How to Choose the Best WordPress Theme for Your Business

Nov 2, 2016 | Website Design, WordPress

Reading Time: 4 minutes
Kevin Fouche

How to Choose the Best WordPress Theme for Your Business

Posted by Kevin Fouche, Pixel Fish Director

Kevin handles the planning, design, launch and training of every website that Pixel Fish creates. He ensures that every website is highly engaging and aligned with our client’s goals. With over 20 years of design and web industry experience to draw upon, Kevin aims to pass on his knowledge to our clients and like-minded businesses wanting to grow their online presence.

When a new visitor finds your site, you have 7 seconds to make a good first impression, according to Marketecture. If your theme fails to signal you’re a good fit to solve their problem or to have what they wish to buy, they hit the Back button.

Therefore, choosing your WordPress theme is highly important. You have just one chance to make a good impression. It’s an old saying, but it’s survived a long time because it’s true.

The theme is your site’s infrastructure and basic style and design.

So, how do you choose the best WordPress theme for your business’s site?

How to Choose the Best WordPress Theme

1. Start with the customer’s viewpoint

Your website is a form of marketing, and all effective marketing begins with your customer. What do the ideal prospects for your product or service expect to see? What do they want to see? How can you surprise and delight them while still clearly communicating you have exactly what they’re looking for?

2. Look for a well-supported theme

One of WordPress‘s strength is how so many people can design themes for it, and thousands of people have. However, many of those designers created that theme as a one-time project for school, fun or their portfolio. When released, it looked great, but that was four updates ago. WordPress keeps changing its platform. You need a theme that changes with it. Old themes might break or have security vulnerabilities.

3. You want your theme to keep up to date with trends

The Internet keeps changing, and, along with it, the look and feel of websites. If you saw a typical HTML 1.0 website from twenty years ago you’d laugh like you do at ancient hairstyles and fashions. Google’s Material Design, cards and large background photographs make today’s websites look a lot different.

4. Your site theme must accommodate users of mobile devices

This is no longer negotiable. Anywhere from 30% to 80% of all Internet visitors are using a smart phone or tablet, according to different studies. And the percentage keeps growing. Besides, even if none of your customers use mobile devices to go online, Google punishes sites that mobile users cannot easily access or read.

5. You must integrate with social media

About two-thirds of all Internet users around the world use social media. And many of them love to share sites they find and enjoy with their friends. That’s the modern form of word-of-mouth advertising. A happy visitor who posts your site to their Facebook page and tweets about it might bring your site to hundreds, even thousands, of other people who might visit your site and buy from you. This creates an exponential, viral effect that might drive far more traffic and sales than you expect.

6. Your theme must look good in all web browsers

Just as you don’t want to turn mobile users away from your store, you also don’t want to give a bad experience to somebody just because they use Google Chrome or Firefox or Internet Explorer or Opera.

7. Choose a theme that loads quickly

Some themes take a long time to load. They have many features, large files, or poorly written and inefficient code. That makes for a poor user experience, because most people get impatient waiting for a website to appear in their browser. This reduces conversion rates, reducing sales and revenue. Also, Google punishes sites that are too slow.

8. Use a theme that’s well-designed

Today’s large backgrounds give users an emotionally powerful experience. Make sure the design is easy and intuitive to use.

9. Choose a content width that suits your business and prospects

Most WP themes either display your content across the full width of the screen or section the screen into boxes.

Full Width themes suit businesses that depend on design and creativity, on visually affecting and impressing their visitors.

Boxed-Width theme are more traditional. They look like older blogs, and that’s more suitable for some businesses.

This article goes into great depth on how these two types of style designs work.

Elegant Themes is one of the best sources of WordPress themes that meet all of the above criteria and more. Their themes are both beautiful and functional, especially DIVI, which we highly recommend.

Contact us today, and we’ll help you choose the best WordPress theme for your business.

Let Pixel Fish take your business to the next level with a Stunning Business Website.

Check out some of our latest Website Design projects and Testimonials.
Real Estate and Property Projects
Not-For-Profit Projects
Northern Beaches Projects
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Further Reading
5 of The Best Features Of The Divi Wordpress Theme
10 Startup Website Tips For Entrepreneurs
How to Maximise your WordPress Website SEO
WordPress for Small Business: A perfect match
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com: Which one should you use?
Email Marketing Tips: 5 ways to Craft the Perfect Message
Setting up for online success: Goal setting for Online Stores
The Real Reasons Why eCommerce Businesses Fail
Divi WordPress Theme

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Kevin Fouché, Pixel Fish Director