Which is the best WordPress theme?
You got your hosting account and a domain name points to it. Do you have Fantastico in hosting cPanel? If yes, there is nothing to worry. Just a couple of clicks can make WordPress installed. You will find a new baby blog up and running without any delay. Immediately you will be logged on into the Administrator backend. Isn’t it a delicious piece of cake?
Everybody has different taste. You are inherently different than me in terms of likes and dislikes. The same look and feel is never suitable for all occasions and times. How should your blog look?
Here comes the role of a theme. It is the theme that determines everything about the look and feel of your blog including functionality. And I’m afraid, this is the most difficult decision in creating a new blog.
Its difficult to choose the best theme because there are innumerable, each one slightly better than the other. It is difficult because your likes and dislikes does not count here. You need to think about what your readers will like or dislike. You have just established a new blog, can you identify your blog readers? Great, it is not as difficult as choosing new theme for your WordPress blog.
Before you begin a quest for best theme for your blog, identify your requirement clearly. Most people often choose wrong things because they don’t know what they really looking for.
Budget
How heavy is your pocket? Don’t get scared, I’m not going to pick. But your budget plays very important role in making selection. A theme costs ranging from $0 to $hundreds and even more. Yes $0. There are plenty creative designers willing to offer the creation in return to few links at the bottom corner of your blog pointing to their sites. You will realize the cost of those links at some dark corner once your blog is rocking popular.
Still you wish to go for free themes you can do a few googling to get the reviews of some good free themes.
Once you start feeling that the links back to the creator on your blog footer is much costly than $50 to $75, its time you consider purchasing premium themes. Premium themes are the feature packed nice themes that costs money. You might get rid of rewarding the credit on every impression of your blog.
You wish to look your blog completely unique and hate anybody has a blog similar in design to yours, you need a custom theme. Look for a reputed theme designer to develop a theme just for you. You might be charged from some hundred dollars to few thousands depending upon the amount of work, design and functionality. Can you afford that? Great!
Purpose of your blog
When deciding a layout and design for your blog always consider the purpose of your blog. Does it require glossy and flashy outlook or plain and clean? Does it need to present huge amount of information from diverse sectors or it is heavily focused? Does it need single column layout or two, three or multi columns? Will there be sufficient room for all the components and widgets you need? Intended to implement Ads?
Once you are decided on the purpose of the blog, it will be much convenient to tick out those unsuitable blogs from reviewing.
Search Engine Optimization
Do you need search engine optimization for your blog? Or your readers are limited only for some group or corporate members? This determine which class of theme you’ll approve. If your blog is not for general public and don’t need the search engine traffic, forget it. Otherwise, you might search for ‘SEO wordpress theme’ or install SEO plugin in your chosen theme. A simple googling can reveal you the features of these plugins and from where too download.
I’d rather prefer to install ‘SEO Platinum’ or ‘All in one seo pack’ rather than compromise heavily on design aspect.
Features
A plug-in may contain a long list of features or just with some most essential ones. You might get tempted with flashy features a theme possess; but keep in mind that heavily featured themes might demand steep learning curve. One more thing, any feature a theme lacks can always be extended by using plug-ins. However, too many plug-ins are not desired from the performance point of view. It might cause your blog to load slower.
Security
Each and every moment there are swarm of spammers, heard of hackers, creeping with evil heart, to lick your juice and kick your life out. Sometimes the free gift can fire on your treasure store. Pay special attention to the security. Is the theme you’re going to purchase or download for free really safe? Do you need to implement some more plug-ins for the security?
Select the best theme available for your blog and rock the blogging world with killer content. Wish you best of luck.
Happy Blogging.
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Following is a video “How to choose wordpress theme” from myMarkettingCoach.com. Sit back and enjoy!
24 Responses to “Which is the best WordPress theme?”
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This post describes the different aspects you need to consider such as Budget, Purpose of your blog, Search Engine Optimization, Features and Security. If you could make yourself clear about these factors, you will be able to choose best theme for your…
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Which is the best WordPress theme | ICT Trends…
This post describes the different aspects you need to consider such as Budget, Purpose of your blog, Search Engine Optimization, Features and Security. If you could make yourself clear about these factors, you will be able to choose best theme for your…
zoomfeedback on May 15, 2010
Thanks for this great post. I had already chosen the Thesis theme for my blog, but was glad to see that I made the right choice based on your advice. I particularly liked your segment on the purpose of your blog. I needed something that was simple, attractive and easy to read for people who were looking to improve presentation skills and Thesis worked for me. Thanks again.
