Selecting of a perfect WordPress theme is a frustrating process for almost every blogger specially for newbies who just started blogging, If you are having the same problem than I will help you find a perfect WordPress theme for your blog in this post.
When it comes to WordPress themes, there are two main types of WordPress themes: Free WordPress themes and premium WordPress themes.
The first process is to decide you want to use free theme or premium theme.
Recently a visitor raised an interesting point by comment on one of my blog post that the premium WordPress themes are not all good, there are many Free themes which offers tons of important features than premium ones, Do you agree? I agree with him because free themes are really great just because they are FREE!
If you want to start a personal blog to explore your personal interests than you can use free themes, but when you consider your blog as a business and your blog started growing than you should spend money on premium ones.
You know what they say look for the quality of a product, not price. Premium WordPress themes are quality themes which adds extra benefits on your blog, but free themes don’t even give the opportunity to fully control the theme.
Forget about using free WordPress theme:
All free WordPress themes include some kind of strange and encrypted code in the footer section which you can’t remove and if you try to remove it the theme will stop working, So as a website owner no one want to have any type of unknown code on his website.
Another disadvantage of free themes is that it makes your website load slow. Of course if there’s any encrypted codes on your site (You don’t know what type of code they are!) than you can’t even think of fast loading of your site.
Pick a Theme related to your industry:
Now you’ve decided to use a premium WordPress theme for your blog, So what next? The second and most important step of choosing a perfect theme is that you should find a theme related to your blog niche. e.g. If you have a news related blog than Newspaper Worderpress theme is perfect theme for you or if you have a photography related blog than find a perfect theme which suits your blog content.
As you know my blog is related to blogging, so I found SmartBlog theme from Theme Junkie a perfect theme for my blog and it has a lot of great features.
Features of a Premium WordPress Themes:
Premium WordPress theme provide you with tons of great features. You must consider these before buying a premium WordPress theme from anywhere.
- Customizable Homepage Support: The theme must offer a custom homepage support because there are many possible used of WordPress these days, Most quality themes enables you to create a custom homepage and choose the individual elements you want to place on your homepage instead of your recent posts.
- Customizable Header: The theme which you’re considering must support easy customizable header without using of HTML and PHP code.
- Different Color Scheme: The theme must offer a different color schemes available.
- Must be Compatible with every Browser: The theme must be compatible with every browser. Your theme must be compatible with older browsers like IE 6 because most tech designers are ignoring internet explorer. There’s still a large number of people who use internet explorer and other old browsers, so make sure you look for browser compatibility.
- SEO Friendly: Must be SEO friendly and ability to set the titles and description for homepage and for every post.
So these are the most common features of a premium WordPress theme which must be considered before buying.
My Recommendation:
There are tons WordPress premium themes providers online, but I would highly suggest to go for Themes Junkie or Elegant Themes because these two websites offers all of the great features which I’ve mentioned above.
Your Turn!
Now I turn It to you. How did you select your current WordPress theme, have you considered the features of your theme before buying? and what tips do you have on choosing a perfect WordPress theme? Let us know in comments.
Hi Ehsan, still reading through your blog posts and learning all the while. Whatever skill or topic I want to review you seem to have covered it, fantastic thank you.
I’m still figuring which theme to buy.
On the proposed web page, the site introduction will be followed by a relevant post regarding a particular car incident. Hopefully this will encourage visitors comments.
The aim of the site will be for visitors to post their own experiences and further generate worthwhile dialogue.
I would ideally like the site to have a php codeigniter framework.
Can you possibly point me in the right direction.
Many thanks Barry
Hey Barry, welcome to blogging.
Seems you’re planning to start a niche website related to cars? Aren’t you?
If you’re completely new to blogging, firstly skim my guide to starting a blog that I’m sure will take you on the right direction.
No matter what topic you’re going to start a blog on, I recommend get a Theme-Junkie (affiliate link) theme because it works on any niche. Soon I’ll write a post on a complete Theme-Junkie review.
Let me know If you have any other question.
Currently I still use free WP theme. I still confuse to choose the suitable premium WP theme for my blog.
Anyway this article helps me to make a decision which WP theme I plan to use in the near future.
The pricing of every theme is varies and this will include in my consideration.
At least I know where I can find the nice premium WP themes from this posting.
There are two choices Themes Junkie or Elegant Themes.
Go for Theme Junkie today Heru If you’re serious with your blog.
As important as finding a theme which suits your site is finding a seller of themes who you can trust. We ended up buying a theme which whilst it looked professional, the code was a real mess. The sellers (who had a page rank of 7!) were real crooks and ended up using a hack to implement hidden links on every page of the site.
Be careful who you buy from.
Thanks for letting us know about your experience Chloe.
Hi,
I have changed my theme many times since I’ve started blogging a year ago. I’m still not able to settle down with any theme. Is this the same thing that happens to everyone at such a stage?
I’m looking for a premium theme but I’m not able to decide the right one for my blog.
Thanks!
Mukesh, No matter what niche you’re in. Theme Junkie has all sorts of themes according to your need.
I would suggest you choose a theme from Theme Junkie because their themes are easy to setup and customize. You can see an example of it on my own blog (I’m also using a theme from Theme Junkie). Here’s the link http://www.guideandnews.com/themes-junkie
This one is another great blog post on WordPress experience, Ehsan. I think now your readers know why professional blogger don’t use Free WordPress Themes, and why they should too. Keep up your good work, bro
Thanks very much for, I’m glade you found my post useful.
Mush appreciated
Not all free wordpress themes have unknown code stuck to them. The ones you find by googling often do, but there are also great free themes, several of which do even more if you upgrade to paid versions.
The biggest thing is that most premium themes give you customer support and many of the free ones don’t. However I’ve found some free ones occasionally offer better support than others. So check out customer support before buying.
