started on choosing the right WordPress theme. When choosing the best theme for your website, it is hard to go past the all-time best sellers. The developers have spent a lot of time refining their themes and due to the flexibility, you should be able to use any of these themes to achieve practically any look you like.Check user reviews and ratings to ensure they’re reliable and capable of achieving the look and functionality you need.
These points can get you started on choosing the right WordPress theme. When choosing the best theme for your website, it is hard to go past the all-time best sellers. The developers have spent a lot of time refining their themes and due to the flexibility, you should be able to use any of these themes to achieve practically any look you like.Check user reviews and ratings to ensure they’re reliable and capable of achieving the look and functionality you need.
Avada
With 925,000+ users, it is one of the best themes out there. It is the all-time favourite WordPress theme. See the impressive list of key features below:
- Advanced and intuitive visual builder
- Versatile customization options
- Over 120 design elements
- 107+ prebuilt websites
- Responsive mega menus and header/footer builders
- WooCommerce integration and PWA readiness
- SEO optimization and WPML compatibility
- Performance Wizard for faster loading
- Extensive support with 6 months of free professional assistance
- One-click demo import
Current Version – 7.11
Price on ThemeForest –
- Regular price – $69 (exclusive of sales tax) – Use by one client in a single end product which end users are not charged for
- Extended License – $2950 (exclusive of sales tax) – Use by one client in a single end product which end users can be charged for
Premium plugins that are included in your purchase
- Avada Builder
- Slider Revolution
- Fusion White Label Branding
- Layer Slider
- Filebird
- Convert Plus
X Theme
Modelled after ‘stacks’, the innovative designs let you create custom templates. There are 1,000,000+ users for X-theme. Check out the key features for X theme below
- Stacks – unique designs within the same theme
- Cornerstone page builder
- Innovative template builder
- Map own elements with new API
- Set access permissions with Role Manager
- Lots of custom extensions
- Megamenus
- Exclusive add-on modules function like plugin
- Preview changes before publishing
- Lots of tutorial videos
- Demo content comes with layered PSD files
Current version: 10.5
Current version – 7.2
Price on ThemeForest –
- Regular License – $79 (exclusive of sales tax) – Use by one client in a single end product which end users are not charged for
- Extended License – $2900 (exclusive of sales tax) – Use by one client in a single end product which end users can be charged for
Premium plugins that are included in your purchase
- Under Construction
- Superfly
- E&P Forms Builder
- UberMenu
- Convert Plug
- Layer Slider
- Essential Grid
- Envira Gallery
- Content Dock
- MailChimp Integration
- Cornerstone
- Video Lock
- White Label
- Disqus Comments
- Facebook Comments
- Analytics Integration
- Revolution Slider
- Custom 404
- WP Bakery
- Terms of Use
- Olark Integration
- Smooth Scroll
- Soliloquy Slider
Enfold
Though not as popular as Avada or X-theme, Enfold is still the go-to theme for many. Options panel are quite simple, backend is easy to get used to and let you get a site up and running fast. There are 261,000+ users for Enfold. The key features are below
- Avia visual page builder
- Responsive Layout
- Best Drag and Drop Editor
- WPML ready
- No knowledge of PHP/HTML/CSS is required
- Integrated Form Builder
- Advanced header options
- Extensive documentation with video tutorials
- Simple cases for demo content
- Outstanding developer support
Current Version: 6.0
Price on ThemeForest –
- Regular License – $59 (exclusive of sales tax) – Use by one client in a single end product, which end users are not charged for
- Extended License – $ 2799 (exclusive of sales tax) – Use by one client in a single end product, which end users can be charged for
Astra
Astra is a lightweight and highly customizable WordPress theme known for its speed and versatility. With over 2 million active users, it’s one of the most popular WordPress themes available. Astra is designed to work seamlessly with page builders like Elementor and Beaver Builder, making it a popular choice for all types of websites, including blogs, portfolios, and eCommerce stores. Check out the key features of Astra below:
- Lightning-Fast Performance: Optimized for speed with minimal resources required.
- Ready-to-Import Demos: Over 240+ pre-built starter templates to kickstart your website.
- Seamless Integration: Compatible with popular page builders (Elementor, Beaver Builder, and more).
- WooCommerce Ready: Full support for eCommerce functionality with customization options.
- Header and Footer Builder: Drag-and-drop builder for customizing headers and footers.
- Schema Integration: Built-in schema markups for better SEO.
Current Version: 4.3.0
Price on ThemeForest:
Astra is not available on ThemeForest but offers a range of plans starting at $47/year for the Astra Pro version.
GeneratePress
GeneratePress is another lightweight and fast theme suitable for building a variety of websites. It boasts over 500,000 active users and offers deep customization, working perfectly with page builders, making it an excellent choice for those who want full control over their website’s design and functionality.
Key Features:
- Performance-Oriented: Small file size and optimized for speed.
- Fully Customizable: Offers layout, color, and typography options to customize every aspect.
- Gutenberg and Page Builder Compatibility: Works seamlessly with Gutenberg, Elementor, Beaver Builder, and other popular page builders.
- WooCommerce Integration: Ready for eCommerce websites with advanced WooCommerce controls.
- Developer Friendly: Hooks and filters make it easy for developers to extend functionality.
- Extensive Site Library: Access to professionally designed templates to use as a starting point.
Current Version: 3.3.0
Price on ThemeForest:
GeneratePress is not available on ThemeForest but can be purchased for $59/year (includes access to the premium plugin and all features).
Premium plugins that are included in your purchase
- GeneratePress Premium (This plugin unlocks all customization options, site library, advanced hook system, etc.)
The7
The7 is a powerful multipurpose theme with over 320,000 users and offers a wide array of customization options, making it suitable for any type of website. It integrates deeply with WPBakery Page Builder and Elementor, providing extensive design flexibility.
Key Features:
- Pre-made Demo Websites: Over 60+ pre-built websites and 1000+ theme options.
- Integration with Page Builders: Fully compatible with WPBakery Page Builder, Elementor, and Gutenberg. out, color, and typography options to customize every aspect.
- Responsive Design: Fully responsive and retina-ready for mobile and tablet devices.
- Advanced Typography and Color Options: Offers in-depth control over fonts and color schemes.
- WooCommerce Compatibility: Multiple layouts and styles for building an eCommerce store.
- Mega Menu: Built-in mega menu for better navigation and organization.
Current Version: 11.8.1
Price on ThemeForest:
- Regular License – $39 (exclusive of sales tax and includes lifetime updates and 6 months of support) – Use by one client in a single end product which end users are not charged for
- Extended License – $ 2799 (exclusive of sales tax) – Use by one client in a single end product which end users can be charged for
Premium plugins that are included in your purchase
- WPBakery Page Builder
- Slider Revolution
- Go Pricing Tables
- Ultimate Addons for WPBakery Page Builder
- Convert Plus
For more help on choosing the right WordPress theme, Contact us or email at sales@computingaustralia.group, and our web development experts in Perth will be happy to help you.
Jargon Buster
SEO: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of improving your website visibility in the SERPs by enhancing the technical and content aspects of it.
Responsive web pages: Responsive web pages are pages that adjust themselves to fit into screens of different sizes.
Updated on 16/09/2024
Added 6 more WooCommerce Plugins to the list
Added 6 more WooCommerce Plugins to the list
