How To Choose A Right WordPress Theme For Your Business

Whether you are creating a website on WordPress for the first time, or are looking to redesign your existing website, one of the first aspects that you need to look at is your WordPress theme.

Your WordPress theme is the face of your business. It will determine how your website is going to look, and how usable is it for the customers.

Currently, there are well over 15,000 WordPress themes available in the online market for free and commercial use. This means that there are a lot of options one has to choose from.

Add to that, a majority of these themes comes with a lot of customization. This means that the themes enable you to tailor the website according to your industry standards or consumer expectations.

The plethora of options and customizations available has made it difficult for a business owner to choose the right WordPress theme for their business.

Many times, businesses chose a WordPress theme, and when they have used it for some years, and it is time to upgrade the website, it all comes crashing down like a house of cards.

Then, they have to get a coder to fix the problem because they did not pay enough attention while selecting the right theme.

It sure looks like an intimidating task getting the permutations and combinations right while choosing WordPress theme for your business, but it is achievable if you conduct the selection process solicitously.

Here I take you through the steps that will help you choose the right WordPress theme for your business:

1. Be clear about what you want from your website 

While selecting the theme, you must know exactly what you want from your website. Some people like to opt for casual and catchy themes that are heavy on graphics. These themes may be visually appealing but are more often than not heavy and slow.

Google hates slow websites and never gives it a good rank in the search engine. Whereas, if you opt for a lighter, low on graphic website, it will be simple but won’t be as visually appealing.

These are just some of the few scenarios. So, if you want to avoid running in circles, you must first realize how you want your website to be.

In most cases, choosing a simple website theme is the best option. Sure, your website has to be visually appealing, but not at the cost of its usability and simplicity.

There is a possibility that you may not realize what is it that you want from your website. In that case, you should check your competitor’s website and its features.

Note down the things that you like and do not like in your competitor’s website. Now look for a theme that has the positive features and solutions for the things that aren’t good about your competitor’s website.

2. The theme supports all the WP Plugins

WordPress themes are nothing without the WordPress Plugins (choosing them also is another story).

These plugins empower your website and make it more responsive and usable.

This is why, while selecting the theme for your website you must ensure that it supports all the famous WordPress Plugins.


Ask the theme developer about whether the theme supports all the must-have plugins or not.

3. Ensure that the theme is responsive

Over the years, there has been an exponential growth in the smartphone usage across the globe.

More and more people carry out their daily activities through the phones, instead of opening their personal computers.

Which means that a majority of your customers will visit your website through the phone. This has made the website responsiveness feature indispensable, rather than merely desirable.

Although almost all the WordPress themes are responsive by default, you still have to double check, in case you have fancied a website theme that just doesn’t function on smartphones.

Check your themes mobile friendliness here.

4. Ensure that the theme is compatible across browsers

Your customers will visit your website from different browsers. Google’s Chrome is the most famous browsers, but a lot of people use other browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera Mini, etc.

This is why, while you are selecting the theme for your website you have to ensure that it works similarly across the different browsing platforms.

Many LinkedIn themes look perfect in the Google Chrome browser but may seem broken in the Opera Mini. To ensures that you do not lose out on the customers using other browsers than the ones you use, run a browser compatibility test on the website theme.

These tests will ensure that your website theme is compatible across formats, and you can easily leave out the ones that aren’t.

5. Readymade or Custom?

It is always advised that you should opt for a tailor-made WordPress theme that is unique and caters to your industry’s customers.

Whereas, if you do not have the required capital(somewhere around a thousand dollars,) to hire a developer to build you a custom theme or you have fancied an existing theme you can opt for readymade.

Although you must bear in mind that the ready-made themes are not scalable enough for websites that have grown in structure. Readymade is not a good option for long-term requirements.

Final thoughts:

Gone are the days when WordPress used to be just a blogging platform.

Now, it has the ability to make or break a business completely, as in today’s digital world, a website is the face of the business.

WordPress provides that face.

Use it right, and no one can stop you in your long-term business growth.

Guest contribution by: Anthony Bergs a project manager at Writers Per Hour. He always keeps an eye on the marketing sector to implement the best innovations into the strategies that he builds. He’s always open for new connections and partnerships.