Premium themes are more apt to be upgraded and kept current.
Agreed with you Heidi,
Not all free themes are bad choice. There are a lot free themes which has great features than others, but as you said FREE themes doesn’t gives us the fully support when we face any problem.
I’ve also many free WP themes which was really great, but now I have found out that premium themes are the only way to go for me. As I said, free themes are good just because they are FREE!
BTW, Thanks for your comment Heidu, I really appreciate it!
Well yes, free WordPress themes include some kind of unknown code, which one can’t be removed and agreed when buying a premium theme, one should buy a theme related to blog niche. Thanks Ehsan for sharing this useful info
Hey Nizam,
Nice to know you got my point here. Seems like you’re ready to buy premium theme? Do it with my affiliate link if possible
Bro I have read this post today, but unfortunately I have already purchased a premium theme couple of days ago. Thanks a lot though
No problem Nizam,
Thanks for stopping by again.
Hi Ehsan……
I would like to add one more point here…
Whenever you go for a Paid Theme then must check its supports forum.
If the theme publisher doesn’t have any good support forum then your queries regarding the setup or theme modification will not be entertain by anyone.
I think you’re right. We also must check the support forum of theme provider. Thanks for the extra point.
Themes are always the hardest one when trying to choose from. There are so many out there that we are spoilt for choice, that is the biggest problem. But I must say there are so many to choose from, there are no shortage of good free and premium themes.
Thanks for your thought Shalu, I agree with what you said!
Of course! I don’t say that free themes are useless, but paid themes are really amazing. You get a sense of pride in yourself. I’m using Thesis and can’t complain at all! Their support system is really amazing!
Hey Raaj, I appreciate you stopping by and leaving a comment here.
Keep visiting!
Perfect WP theme should be simple and configurable. Besides, it should looks well and professional
BR, Chris
Yeah Chris, Thanks for your comment.
Great blog and post, Ehsan. WordPress – my favorite blogging platform. One must choose a WP theme based on its page load speed. There are some themes which are quite heavy and takes hell lot of time to load even without much of heavy content.
@Technology blog, Yeah, We must check for page speed etc before purchasing a WordPress theme. There are some other things which should be considered before purchasing a premium WP theme which is mentioned on the post.
Thanks for stopping by…
As I always say that our blog is our medium which we use to deliver our message. And according to a saying “Medium Is Message”. if you have good platform , medium for your message then your message will more likely going to heard by people..
So stick with simple and elegant theme..
I also think that simple style is much better than adding useless fancy flash which adds no value to our blog.
Awesome comment bro. Thanks for your time and making a comment here.
Really nice post Ehsan. Interesting tips on WordPress themes. As I’m a new WP user it is very usèful for me.
Hi Sheroz, I’m happy to hear that my post helped you. Thanks for your comment.
Hello Mr. Ehsan,
This is my first ever comment on your blog, but I’m a daily visitor of your blog and I love to your useful posts.
Subscribed to your blog and want to be your friend because I like you and your writing style. Thanks for providing such a valuable information about WordPress themes in this post.
Hi Frederick. Thanks for subscribing my friend. I will do my best to share great articles like this with you.
I also want to be your friend and I really need good friend like you. I’m glade you liked my post and subscribed.
The only thing which I need from you is that keep visiting and keep leaving such a beautiful comments like this. Have a good day bro.
Thanks you Ehsan for your reply. I’m really appreciated. Will surely keep vising your blog buddy.
Hi Ehsan,
I was using a free WP theme when I first started my blog as a personal blog but whet I started considering my blog as a business than I’ve moved my premium one like you mentioned im your post.
Thank you very much for such a valuable article. Have a nice day.
I’m really glade you liked my post and did same as I shared in my post with my readers.
Thank you Sanaullah for your comment, Anyway I like your blog. You shared a good tips on health!:)
Thanks for stopping by.
Hi Ehsan,
I was use the default wordpress theme that I customized for a long time.
But that narrow blog did not use up all of the screens space the way it should have.
I went ahead and got a popular theme that almost everyone has hear of. After some basic customizations it seem to work a lot better for me.
From displaying the comments better to allowing me to change the size of the blog on the screen, it has worked out quite well.
Congrats David for your new theme. As I have already said in my post that free themes is not compatible with all browsers.
Thanks for stopping by.
I agree with going the paid theme route Ehsan, especially if you’re serious about building a business online. Free is okay to start out with but the paid themes are so much more flexible.
I didn’t go with a particular theme with my industry. I just purchased Thesis a few years ago and now they have a lot of custom themes out there but I just went with the simple look and did it myself. I don’t like busy themes or too many colors. I think they are distracting.
Your theme is nice though and glad you like it.
Great advice Ehsan on the wordpress themes.
~Adrienne
Yeah Adrienne, I also like simple look themes and I have have selected this theme because it’s simple look and was working perfect on my blog. It is also compatible with all browsers. I’m glade you liked my post.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my article.
Thanks for sharing nice tips again, Ehsan. May you prosper.
Hey Rauf, Thank you very much for your all comments and for visiting my blog every time when I make a new post. I really need such a great visitors like you, I’m really appreciate for your kind comment.
Thanks buddy. Keep visiting…
Hey, Ehsan
I’m in two minds about designing a new layout or just keeping my current one.
The only thing is I don’t have the flexibility to modify the theme as I would like.
But then again I don’t want my blog to look the same as everyone else.
I like thesis, but not sure if I be really be bothered to design one – so time consuming.
Hmmm…
Simmeon, If you want to be a member of Bloggers community like me and everyone else who blogs and want to be a successful Blogger than you must be one of us. As you said that you don’t want your blog to look as everyone else than which type of look you want to give to your blog. Can you tell us?