In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to choose the right template for your website. I will compare free/paid themes, responsiveness, SEO, simplicity, compatibility and many other criteria. All this on a real example.
So, I have chosen the domain name and also the right WordPress hosting . I just installed WordPress and I see a default WP template on my website. It is important to realize that the overall appearance (design) of the website depends on the chosen theme.
Most WordPress templates include predefined text colors and fonts, placement of elements and widgets, and many other details and styles that together contribute to the appearance of the website.
The best thing about WP themes is that with a little luck, you can get a great look for your website without writing a single line of code.
I consider the choice of a WordPress template to be an important thing. So I sat down and thought about what I actually expect from the future WP theme. Below I name the main areas of requirements that I focused on.
Free vs. paid WordPress template
First, think about whether and how much you would like to invest in a template . Check your budget and choose accordingly. At the same time, it is necessary to remember this fact when making a decision: not all paid themes are excellent products, and not all free themes are low-quality products . That being said, you can find great free WordPress templates and terrible paid templates.
Sometimes, because the templates are free, authors don’t have enough time for them. This means that many free templates are not updated in time . So at some point you get stuck. WordPress itself is frequently upgraded and there is a high chance that your theme will not work after the upgrade. There are also free WP templates for which you will not find help and support . So you will have to manage it yourself.
Tip: I have excellent experience with the following WordPress themes: Divi template and Avada . They are very flexible and still easy to set up even for beginners.
Responsiveness
I take this for granted. More than 50% of my visits come from mobile devices and tablets, and this number is expected to increase in the future. To choose a WordPress template, I tested the adepts by enlarging/reducing the browser window or using the google resizer tool .
If you have a tablet and a mobile phone, I recommend testing the demo templates directly on these devices as well . I know from my own experience that in some cases a template can behave completely differently on a real mobile device than when we try to imitate such a device on a computer. The reason may be the technology and the approach by which the template is programmed (specifically, the reason may be, for example, a different operating system of the device – Android / iOs / Windows Phone…).
Browser support
Here I will follow up on the first request. In addition to different types of devices , it is desirable to test the demo templates on different types of browsers – chrome, firefox, safari and internet explorer. Alternatively, you can test the template on other less used browsers such as Opera and the like. That’s why I recommend choosing a WordPress template with this fact in mind.
Web design
Web design is a purely emotional matter. In theory, you should choose a WordPress template according to the type of blog and audience. However, I take it as this will be my page that I will look at practically every day, so I want it to be pleasing to my eye.
It is important not to forget that the website design should always be subject to the level of usability of the website for visitors (the so-called UX – “user experience”). This means that it’s okay to have a beautiful design if it leaves your site visitors confused, lost, disoriented and lost on your website. That’s why I adapt the choice of WordPress template to it.
Specifically for my blog, I had a side scrolling menu as a request , because I just love it. Next, I envisioned a minimalistic design and a list of articles on the home page in the form of a masonry look or a grid look (grid) with multiple block sizes:
Template functionality
Here I will include several WordPress template requirements that you might have and which are good to know before choosing a template:
1. Support for multilingualism
If you are planning a multilingual website, the template should support multilingualism, specifically, for example, a wpml or polylang plugin. I personally use wpml , which I have already successfully deployed on several websites. I have no experience with the second one yet, but both have good references. I recommend considering the possibility of multilingualism in the future when choosing a WordPress template.
2. Eshop support (“eCommerce” solutions)
If you plan to include an e-shop, this must be taken into account when choosing a WordPress template. Make sure the template supports this option. Specifically, it should support, for example, the most widespread eshop solution for WordPress – woocommerce plugin .
3. Support for Slovak characters
You also have to be careful about this. The font of the template may not support our typical Slovak “hieroglyphs” and then it could turn out similarly disastrously like when you open Instagram on a computer: Let’s hope that the boys coders from Instagram will fix it as soon as possible and that we won’t forget it either. The best way to test our potential template would be to be able to insert a pangram to test Slovak diacritics. It would be best to put it in your headings, subheadings, text and widgets. And that too in the version with capital letters.
Unfortunately, many times we do not have the opportunity to test it before installing the template. It may also display bad characters during the demo, but after installation you will find that the theme has the option to choose a suitable font ( it must have the Latin Extended font-subset ). If you find that some characters are displayed incorrectly, do not despair, there are ways to fix it, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
4. Template language
It would be nice if the template was already translated into the desired language / languages (in my case, Slovak). Or at least to include a .POT template for translation. But don’t despair even if it doesn’t contain .POT, we can help by using the Loco Translate plugin, except that it’s a bit more time-consuming and technically demanding.
5. Support for different article formats
WordPress allows you to set its format during the editing of the article (” post formats” in English, see the image below). But it is up to the creators of the theme whether they will incorporate it into it. For example, I plan to use quotes, videos and galleries in my blog and I require them to be displayed accordingly. Therefore, I will require my template to support different article formats.
