We all know that developing a website using WordPress is pretty easy and also it’s fun to learn website development using WordPress. But to get a secure and bug-free WordPress website, it’s very important to take care of a few essential points.
The most important asset of a WordPress website is the collection of its plugins and active themes.
In this blog post, we are going to talk a bit about WordPress themes.
Although there are thousands of free and paid themes available that you can download and use for your website, before choosing an appropriate one, you must take precautions and follow the necessary guidelines.
What is the need to be careful while selecting a WordPress Theme?
While WordPress offers an easy way to install & activate any theme and change the look of a website, there could be several themes that are not considered as trustworthy because they could slow down your website, may have a bad coding structure, or may not be mobile responsive.
Therefore, before you choose any Theme for your WordPress website, make sure to follow below list of tips below.
#1 Check For Responsiveness
There is no need to mention the importance of having a responsive website in 2017 however there are still many WordPress themes that are not fully responsive.
How to make sure that a WordPress theme is responsive or not?
Well, there are several online tools available that you can use and check the responsiveness of any theme. For eg. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
Open the above-mentioned link place the URL of the theme’s demo page and check the result. Keep trying until you get one that passes through this test.
#2 Check Code Validation
Another check which you need to pass through is code validation. Yes, you must check whether the theme that you are going to install on your WordPress website has standard codes or not. It’s not as scary as it sounds to be. There are several tools available for you to test with.
The code validation test is good not only for the website performance, but it’s also helpful in SEO. Yes, search engines like Google prefer those websites for ranking that have a standard coding structure.
One of the best online tools available is from W3C Validator. One important thing to note is that W3C validation results could show some bugs that may not need to pay much attention or to get worried about.
#3 Check Browser Compatibility
You never know from which browser your visitors may come to your website. It is, therefore, very essential to have a website design that’s compatible with all the major browsers. Before choosing a theme for your WordPress website, make sure to test it through different browsers.
If you find that a theme looks nice on Chrome and Firefox but looks weird on Internet Explorer, consider choosing another theme because Internet Explorer is used widely worldwide. If you don’t choose a theme that’s compatible with a browser like Internet Explorer, you may miss out on a huge percentage of your online traffic.
#4 Check Ratings & Reviews
Instead of suffering and learning from your own experience, it’s better to learn from others. Every WordPress theme has ratings and reviews posted by its existing users (if it is already used by many webmasters/developers). You can rely on them.
Although there is no specific number or percentage of ratings that could be considered ideal for any theme, you must check the overall ratings and reviews. You can also filter based on stars given to each theme. For eg. if you want to choose the best theme, you may filter them by selecting 5 Stars. Also, make sure to read what other people have to say about that theme.
#5Â Theme Support
When you choose to buy a paid WordPress theme, you don’t need to worry about the support because it’s always included in the package. However, in the case of free themes, it may be sometimes difficult for you to get free support. While most of the developers who provide free themes don’t provide support, there are still a few great developers who are quite prompt in resolving your queries or problems.
Again, you can refer to the reviews posted by a theme’s current users and learn from their experience.
#6 Supported Plugins
As we know the set of plugins of any WordPress website is considered as its backbone, you must make sure that your chosen WordPress theme supports all the popular plugins.
While there are plenty of WordPress plugins, some are must-have WordPress plugins for every website. Like Gravity Forms, Yoast SEO, W3 Total Cache, etc.
You can ask the theme developer if you are not sure about it.
Conclusion:
While it’s true that not all free things are good, through a careful selection process, you can get a freebie with superior quality. The same applies to a WordPress theme too. If you invest some time in finding the best theme for your WordPress website as explained above, I am sure you can find a high-quality theme.