Introduction

Believe it or not, a theme plays one of the most crucial roles while building a website on the WordPress platform. Without a good theme, a website will look dull and fail to provide the targeted users who visit your website daily. A WordPress theme is not only responsible for establishing the aesthetics of the website but also enables the creator to install certain features that they want to incorporate into their website, using their creativity. Thus, as you observe, choosing a theme would determine if your customer can surf your website comfortably. Now that you know why you may have a good theme, we move on to an even greater task, choosing a good theme.

Steps to choose a theme for WordPress

1. List your needs before searching for website themes

Before rushing the process, the developer needs to know what features, aesthetics, and special attributes need to be present in the website to fulfil the website’s requirements and, at the same time, make it engaging for the viewers. Before listing the requirements, the developer must clearly understand the main goal behind creating the website to better understand what the website needs.

For example, in the case of a restaurant website, a developer can think of the following scenario:

Use Case: Restaurant App

Pages: Home Page, About Us, Menu (with filters), Reservation option, Contact Page, Map and other details

Integrations: Payment Gateway, Google Map, Online Order sync with Lightspeed POS, Delivery & Pickup Integration, WooComerce Integration

Theme Builder: What is the theme builder used, and if you are aware of the same

Paid and Free Plugins: If there are any paid plugins, you will get them free with the theme and any plugin you would be required to purchase if you buy the theme.

2. Head onto the ‘theme directory.’

For finding suitable themes for WordPress, one can choose to externally select their themes through various third-party sources such as EnvatoMarket or Elegant Themes

On the other side, WordPress too has its theme directory that can be used by developers to access freely available themes for their websites.

Recommendations

Choosing a theme may seem pretty straightforward in fact, it is! However, there are certain points that one should remember while choosing their theme as it sets the very base of the website.

• First, the theme should balance performance, features, and aesthetics properly. Implementing high performance and a features-intensive website sounds logical for technical website builders.
• However, a website for an art gallery should focus more on the aesthetics the website than features, which would make the website less complex and light and easy to use.
• Second, one should always choose an interactive website. Looking at the growing likeness for websites that are more customer interactive and give them more opportunities for personalization according to their understanding allows the creator to provide the best user experience, which makes them aware of the website.
• Large companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Flipkart use high-quality interactive websites that allow customers to interact with the images and content to gain more perspective on a single product. This has been possible due to web 2.0