There are reasons why WordPress, despite many competitors on the market, is still the most popular CMS platform used today. The platform is incredibly robust. There are thousands of plugins to help you expand its functionalities and even more themes to choose from.
Choosing a suitable WordPress theme is trickier than you think. Going for a bloated theme with every possible feature under the sun is no longer the way to go. You will end up with a sluggish site and a lot of features you don’t really need.
What you want to do is be more meticulous with the theme you use. There are a number of factors to consider when choosing a theme for your site, and we are going to dig deeper into those factors in this article.
1. Performance
Performance should be a priority in today’s market. A lot of themes now publish their PageSpeed results or results from other performance benchmarking tools to show that performance is not hampered by the design. You want a fast-loading theme with minimal scripts and bloat.
According to the experts at Vudu, performance is important because of how it is now used to calculate the user experience index by search engines. If you have a site that performs well, the site’s SEO performance will be high as well.
2. Layout
Content needs to be the center of attention on any website. While it may be tempting to use a lot of visual elements and design a site that attracts those who love extravagant design, it is always the content that makes users stay and return.
Make sure the theme can display content in a comfortable way regardless of the format. Articles need to be readable and easy to consume. The same goes for images and videos. You also want users to be able to find the content they are looking for quickly.
3. Navigation
That actually brings us to the next factor to consider: navigation. The theme needs to present the navigation menu in a consistent and functional way. As mentioned before, users need to be able to get the content they way to consume quickly, and good navigation is how you guarantee that.
It is also a good idea to have a functional search tool, especially one that integrates well with the rest of the theme. A search field or button on the top-right corner of the site is something that users now expect whenever they visit a new site.
4. Familiarity
Yes, visual elements and the design of the site itself are important, but familiarity needs to be maintained. As quoted from the experts behind the WSI Digital Web earlier, user experience is an important metric to consider.
Users should not be asked to learn how to use your site; they need to be familiar with elements like the hamburger menu icon immediately. Make sure the theme offers that level of familiarity, and you are all set.
Take these factors into account, and you will end up with the most suitable theme for your new WordPress site. With the right theme in hand, building a site is easy.
