This is the first part of the ‘Technical Help for Beginners’ series of blog posts and in this post we are going to talk about how to select the best WordPress theme.
If you ever thought that a perfect WordPress theme is a myth, you should definitely read this post as I am going to tell you that a perfect theme actually does exist, but there are few things you have keep in mind when looking for the perfect WordPress theme for you blog.
Know your needs
You must clearly know what you are looking for in a theme, it gives the ability to refine your search. You will be amazed to know that Theme Marketplaces like Themes Forest and Mojo themes offer a wide variety of themes that can help you get your blog get any look you want.
What’s the purpose of your blog
There are tons of multi purpose themes out there which can be used to showcase a portfolio, write blog posts, sell products, create forums and what not.
Decide whether you want a theme that offers all the features in the world or just the ones you want to use or would be using in near future.
For example, would you really be going ahead and integrate a forum or eCommerce section to ; your blog, if the answer is No, or not in near future, then you can gladly disqualify all these themes.
Technical Aspects: Theme Updates and After Sale Support
When you land on the theme you were looking for, the next step is to know about the date the theme was last updated and see how frequent the theme is being updates, this is crucial for the security of your website as well as compatibility.
With time, WordPress releases more features and security updates in their versions, a theme should make the best use of the offering providing by WordPress.
Go find out the support page/forum, of the theme you are looking forward to use on your blog. Support is something you would want for it if you are not a WordPress ninja. If support is bad, it might actually cost you money to solve a problem caused by the theme itself.
It won’t take you a lot of time to find out how much times the developers take to respond and solve a particular problem when it is raised.
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How I got my Perfect WordPress theme
Having told you about how you can get you perfect WordPress theme, let me go ahead and tell you how I got my perfect WordPress theme.
My need was to create a simple, content rich blog,
Not happy with the basic design of my blog I decided to get it custom designed back in 2009, of course you have to spend a lot of money to go that way, but you get want you want, also you get what you pay for and I decided I did not need much when it comes to features because it was all just going to be a blog where I shared things I learned.
The Purpose of my blog was to be a resourceful site hosting different content yet same branding.
Fast forward to 2014, I started turning this blog into an ultimate resource for webmasters and bloggers to optimize their websites and blog, therefore, I needed more features and a unified look. And designing that was pretty time consuming, So, I decided to get a premium theme which can be set up easily and has all the features I would want to use in future.
Also WordPress has made a lot of development in last few years that it is possible create any type of website using the WordPress. As I told you above that Multi Purpose themes that offer portfolio, eCommerce, forums are easily available in the price range of $30 to $70, It is not something I am looking for.
I looked at the updates and the support of the themes
I picked out a few premium themes that impressed me and WP-Enlightened was one of them. And just when I was all set up buy theme, I got an email from Michael (the guy who created WP-Enlightened) about his new WordPress theme called WP-Prosperity. I it had everything I was looking for, even the things which I did not like in WP-Enlightened were addressed in this new theme from Michael.
I have already written a review about that theme in detail, and How I am using it on my blogs. All my blogs are powered by WP-Prosperity and have different looks, yet it is so easy to make customize every part of the theme.
Using one theme on multiple blog also helps minimize the learning curve and troubleshooting problems as you have a similar interface everywhere.
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Read the Review of WP-Prosperity
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