All WordPress themes are created differently, endowed by their Creator with peculiar features, that among them are responsiveness, theme options, and the pursuit of developer support.
This statement should be written into a WordPress constitution somewhere but it’s not, so I’m saying it here. While the WordPress platform may maintain a certain consistency of usability, the themes created for it simply do not.
When picking a theme for your site you just have to know what you’re getting into before you hit “install”.
Some of the Best Themes in Life are Free
Bloggers who are new to WordPress often want the sexiest looking themes loaded with the most gadgets and gizmos just because they feel that anything they spent money on has to be better. And, maybe they want bragging rights.
The problem is that purchasing a premium theme too sophisticated for your skills can become a frustrating and time wasting experience. Just this week in my WordPress Workshop I spent time with two bloggers who were new to WordPress, yet had already purchased themes full of complicated features. I suggested they reactivate Twenty Ten while populating their sites before reactivating and working with their premium themes.
In a September conversation with WordPress guru Morten Rand-Hendriksen, he warned against jumping on the premium theme bandwagon without fully exploring your site’s needs.
“Premium themes tend to offer alternate solutions to functions WordPress already comes with – like custom menus, headers, footers, widgets etc, and SEO integration,” he said. “In addition, many premium themes are built to be catchalls. They have tons of functionality to serve as many different scenarios as possible. As a result, you are buying something of which you may only use 10%.”
So unless a theme suits your purposes perfectly, don’t buy a premium theme.
Here are the top things to look for in a new theme:
Theme Options
Theme Options are a dedicated control panel found under Appearances that offer users options to customize the theme that would otherwise require delving into the php code. Theme Options can vary, from one page of four options (Twenty-Twelve) to 20 pages of over 200 options (Atahualpa) and they control a variety of things like layout width, link colors, sidebar settings and front page post categories. If nothing else, find a theme with good Theme Options so you can customize it yourself.
Responsive Themes
Responsive themes are the wave of the future as they will device proof your site. They do this buying building in functionality that responds to the specific device that queries it. The way to prove a theme is responsive, simply shrink the size of the browser window and see if the elements rearrange themselves. What you see is what users of tablets and smart phones see. If you don’t like having to zoom in to find a link, get your site on a responsive them.
Theme Support
Make sure your theme developer offers support even if it’s a free theme. Check out the theme’s support forum. In addition to seeing what kind of issues other users are having, it’s important to see what kind of response they get from the developer. The best developers answer questions quickly, extravagantly, and will give you snippets of code to help you accomplish your specific need.
Installing the right theme for your site is like finding the perfect house to live in. It has to make you comfortable and happy. For more ideas about shopping for themes, see How to Choose a Free WordPress Theme
A few of my favorite themes:
Zenon Pro – Loads of theme options and awesome developer support. $
London Live – Clean magazine style with great theme options and not so great support. $
Atahualpa – With over 200 theme options, it’s infinitely customizable and has great support for a free theme.
Responsive – One of few free responsive themes. Has a decent amount of theme options but I wish it had a built-in slider.
Intrepidity – Blogsite Studio’s theme is free and I haven’t even used all its features, including a built-in slider.
Please tell me about some of the themes that make you happy and why. I’m always looking for new theme ideas
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