WordPress is very popular because of how utilitarian and user friendly it is. Everyone with even a smidgen of html understanding can get around the platform, which a makes it the CMS of choice for many beginners. However, many make the mistake of choosing the first theme they come across, or worse, going for some random free theme without understanding the consequences it could have on their site’s traffic and search engine positioning. In this article, we’re going to show you what to look for in a good WordPress theme.
Less is More
Lots of themes come with tons of bells and whistles, nice animations, crazy colors and equally crazy layouts. While this may work for your line of business, more often than not, simplicity is key. Try to go for a simple, but not outdated, theme that fits your industry and lets you get your point across. A simple layout will not only work for your brand image, but will also gain the favor of search engines and visitors who tend to privilege uncluttered and straight to the point navigation.
Using a Theme that doesn’t Support International SEO
If you have a site that services only a local audience, this might not be for you, but if you intend to reach an international audience and want to run a multilingual website, then you need to go for a multilingual friendly theme. If you’re going to go multilingual, you have to choose a site that already supports the option or supports multilingual plugins like WPML for instance.
If you want to dominate international SEO, you should also work with local SEO firms in the main markets you’re targeting. For instance, if many of your clients are from the UAE, it would be wiser to work with an SEO Dubai company to guide you through. Only local experts can help you understand local habits, online culture and trends and help you dominate local markets.
Go Responsive or Go Home
There was a time when Google was more lenient with underperforming mobile sites or truncated sites made for mobile visitors. These days are long gone, however, and Google is doing everything in its power to eradicate these kinds of sites and provide mobile users with the best performance possible. And that includes privileging responsive sites and accelerated mobile pages in search results.
If you don’t have any of these two options on your website, you run the risk of having your site devalued in rankings. The good news is that most recent WordPress themes are responsive by default. However, a few still use fixed layouts.
The easiest way to test a site’s mobile friendliness is to test it across various platforms and see if the screen adjusts to each device. Google also provides a mobile friendly test everyone can use to see how well their site performs across all platforms.
Conclusion
As you can see, finding a great WordPress is not difficult. Just remember to pick the simplest and most easily navigable layout possible, choose themes that support multilingual options if you’re going global, and also make sure that site responds well to mobile visitors.