Hey, are you a beginner and looking for how to find the best WordPress theme? After viewing hundreds of themes, you may find yourself drawn towards all of them but wondering how to choose the right theme that makes your website stand out.
There are more than thousands of WordPress themes out there, and with each passing day, the number is increasing, and there is no shortage of them. It is a tedious task to find the best one in the sea of themes. You need to narrow down your requirements, so you can find the perfect one that is fulfilling your website requirements.
So before choosing or purchasing a new theme, first read out this article and invest time in finding out the essential features your website can’t run without. Then it will be easier for you to find the best WordPress theme for your website.
So without further ado, let’s start working on how to find the best WordPress theme!
What Is A WordPress Theme?
WordPress theme is a collection of templates and code files that determine the looks and functionality of a website. It controls the design, layout, and style of the website without altering the core software of WordPress.
There are a wide variety of customizable themes on WordPress. You can change the look and design of your website without affecting the content of the website.
The WordPress theme consists of a collection of files that includes style sheets, images, fonts, layout, typography color, and so on, and all these files work together and create a distinct look and feel of your website.
In short, all content that is added to the website is displayed with the help of the theme.
Why Is It Necessary To Find The Best WordPress Theme?
Your website’s looks and performance have a great impact on your brand and your audience. When your audience visits a website, they would first notice and interact with your website theme. In short, for them, your theme is a website.
For instance, you are making an eCommerce website, and your products are related to children, but your website theme is serious and boring. As a result, your website theme does not resonate with your e-commerce brand, and lack of visual appeal may not attract the attention of the parents.
Since your business is related to children, finding a WordPress theme that is serious and boring may not resonate well with your target audience.
- Brand Inconsistency: Your chosen theme aligns with the brand you are running.
- Lower Conversion Rates: Theme establishes a connection with your target audience, if your website is not presenting your brand idea, then your business will not generate sales, and it will bring a huge loss to your online business.
So, finding the best WordPress theme is necessary. Otherwise, choosing the wrong theme might bring a huge loss to the business.
What To Consider Before Finding The Best WordPress Theme?
1. What Is Your Brand Aesthetic:
Before finding a website name, first, find out what your brand aesthetic is like and which theme style will work well with your brand. First, find out your brand style, whether it is bright, fun, strictly corporate-based, or modern and artistic style.
2. What Kind Of Content You Will Publish:
The next thing you should consider is what kind of content you will publish on the website and which function should be present in the website theme.
If the theme is based on the business that you run on the website, like if you are running a restaurant or hotel, then you need a menu page, membership, etc. If your website is for selling products, then you need a theme related to e-commerce.
3. What Is Your Budget:
The foremost factor to consider is your budget and how much you can afford. Although there are thousands of free themes that offer quality features and designs, these designs are general and require customization. And the niche-focused theme comes with advanced features and functionality.
The best option is for a beginner to choose a theme that offers both free and premium versions. After some time, when you establish and run your website successfully and you have a budget, then upgrade your theme to the premium level to get the advanced feature.
Types Of WordPress Themes:
There are 5 main types of WordPress themes, each with a specific design that makes it ideal for different purposes.
1. Multipurpose Theme:
This kind of theme can be applied to all types of websites because their layouts are general, versatile, and easily customizable. They have layouts that you can modify according to your website requirements.
It can be used for different businesses, blogging, Portfolio websites, and so on. In short, these websites are flexible, and you can create the website look as you want.
2. Blogging Theme:
These themes are used for professional as well as personal Blogging. Blogging themes are specially designed for websites whose whole purpose is creating and writing blogs, whether it is sharing about affiliate products or personal daily life routines.
These blog themes have a readymade layout that prioritizes readability, and their main focus is content organization to make it perfect for the audience to read and navigate the blogs.
3. Magazines:
If your website is related to news articles and stories or you want to publish magazine-style content, then find the Magazine theme. These themes offer a special layout and features that are perfect for the news or magazine-based website.
Choose a WordPress theme that can easily publish articles related to the reports and also have an ads management tool to display ads.
4. Business Theme:
If you are running a business like running a small local shop, big restaurant, hotel, or agency, then look for themes that give a professional and quality appearance. These include professional landing page design, service description, contact information, Call to Action testimonials, etc.
If you want to welcome your potential customers, offer them your services or products, and urge them to follow the call to action, whether it is purchasing your product booking a food order, or making a room reservation, then this theme is perfect for you.
5. E-Commerce Theme:
If you are running an online store, look for the themes that make your online shop attractive and user-friendly. In this theme, you will find product galleries that will display your products, shopping cart functionality, payment options, etc.
10 Proven Tips For Selecting The Best Theme For Beginners In 2023:
Finding the theme is not a daunting task as there are loads of themes, but choosing the perfect theme is demanding because you have to pay attention to the distinctive features of the theme. Like
- How the homepage will look after adding the theme.
- The location of the menu bar
- Styles of the heading
- How content items are displayed
- How much space between the paragraph
Follow the underlying tips to select a perfect theme for your website.
