ReviewHostingASP.NET – One of the great things about WordPress is it has a large amount of themes that are available for the platform. With so many free and premium themes to choose from, your WordPress site can look different from another site built on the same platform. However, choosing just one theme from so many options can be very difficult. Maybe the visual design and appearance of the theme will be the leading factor in whether you pick a certain product or not. In this article, we will help you how to choose WordPress theme which are suitable for your needs.
Theme’s Features
When selecting a theme for a website, it can be easy to get seduced by lots of flashy design features. This can include things like animations, fancy page scrolling, content sliders, and carousels. While these features might look like a good idea on first inspection, they can often be detrimental to the user experience and site performance in general.
It’s understandable when we’re handing over our cold hard cash for something to believe that we should go with the option that has the most bells and whistles in order to get the most value. However, just because something is ‘feature-rich’ and action packed, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better than the competition. If you find yourself drawn to a theme due its flashy features, rather than its overall design, then it might be worth doing a little research into how useful those features actually are.
Theme’s Functionality
From an objective standpoint, themes are best suited to handling the design of the site, while plugins should be used to deliver additional functionality. However, with many themes, this isn’t always the case. Some themes include many additional features, especially those that are related to the appearance and layout of your content, such as custom post types, content columns and layouts, buttons, and other presentation aids
From a theme developer’s perspective, the appeal of taking this approach is understandable. It gives them less products to support. As well as reducing the range of possible configurations to support such as those using the plugin with another developer’s theme. It can also prevent their hard work from being used elsewhere, by those installing the plugin without purchasing the accompanying theme.
The financial benefits of locking a customer into a theme club with a yearly subscription by including important functionality into the theme files can’t be overlooked either. For the end user however, making use of features such as shortcodes that insert elements like buttons, columns layouts, and other page elements, as well as custom post types, which are part of the theme can have long term implications. If you choose a theme that provides much of its functionality thought the theme files, rather than a plugin, then switching themes in the future can be a painful process. However, if a plugin is used, then the theme can be changed, without removing the functionality that your content is dependent on. It’s important to research how the additional features of the theme package are delivered. If there are no support-plugins included, and the theme brings a lot of additional functionality to WordPress then proceed with caution.
Theme’s Control Panel
When it comes to setting up your theme, most of the work will be done through the theme options page. This control panel, depending on the theme, can allow you to complete tasks such as uploading a logo, changing the colour scheme, or inserting custom CSS.
As this is an important part of the theme, it’s a good idea to try and determine how usable this component is. While some theme developers might insist on creating their own custom options panels, this really isn’t necessary. Thanks to some excellent free plugins that allow you to easily add a well design options page to your theme, the number of themes doing it wrong should hopefully subside.
Free Themes
Getting something for free can be very appealing, especially when there are plenty of paid options vying for your attention. However, as the saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and this can sometimes be the case with free themes. Although many legitimate theme developers do make some or all of their themes available for free, not to mention the bundled templates that come with WordPress, this isn’t always the case. Downloading a free theme from an unknown source could lead to problems with malware and other security issues.
There can be other things to take into consideration with free themes. Using a popular theme that is free could mean your site could be sharing its design and appearance with countless others out there. Another point to consider is whether the free theme will be supported. If the theme isn’t used to promote the other offerings from a developer then there might be little incentive for them to dedicate as many hours to supporting the theme and providing updates for it in order to ensure it remains compatible with the WordPress core. If you are concerned about the security of your theme, free or otherwise, then the Theme Authenticity Checker free plugin can scan your site and detect potentially malicious or unwanted code.
Theme’s Support & Documentation
When choosing a theme, it’s important to know that it’s a product that is being well supported by its developers. Some theme clubs allow you to browse their support forums and online documentation before purchasing one of their themes.
This gives you a good opportunity to see how quickly user issues are responded to and dealt with before making a decision on the purchase. Also, as modern themes are becoming increasingly complicated in terms of features, it’s nice to have some solid documentation to follow in order to help you get the most out of the template.If possible it’s also a good idea to find out how often the themes are updated. Sometimes the details will be published on a company blog or added to a public changelog file.
Best and Recommended WordPress Hosting
We highly recommend you to HostForLIFE.eu, the leader of Joomla hosting provider in Europe. Their service is ranked the highest top #1 spot in several European countries, such as: Germany, Italy, Netherlands, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and many top European countries. HostForLIFE.eu is the only solution that helps everyone from personal, developers to large enterprises achieve success in WordPress lifecycle management. Their advanced WordPress hosting service includes blazing-fast high class hardware, the powerful security of suPHP and excellent costumer support. With their painless one-click install, your WordPress website will be up and running in no time.
