Finding a needle in a haystack might seem easier than choosing from the staggering collection of available WordPress website themes. That job becomes a lot easier with careful consideration of your website’s purpose and priorities. Use this rundown of features in five important WordPress website themes to determine what’s best for your site.
5 IMPORTANT WORDPRESS WEBSITE THEMES
While WordPress website themes come in free and premium editions, those listed here are all premium. Due to their price point, there is a glut of websites using free themes, while a premium theme offers more features and customization to set your site apart. Customer support is multifaceted for premium themes, including email, chat and public forums. Premium themes are updated more often, usually periodically, so security issues are identified and patched.
- Avada
Avada
Avada by Theme Fusion is one of the best-selling WordPress website themes, known for excellent customer support. The visual page builder allows for fast and easy customizing with no coding necessary. Avada offers full responsiveness, optimized speed, auto theme updates and 2D/3D layered sliders. It has five custom headers, a built in SEO plug-in, and is optimized for speed.
- X Theme
X by Themeco is one of the most customizable WordPress website themes available due to its stacks, which are four exclusive designs in one, rather than a few standard layouts. Drag and drop page builders make everything customizable without coding, including logo, font, color, menus, sidebars and headers. The live previewer ends the need to constantly refresh, granting intuitive front-end editing. Along with SEO readiness, X also brings custom extensions, Responsive Visibility, and optimized speed. - Enfold
Enfold
Enfold by Kriesi has been called one of the most user friendly WordPress website themes out there, with 18 predefined skins for non-coders to insert their own information. The drag and drop templates support customizing layouts, typography and color, with options for audio and video. Enfold is optimized for SEO, high resolution, and 2D/3D layers. It is responsive for any size screen and optimized for speed.
- Jupiter
Jupiter by Artbees is known as a one size fits all WordPress website theme. Now on version 5, Jupiter’s modular composition, reduced file size and total number of files have improved the loading times. Users find numerous drag and drop variations for customizing layouts, headers, post types and content importers as well as a background customiser using color gradients. Features include SEO readiness, Edge Slideshow, adaptable responsiveness, and 50 templates. - Salient
Salient
Salient by ThemeNectar is one of the most innovative WordPress website themes, giving websites a creative edge. The visually enhanced features include video backgrounds, sliders, and a custom homepage that lays out all parts of the website in an array. SEO compatible and speed optimized, Salient contains 350 icons and eight page layouts formatted for any size screen.
HOW TO CHOOSE?
With so many features available in these WordPress website themes, pinpointing priorities can be difficult. Website speed should be near the top of your list; if your site takes too long to load, viewers will give up and Google will assign a low rating. Sluggish themes are characterized by an overload of features and too many large files. Focus on the features that best characterize your business, whether flashy background videos and sliders or simple customized colors and headers, and choose a theme that specializes in those particular components.
User experience goes hand-in-hand with speed, since the purpose of having a website is to attract users. Ease of use can make or break your site, so limit complicated features. Smashing Magazine suggests experimenting with demos to get a feel for each theme: “Do you get a headache looking at it? Does it excite you?” First impressions are important, and your first impression should be a positive one.
Just like looking at a model home, however, a theme demo can distract you with a beautiful set-up that has nothing to do with your needs. Look for demo features that will fit your purpose and content. Make sure positions and sizing of logos, headers and text blocks fit your requirements. A live preview admin area will allow you to test-drive the demo for a better idea of how it meets your specifications.
All of these WordPress website themes demonstrate SEO compatibility, responsiveness, optimized speed, customizable design and easy-to-use drag and drop options to various degrees. Your priorities and personal impressions will determine the best fit for your website (your needle in the haystack).