1. Make A List Of Requirements For Your Website:
First, clear out your goals and requirements for your website, figure out the nature of the website you are building why you want to build your site, and what you want from the people when they visit your website.
If you spend quite some time pondering what kind of theme you want, then it will be easier to pick the perfect theme. Otherwise, browsing the website page after page will take a lot of your time.
Like, if you want to sell products, then you need to find a theme that works with e-commerce plugins. If you have to run a blogging website, then you need traditional blog elements or a unique blog layout.
If you are a photographer and want to attract clients, then your purpose should be making money. The feature that makes your website stand out is your schedule which makes it easy for the customers to know about your availability for a photoshoot.
In short, first focus on the requirements and purpose of your website, and do not be distracted by fancy designs and layouts.
2. Mobile Responsive Theme:
A responsive theme is compatible with different devices and easily adjusts itself according to the screen size of the device which can be mobile, tablet, or laptop to provide the best experience to the user.
Nowadays, people use mobile more than any other devices and 55% of the traffic comes from a mobile device. So, it is important to find a theme that is responsive and works properly on the other drives without any delay.
The mobile responsive theme also has a significant role in search engines of different browsers as you know, most people use small screens for internet use.
So, choose a theme that claims itself a mobile-first which means this theme is designed for the smaller device or screen. You can also test theme responsiveness by resizing your browser screen. If your website layout and content are adjusted according to the size of the screen, then it is perfect for mobile phones and other devices.
3. Compatibility With Necessary Plugins:
Plugins is a software add-on that enhances the functionality of the website. After creating a website, the first thing you have to do is to add essential plugins.
Your website needs features like site security, comment management, etc. to run properly; otherwise, it cannot perform well without them. So, choose a website theme that is compatible with plugins like social media integration, contact forms, etc.
Although some themes already have features, you must also add other features to make them more functional. Like, if you choose an e-commerce website theme, then it comes with some plugins like a shopping cart, product description, etc. But you also have to add other plugins like SEO, and social media plugins to improve website performance.
4. Customizable Theme:
A custom website theme is a theme that you can create a design from scratch. Every website presents its uniqueness. Many people use the same theme, but the best theme helps to tailor the website according to the business requirements.
Your website should reflect your brand voice. So, look for a theme that offers built-in customization options like colors, layout, design, fonts, site title, tagline, etc.
Even if you find your desired theme that is not perfect for your website, you can tailor it if they offer customization options.
Usually, it costs more than $100 to hire a professional to create a design for the website. If you are creative and aren’t afraid of little work, then you can also create a professional design with the help of a custom theme for a few dollars.
5. Regularly Updated Theme:
A reliable theme regularly updates itself to fix bugs and make itself compatible with the latest version of WordPress and for the security of the website.
In the era of cyber security threats, website security is the foremost priority. All the websites are not 100% secure, but they maintain and secure their code base from malware regularly.
The code base is the collection of instructions that tells a computer what to do, and developers regularly Check the code base (active development) to save the website from malware.
So, it is essential to find the best WordPress theme that gets updated regularly. And whenever you get the alert of new updates on your WordPress dashboard, update the website theme right away.
Many themes share their version in the theme description. Check out the frequency of updates before choosing a website theme.
6. Speed:
Website speed is the main feature that cannot be ignored. Because it is critical for the ranking of the website on search engine result pages and the best user experience.
As you know, if your website doesn’t load within 3 seconds, then the audience will not wait and leave right away because search browsers prefer those websites that load within a half second.
So don’t focus on the website theme that offers an eye-catching layout and designs but lags in the loading speed of the website. So as a beginner, choose a simple website design that mainly focuses on the website loading speed. Because these fancy fonts and flashy layouts decrease the loading speed of the website.
Use the speed testing tool to analyze the theme performance.
7. SEO-Friendly Theme:
Themes play a vital role in your website’s visibility on search engine pages. To find the theme that follows a practice that increases the website visibility.
SEO practice includes optimized meta tags, HTML structure and support, and schema markup (a language that search engines use to read and understand the webpage content).
If a developer writes a powerful theme coding practice, then the theme will perform well in the ranking on search engine result pages.
For an average person who has no technical background, it is difficult for him to analyze and determine the theme code. So as a beginner, look for the reviews and feedback relevant to SEO performance that will help you.
Most premium themes come with well coded that work well in search engine optimization.
8. Customer Support:
If you are looking for premium things, then do not neglect customer support features. If the theme offers support, then find out what kind of support they offer, and timing of customer support access, and their active support system like response time duration.
Explore the theme and look for the features that offer user support features like contact forms, live chat support, or a dedicated support team.
A reliable theme comes with support, Maybe the plug-in you purchase is good enough, and you do not need support, but still, as a beginner and having no technical background, it is necessary to consider the quality of help you may need if you get into trouble.
9. Design Of The Theme:
Although the professional design and layout of the theme present the brand image and first look and feel of the website completes the audience that engages the audience on the website. But it is not as important as the other factors that I mentioned above.
So, give priority to other factors like security, speed, website performance, friendly interface, design, and layout. If you are finding all points in one theme, then it is the perfect and ideal theme for your website.
