How to find a WordPress theme that suits you perfectly.

Fin­ding a Word­Press the­me has beco­me a big chall­enge at times. The num­ber of the­mes that are out the­re has just grown tre­men­dous­ly and ever­yo­ne is try­ing to get a pie­ce of the pie. And as it is in mar­ke­ting, all the­me aut­hors lure with super gre­at fea­tures and set­tings that are not so gre­at at second glan­ce.

So you have to pay atten­ti­on not only to the fact that your the­me has a gre­at design, but also to which plug­ins are used and what kind of set­ting you are given.

Today I’ll tell you what you should look for befo­re choo­sing a the­me.

What is a WordPress Theme? #

Web designs that have been inte­gra­ted into Word­Press are cal­led the­mes . Pro­fes­sio­nal the­mes offer you set­tings opti­ons that allow you to chan­ge the look of your web­site wit­hout pro­gramming know­ledge.

Word­Press sepa­ra­tes the con­tent of your web­site from the design. This allows you to chan­ge your the­me at any time wit­hout losing your con­tent.

You can also cus­to­mi­ze and extend a the­me if the set­tings opti­ons are not enough. You can eit­her cus­to­mi­ze the style­sheet via the Word­Press “Cus­to­mi­zer” or add new func­tions direct­ly via a “Child-The­­me”.

Where can I find WordPress themes? #

The­re are both free and paid the­mes.

You can find free the­mes direct­ly at Word­Press. For secu­ri­ty reasons, I recom­mend you to get free the­mes only from Word­Press direct­ly. The free the­mes are ide­al for try­ing out and get­ting to know Word­Press. But make sure you don’t fall for an expen­si­ve free­mi­um model.

You can find paid the­mes at Theme­Fo­rest, MOJO Mar­ket­place and Tem­pla­te­Mons­ter, among others. The advan­ta­ge of pre­mi­um the­mes is clean tech­ni­cal base, pro­fes­sio­nal respon­si­ve design and good sup­port. We pre­fer the­mes that are based on Page­Buil­ders like Ele­men­tor, WPBak­ery or Divi .

What should your theme be able to do? #

Befo­re you start sear­ching through the stores, you should take a moment to think about what exact­ly you need.

The easie­st way to make it work is to get inspi­ra­ti­on from other sites you like. Now pick out a few web­sites that you par­ti­cu­lar­ly like. Then take a pad and pen­cil and wri­te down all the points you like and why.

Define important functions

Bes­i­des the design, you should also think about the fea­tures you need for your pro­ject.

Here we divi­de the list into two items. On the one hand a list of func­tions that you abso­lut­e­ly need and on the other hand func­tions that you would only like to have, but which can also be rea­li­zed for exam­p­le by a plug­in.

The best thing you can do is ask yours­elf ques­ti­ons like the­se:

• Can colors and fonts be chan­ged?
• Can I cus­to­mi­ze the navi­ga­ti­on?
• Will the site be mul­ti­l­in­gu­al?
• Do I need a page buil­der?
• Do I want to rea­li­ze an online store?
• Do I need a blog?
• Should dis­cus­sions be made pos­si­ble?
• Is the the­me respon­si­ve?
• Do I need a slider?

The search can begin! #

You now know what you want and can final­ly start loo­king.

It’s best to pick out seve­ral designs right away and match them with your lists. Many the­mes offer live demos and show­ca­ses that you can use to get a bet­ter look at the fea­tures.

Some sites, such as Theme­Fo­rest, also show you a wide ran­ge of infor­ma­ti­on direct­ly on the store page.

Theme­Fo­rest, for exam­p­le, shows not only the sup­port­ed Word­Press ver­si­on but also com­pa­ti­ble plug­ins and how well the the­me has been docu­men­ted.

Also sup­port­ed brow­sers and the new Guten­berg edi­tor intro­du­ced with Word­Press 5.0 are taken into account.

But not always the store page is desi­gned so cle­ar­ly, so you should always look careful­ly.

This is what you should look for in a WordPress theme!

In addi­ti­on to your two lists, you should pay atten­ti­on to the fol­lo­wing points so that you are not dis­ap­poin­ted after­wards.

When was the last update?

You should make sure that the the­me is updated regu­lar­ly. Becau­se other­wi­se it can hap­pen that with the next update your web­site no lon­ger works. By updating your the­me, you also ensu­re that dis­co­ver­ed secu­ri­ty vul­nerabi­li­ties are clo­sed.

The­mes that have not been updated for a long time or that are not com­pa­ti­ble with the cur­rent Word­Press ver­si­on should be igno­red.

How do the reviews for the theme turn out?

You should get an over­view of the reviews about the the­me. Rele­vant are espe­ci­al­ly the ratings bet­ween 1 and 3 stars, becau­se the­se usual­ly indi­ca­te that some­thing did not work with the the­me. A look at the sup­port forum is also hel­pful. If you find most­ly open tickets the­re, this indi­ca­tes that user feed­back is rare­ly or not at all addres­sed.

The­mes that have only 5 star ratings should also be exami­ned skep­ti­cal­ly.

Number of active installation / number of sales

For the­mes that you get via Word­Press, you can easi­ly see how many acti­ve instal­la­ti­ons the­re are. The­mes that have been instal­led fre­quent­ly are obvious­ly more popu­lar and of bet­ter qua­li­ty.

For paid the­mes, ins­tead of loo­king at acti­ve installs, you can look at sales.

How good is the documentation of the theme?

Good docu­men­ta­ti­on of the the­me shows that the deve­lo­pers are try­ing to do qua­li­ty work. It also helps you find your way around fas­ter. In most cases, the docu­men­ta­ti­on also lists fre­quent­ly asked ques­ti­ons or known pro­blems.

Look at the docu­men­ta­ti­on before­hand and check if you can cope with it, becau­se most of the time the docu­men­ta­ti­on is only available in the author’s lan­guage.

Is the theme responsive?

A respon­si­ve the­me is a MUST! Make sure that the the­me you choo­se is also opti­mi­zed for tablets and smart­phones. This is important not only for your visi­tors, but also for your SEO.

Goog­le has alre­a­dy star­ted con­ver­ting its bots to mobi­le first. So if you want to achie­ve a good ran­king, the­re is no way around a good respon­si­ve design.

How are the loading times of the theme?

In addi­ti­on to the pre­sen­ta­ti­on, the loa­ding time also plays an important role in the ran­king of your page in search engi­nes. You should the­r­e­fo­re make sure that your web­site can be ope­ned quick­ly both on the road and at home.

Ide­al­ly, you check this with the offe­red the­me pre­view. Tools like GTMe­trix and Goog­le Page­Speed Insights help you find out how the the­me per­forms.

How to install your WordPress theme #

Now that you’­ve hop­eful­ly found your the­me, all you have to do is install it.

You can install the free the­mes direct­ly from your Word­Press admin panel. To do this, go to the “Design > The­mes > Add The­mes” sec­tion and sim­ply use the search to find the the­me you want.

For the paid the­mes you will recei­ve an archi­ve (ZIP) which you can easi­ly install via “Design > The­mes > Add The­me > Upload The­me”.

Befo­re you direct­ly start adding con­tent to your site, you should take the time to try it out. Try to find out for yours­elf if you like the fea­tures and the Page­Buil­der and if not, just chan­ge your the­me.

If you’d like some help choo­sing your the­me or have any other ques­ti­ons about Word­Press, feel free to sche­du­le a free con­sul­ta­ti­on with us. We are hap­py to be the­re for you.

Do you have any ques­ti­ons about this topic? Then feel free to lea­ve us a com­ment.