WordPress has become the most popular open source content management system (CMS). In its beginnings, the platform was designed for bloggers, today its use has been diversified. It is not uncommon, in fact, seen behind a shop, or behind a site that promotes a service is WordPress is working.
The appearance of the site in WordPress is crucial to the success of its project, many themes are available online, you can find a better or a worse.
Here is a comprehensive list of tips to be followed for choosing the right WordPress theme:
Price : Premium WordPress theme or Free WordPress theme
Yes, we must first need to make a choice between the WordPress themes those are free and those are Premium (sold by the developer or designer). Search in WordPress official website for free themes to see if there is one that approximates your wish. Then be patient, changing the functions PHP, HTML and CSS style sheets to transform the model and make it as you wish or pay for a premium theme; it is said that a premium WordPress theme in general ensure professional and quality service. To this solution, prices start around $ 35 and can go up to $ 200 or more. There is a third option for professionals who have a large budget, which is to employ some developer or designer to craft his or her own custom theme.
Comments in the download page
Comments are always a good way to forge a good idea on a theme. They allow you to have negative or positive feedback on the product.
For a particular WordPress theme, that is sold through a community based website, we noticed around 235 feedbacks, almost all are negative and the theme designer cum seller was saying, this theme is not designed for that plugin (practically multiple plugins), they will fix soon. As you can understand, purchasing such theme is not only wastage of money, but it is wastage of your time, effort and business.
The look
We usually notice the look first, but do not stop there, it is necessary that the subject meets certain criteria in terms of information classification, quality of design, readability and originality. Attention to the themes those catches the eyes.
Originality
Usually one of the first problems is that point. There are certain topics that can be considered beautiful, they are usually already widely used by bloggers. The goal will be to find the gem, and have programming skills to fit the theme. Or look at the side of the Premium themes, to find design more successful.
The usage
You will post articles on multiple occasions, a theme that is well codedby hand, make your life easier and automate the most mundane tasks. Premium themes, offers more options for WordPress, through their own administration options. They allow you, in many cases, to configure many aspects of your blog: logo, colors, SEO, integration of links to your social networks and many other things.
Features
If the theme selected is free, it usually has few options. They allow you to do the minimum and will not be completely tailored to your needs, you will have to pass or you have to create them yourself. If the theme is paid you will have access to new features, specifically created by the developers of themes (not designers Theme).
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Code quality
This point is also important to check with demos that are valid HTML pages ( W3C xHTML Validator ) and the CSS ( W3C CSS validator). A respect for standards guarantee a minimum quality and better compatibility with most of the browsers used today. Also check the loading time of the pages of the demo page to see if it is not a gas plant that will take time to appear.
Supporting version of WordPress
Verify that the theme is compatible with the latest versions of WordPress. This will allow you to make sure your theme is updated, that is, it is compatible with all the latest features of the platform, it will also allow you to be up to date with security.
What you recommend?
Free WordPress themes
If you do not have budget, create a child theme for the default WordPress theme. You have to work yourself to code the CSS and other parts. We discussed in previous article on how to create a child theme, you can have a look. Do not download WordPress themes from here and there. Go to WordPress (.org) official website and choose. They run a thorough scrutiny for malicious codes before allowing to be there.
Premium WordPress Themes
Buy from a reputed theme developing company those have a good own website, supporting forum.
Do not buy from any community based websites. You might not know, most of these theme creators those who sell through these community based websites, design the Theme in Photoshop and pass it through a software to automatically create WordPress themes (and for also other platforms). Most of them looks wonderful, but can not pass the W3C xHTML standards. Practically, developers or enthusiasts are needed to hand code an error free WordPress theme. Practically, you need not to be very religious about W3C; but, as because the speed of crawling of search engine decreases with increasing errors, it is best to buy an error free theme. CSS might not pass and you can correct it; but correcting the full theme for xHTML is not only laborious, but also we would ask you: why you will pay for a junk?
With medium budget, you can choose from Pagelines (they have free version with limited functions too), Elegant Themes, Woo themes and there are numerous other good companies.
With a no compromise budget and to get the best SEO friendly website, choose between Genesis and Thesis. These are basically platforms. There are paid and free child themes for them too. Also, you can order for a custom child theme or design of your own.
Genesis or Thesis?
Both are good, both have zero errors on W3C xHTML standard, both are very SEO friendly. The debate which is better is like comparing PC and Mac. There are many successful bloggers uses either of them. Choose yourself which will suite better for you.