You cannot neglect visuals in the online era because the first thing that attracts the user and audience is visuals, and it is a critical factor in digital marketing.
So, choose a theme that has customized colors and fonts because these also have the main role of representing your brand image.
10. Read Reviews And Demo:
How to determine the reputation of the theme? Look for the reviews, if reviews are positive, then it is trustworthy and reputable. If you want to know about the feedback of the theme, then read reviews of the theme.
And also check whether the developer responds to the negative feedback of the theme. In this way, you know how much the theme is responsive to the issues.
Also, check out the theme’s popularity, as well as how many theme times the theme is installed. The theme with active installations and lots of good reviews is the most trusted and reputable.
And beware of the bad reviews, if the rating is low, then, stay away from that kind. If the theme is offering a demo or live preview, then check out the layout design functionality.
Also, pay attention to easy navigation, and organization of the content and visual appearance that match the website content. So, make sure the theme that you choose aligns with your brand image and appeals to your target audience.
Where To Find The Best WordPress Theme In 2023?
To find the best WordPress theme, you have to explore different sources like
1. Theme Gallery Of WordPress.com:
First, find the best WordPress theme on WordPress. These themes are secure and regularly updated.
For this, go to WordPress.com and find the appearance option. Under the appearance option, look for the theme option.
On the theme page, you will find hundreds of free and premium themes that are organized by wordrpess.com. These WordPress themes are trustable as they are compatible with WordPress and regularly updated.
Just write the theme name, or you can filter the theme by narrowing your selections. For this, choose the filter option that is present on the right side of the search bar. After finding the theme, open their live demo and check out its preview before installing it.
2. Theme Directory Of WordPress.org:
More than 4000 WordPress themes are present in wordpress.org. Here third-party developer themes are also present along with a community of WordPress experts who are available to answer any queries of users.
Go to wordpress.org and find the feature filter button. This button helps you to search for themes that have a particular layout and design perfect for your website. After finding the theme, read its features in detail and check its compatibility with your website. For this, click on the preview button and analyze the live demo.
After finding the desired theme, download it, and this theme will be saved on your computer. Now you can upload it on your WordPress site. I have discussed the process in the previous point.
3. Third-Party Marketplace:
Many third-party marketplaces or websites sell high-quality and professional WordPress themes that are designed by developers.
If you want to get the WordPress theme on a third-party marketplace, then you must read and check out the critical information like recent updates, customer reviews, and information about the developer.
These themes are not free; you have to purchase them from their creators. After purchasing and downloading the link they provide, Your theme will be saved in your computer in the form of a Zip file.
To install this theme
- Visit wordpress.com
- And Click on the appearance, then theme options
- Click on the install theme option located in the upper right corner
- Now find the downloaded theme on the computer and upload it
- After uploading, this new theme will appear on the theme pages as the installed theme.
- Click on the activate button, and it is ready to use.
To know in detail how to install a WordPress theme, visit here.
Final Thoughts:
The theme represents the style of your brand, and it also makes your brand Stand out among others. Although it is difficult to find the best WordPress theme that offers all functionality and is also easy to use unless it is premium.
When you are looking for how to find the best WordPress theme, you find many tempting websites that offer visually attractive features, and you fall in love with the theme that does not even resonate with your brand or the content you create on the website.
So, it is important to think about your goals and objectives before looking towards flashy themes. Be honest about what kind of content you are going to use on WordPress.
Every theme doesn’t fit into every brand so look for a theme that can be customized. And never neglect the mobile-friendly theme because 90% of the internet population uses mobile phones for internet browsing which means 9 out of 10 people use the internet on mobile phones.
And always opt for a theme that offers customer support because you never know when you might get into trouble.
Moreover, it is better to find the best WordPress theme on wordpress.com or wordpress.org because these are safer than finding the best themes on an unknown website. Because there is always a risk of getting malicious codes along with the theme.
I hope you will find the best WordPress theme that will align with your website content and resonate with your audience’s interest.
Good Luck!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Do I Need A Theme For My WordPress Site?
Yes, the theme is the must-have element, and without a theme, it is impossible to run a WordPress site. The theme is required to create the look of your website, and your entire website is built on a theme.
How Many Themes Can I Use On WordPress?
You can use one WordPress theme at a time. Although you can install as many themes as you want, you can activate only one at a time.
If you want to install a new theme, deactivate the previous one, then activate the new theme.
Can I Create A Theme From Scratch As A Beginner?
Yes, you can create a theme from scratch by using a pre-build theme. If you are a beginner and want to create a theme from scratch, the simplest way is to download an appropriate theme, and then modify it according to your website requirements.
Should I Use A Free Or Paid Theme?
If you are a beginner and start your website journey, then first try out free themes. Free themes are easy to access and use. After strengthening your foot on your website journey, if you are satisfied with the existing website theme, then go for the premium version with additional features, if your budget permits you.
How To Choose WordPress?
If you want to run a website for fun or personal blogging then, choose wordpress.com. If you want to run a website to make money, then go for the self-hosted wordpress.org.