6. Template speed
A very important fact for choosing a WordPress template. It goes without saying that I want to have a fast website so as not to discourage blog visitors or googlebots (robots from Google that will index my website). That’s why I tested the demo template using the pingdom tool:
I think the most important indicator from the result I received from the tool is the page load time. If this time is within 2 seconds for the template demo, then that is acceptable, because we can significantly reduce it on our real blog. And that by choosing high-quality hosting , installing a cache plugin for speed and optimizing the size of images. I use (and consider the best) caching plugin WP Rocket . I use the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin to optimize the size of images.
I would also like to quickly explain why I use (and why I would also recommend for you) hosting from websupport . They have an automatic installation of WordPress , which is convenient for beginners and saves time for more advanced users. The above-mentioned plugins WP Rocket and EWWW Image Optimizer are already included, set and server-tuned in the installation. Their servers have SSD disks . The result is a very fast web speed, as you can also see in the example of my blog in the image above. And that’s cool for me :).
7. Presence of page builder
It is difficult to translate it into Slovak, but I would translate it as a visual page builder. It is a tool with which you can create the interior of the pages yourself from various elements and place them differently. It’s probably best to show it in a picture:
The picture shows the Divi builder , which is one of the best. In general, a page builder can be part of a theme (for example, divi builder is also part of a divi theme ), or in the form of a separate plugin. Therefore, even if your chosen theme will not contain any page builder, you can install it as a plugin. The best rated builder in the form of a free plugin is Page Builder by SiteOrigin .
I don’t need a builder for my blog, so I will exclude it from the WordPress template selection. On the contrary, it will be requested if my template does not contain one. The reason is that every additional functionality of the template, as well as every plugin used, contributes to reducing the speed of the website.
8. Template code quality
As a programmer, I can already judge the quality of the code from the demo page, but it can be difficult for a layman. A theme may look beautiful, but there may be “ugly” code in the background. One possibility is to run the theme through the code validator from W3C , which is the international organization responsible for the standardization of our Internet (www).
Don’t be alarmed if this tool shows you some code errors, it should be expected that most themes available will have some flaws. It’s just that it’s not a red sea of errors :).
And I kept the most essential to this point for the end – why should we care about theme code quality? Because a poorly programmed theme can significantly hurt our SEO. And we don’t want that.
9. Documentation
I would like my template to have documentation so that I don’t have to fumble about where and how to set up individual elements of the template. Unfortunately, many free themes from wordpress.org do not include documentation , so it costs us additional time to find and test where and how to set up. In contrast , many of the paid themes at the largest template vendor have a high level of documentation (they are “well documented”). It is one of the requirements that the seller demands from the theme creators. That’s why I adapt the choice of WordPress template to it.
Ultimately, it is up to each of us to decide whether to require a documentation template. as for me, yes. I have already had the opportunity to try many different templates both at work and in private, and each one had completely different individual settings (written differently, there are no uniform WordPress rules for organizing theme settings). I’m of the opinion that time is money and I don’t want to spend it unnecessarily searching for individual settings, I’d rather spend the saved time on writing articles.
Is it a lot of work to customize?
If you have little WordPress skills, you should definitely go through the reviews and comments about the template. Of course, the demo version can look fantastic. But if you want to place six images instead of five in a particular section, and it can only be done programmatically, it might be a problem for you.
Click through the template in the demo version and get an overview. Read the description and instructions for setting up the theme. Here’s how easy it is to adapt. Another important aspect is related to setting the theme. Is the theme settings section user-friendly, intuitive, easy to use? A great place to check is the screenshots on the template website. Here you can see how the theme organizes individual settings sections.
Compatibility with plugins
You probably have some plugins that you need to make your website work . It is important to check that the template supports these plugins. When it comes to free WordPress templates, it is easier to test and verify this compatibility – you simply install it for a trial. But if you have decided on a premium theme, a possible solution is to ask the creator for information.
Is the template SEO optimized?
It is wonderful to have a nice looking website. But do not forget that the website must also exist for search engines . You can check the SEO optimization of a WP theme manually. There are also online services that will show you how SEO friendly a template is – for example EasySeo . Again, if you choose a premium theme, the creator should be able to offer you all the important information about it.
What about social media?
As for social media, it is always possible to add them as a WordPress plugin . But since social media is becoming more and more important in the online environment, it would be nice to have social media integrated already within the template.
Check out the template collections
For inspiration, you can see the collection of TOP 30 WordPress themes for specific purposes:
- WordPress šablóny for businesses
- Free WordPress šablóny
- WordPress templates for eshop
- WordPress šablóny for photographers
Choosing a WordPress template – conclusion
I have thought out the requirements, so I will continue to search for the template itself. But I’ll save that for another article. I hope this article has brought you something, whether you are a WordPress beginner or advanced.
Tip: Choosing the right hosting is crucial for a fast website. I recommend betting on proven quality: WebSupport , Webglobe-Yegon or Wedos .
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