John on May 17, 2010
well you may use premium wordpress themes, but if you have a little coddy brain…:P you may find a free wordpress theme. customize it according to your need….and then use it:) alot of java scripts are avaiable now, just embed it and take advantage of it. or just search custom-web-design and then choose the free template or theme.:)
Nile
Twitter: blondishnet
on May 18, 2010
I agree with John’s comment. If you find a free one, you can customize it how you like. It is not hard and people often find that even with premium themes, they need more tweaking for SEO. I know, I have even worked with quite a few frameworks and themes for web design clients.
.-= Nile´s last blog ..What Is The Best Way To Display Posts On Your Front Page For SEO? =-.
Justin on June 20, 2010
I don’t think that there’s a best theme for any type of site.. here’s a example: you can’t use a music theme for a car blog?
newshealth
Body Kits on June 29, 2010
there are many many free wordpress theme. but if your reasons to monetize your blog, better use premium/custom theme, it will looks clean and professional.
Miss Platnum on July 9, 2010
Indeed, choosing an adequately theme for your blog is a hard decision, since there are such a large variety of themes nowadays. I still have a dilemma on choosing between two themes, but hopefully I will make the right decision:)
James | Web Design NI on July 24, 2010
Actually, I think the new WP default style that has been launched with WordPress 3.0 is highly configurable. With mroe power for custom fields and producing menus on the fly, I don;t see why someone would need to purchase a theme – unless they coudn't do XHTML /CSS i suppose.
Tinh
Twitter: azblogtips
on August 7, 2010
I prefer paid theme and finally I got one with hundred USD invested but it makes my blog unique and stands out
Suresh Khanal
Twitter: icttrends
on August 8, 2010
Its great to have you own custom theme for your site. That way it looks unique and more effective. After all good money returns good effect!
Daniel | Website Designer on August 13, 2010
Suresh Khanai, you should offer your visitors free customized WordPress themes from Carnavia. They are all made on request. Pre-made themes that are free don't get better than that. You can just go to their contact page or browse around a little.
Wordpress comes with a spam blocker that you can activate as a plugin if you go to the plugins section. It's great, because it eliminates the spam. But it is true about getting free themes. Free themes is risking bad behavior in the code – hidden links, spam, ads, redirects to other websites that could be harmful to your visitors' computers (or yours). It's a deadly world out there!
Stay safe, and please continue your blogging, Suresh.
Mark on August 16, 2010
I agree with most of what you had to say on which is the best WordPress Theme.
Some of the free themes, Like Atahualpa, rival the professional themes in terms of flexibility and customization and many of the newer free themes are flat better then the older professional themes.
For example I have an older professional theme on one of my blogs yesterday and I actually had to go in to the header section of the theme and code some HTML to get the links in the body of the post to look the way I want. In Atahualpa for example, this is a configuration. (Boy am I lazy 5 years ago I was coding everything in HTML and now I complain about a tweak).
But the new hot off the press themes from companies like Woo Themes are just fantastic.
But which is th best? Which flower is prettiest?
Sarah Harris on August 20, 2010
This is a great post. I have only been using WordPress for a couple of months, but I spent a lot of time at the beginning trying to find the right theme for the blog. I think there are some great, free themes to use if you don't have a lot of money to spend.
Suresh Khanal
Twitter: icttrends
on August 21, 2010
Thank you Sarah for stopping by and the words you’ve left.
Its indeed a tough task to choose right theme that suit your blog theme and contain features you’re looking at. The choice is even more difficult because we have innumerable choices whether free or custome themes. Moreover, theme are the most important aspect for any blog because it expresses the personality!
Brian on September 8, 2010
I actually have a membership to elegant wordpress themes, and I can only highly recomend them. The themes are really cool looking, and the support is really good if you need to make some modifications.
lair360 on September 21, 2010
If I were you, I would prefer to learn the basic about website and their structure. After that, I would try to build a webpage from scratch. It is also educational and this will also be your self – learning stage.
Creating a theme is hard work. But, it will give you big advantages!
Cheap Calls to Australia@ on November 25, 2010
Great article, i use the all in one seo plugin and am a big fan.
PR3 DOFOLLOW on December 31, 2010
I also use my premium themes. usually has premium has great design and SEO fiendly.
sidder on January 28, 2011
I still have a dilemma on choosing between two themes, but hopefully I will make the right decision.
Hotfile & Fileserve downloads on February 13, 2011
Wow there are so many good looking wordpress themes, this is a tough question. Based on form or function or both?
Dave on March 10, 2011
Great post about themes,concerning the seo aspect I always use the all in one seo pack plug-in
Mark M South on April 5, 2011
That’s true.
(Its difficult to choose the best theme because there are innumerable, each one slightly better than the other. It is difficult because your likes and dislikes does not count here.)
I read your whole article you have given really great tips to help choose a wordpress theme for my new website.
Thanks.