30 Apr Choosing A WordPress Theme For Your Business Website

The Coronavirus pandemic is changing the way people do business. With so many business closures and stay-at-home restrictions imposed by governments around the world, many companies are shifting from traditional brick and mortar stores to ecommerce stores in order to limit physical contact with customers and clients.

Ecommerce stores are advantageous during this time not only because it limits face-to-face contact but also because it can stay open 24-hours a day and can be visited by people across the world. This makes your product or service accessible to more people. However, transitioning from traditional to web-based business is one thing, setting up a website and picking an ideal theme is another.

Luckily, websites are easier to create thanks to platforms like WordPress. This CMS is one of the most popular in the world and has robust support.

If you have a business website and can’t choose a theme, you’re in the right place because we have some tips for you on how to choose the right WordPress theme.

Design Elements

Modern design elements should be present in the theme you are considering. Look for the following:

• Static header
• Scrolling banners
• Parallax layers – text or image layers that go on top of the image.
• Accordion for FAQs or uncluttered title based information.
• Pricing tables – only needed if you showcase the price.
• Video banners
• Form elements
• Team
• Service or icon box
• Blog page – if you’re planning to blog on your website.

Performance

Website performance is one of the bases for good search engine result page (SERP) ranking. Aside from this, it’s also a big factor for customer experience.

Before picking a theme for your business website, you can choose the live demo and run a check. Here are some tools you can use:

• Google page speed    
• GT Metrix    
• Pingdom tools

Once you run the tests, you can usually see results similar to the one below:

Don’t forget that the images you add on your website also affects speed and loading time.

Customization Options

Customization should also be a factor when choosing a business theme for your website. The ability to customize features like changing colors, adding custom styling, simple banner editing mechanisms, photo gallery configurations, page creation and adaptation of page templates, for instance can help you website stand out and get more attention.

If there is a page builder offered in any part of the theme check if the pages are given as page builder templates that can be installed quickly. Nowadays, front-end page builders are available which is easier to use.

Mobile Responsiveness

Today more and more people are using their mobile phones to connect to the internet and to do their shopping. According to studies, as much as 60% of traffic comes from mobile devices so your theme and your website needs to be responsive.

Responsiveness means that your website is easily viewable in different devices such as desktops, laptops, mobile phones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Mobile responsiveness impacts SEO so check opening the theme you want to buy on your mobile phone and navigate to live demo and check each and every page template to see if you can read all sections of the website.

Miscellaneous Aspects

Look at the ratings themes get too. Aside from this, check for the last update version as well as version compatibility. WordPress CMS is updated regularly so the theme you choose should support the latest version. The current WP version supports the Guttenberg editor; the theme you choose should support it too.

The theme you choose should have a child theme for code changes that you might want to do.  Themes with extensive help document are recommended, as it makes life easy.

Conclusion

As Covid-19 continues to make rounds around the world, ecommerce can be a good tool not only for adapting but for surviving too. Businesses need to make money not only for their employees but also to continue serving their customers.

Picking a theme for your business website is just like selecting the right office for your business. Take your time to analyzing the factors outlined above. If you’re working with a developer, tell them that you need to have these details in order to have a smooth running website.