6 Key Features to Look for in a WordPress Theme

Choosing the theme for your website is one of the most important things on a website. It is what attracts or deflects users from your website, which is why you need to pay attention to a few key features when choosing your theme. Your website functionality and design is directly connected to the theme you choose, and you want to maintain the perfect balance.

There are many different themes to choose from, and your best bet will be to go for a premium theme since they have a better structure and offer a wide range of features. Finding the right theme for your brand might be difficult, especially when you don’t know what to look for.

That is why, in this article, we will go through some of the key features you should look for in a WordPress theme.

1. Responsiveness

One of the most important things when choosing your WordPress theme is its responsiveness. In today’s world, there are many people browsing websites from their mobile phones or tablets, and you must make sure that your theme maintains its functionality as well as the design when it is displayed on a different device. The truth is over 50% of the traffic will come from mobile devices, so having a responsive theme is necessary for improving user experience.

Even though most of the premium themes offer responsive design, there are still some theme developers that provide a fixed design which you should avoid at all costs.

2. SEO

The best way to attract organic traffic to your website is by search engine optimization. SEO is considered as one of the key things for website success, and the theme plays a significant role in creating a search engine optimized website.

In order to improve website rank on search engines, you must choose a theme that loads just as fast as a horse launches during the Kentucky Derby horse race. Also has a simplistic design, and is compatible with external SEO plugins. SEO is no longer an optional feature for websites, which means that if you choose an SEO theme, you have a better chance of succeeding.

3. Social Media Friendly

You cannot imagine a website without the support of social media platforms. Unfortunately, some people do not pay attention to if the theme they choose is social media-friendly. Even though you can add additional plugins to improve social media friendliness, they will just slow down your website and might not function properly if they are not part of the theme. You should look for a theme that has sharable features and supports some of the biggest social media platforms.

4. Minimalistic design

There are a lot of people who fall for the same trap by choosing complicated themes with a lot of widgets and slideshow banners. This is not a good idea since people prefer simple and minimalistic designs, where they can find everything without any hustle. Also, too many unnecessary widgets, sliders, and icons will only slow down your website and lower your traffic.

5. Customization

If a theme looks amazing, don’t rush to get it. Try to research about its customization options. Since you need to adapt the theme to suit your particular brand, you need to choose a theme with the best customization options. In other words, you should get a pre-designed theme but add something unique to set it apart from others. There are a lot of theme designs that have restricted customizing options, so make sure you know what you are purchasing.

6. Support and Updates

Support and updates are also very important when buying a premium theme, especially for beginners who still don’t know how to set it up properly. Most of the themes have at least 6 months of support and lifetime updates. Updates will help you improve the theme and unlock new features, as the theme developers are continually looking for new ways to improve their theme.

These are some of the key features you need to pay attention to when choosing your WordPress theme. It is not a considerable investment, but you don’t want to waste your time buying the wrong theme that does not have winning characteristics.

Ausrine B.