How To Find The Perfect WordPress Theme

How your blog looks is the first impression of what a new reader will see when they visit – so you’ll want it to look good – but how do you decide when there are so many good options to choose from?

You can get themes for free or you can paid hundreds or thousands for a bespoke layout, but for most of us, spending about $50 on a theme is the upper limit. We’ve posted about so many amazing blog layout shops in the past, so check out those posts if you need some inspiration but today we’re going to talk about what to look for when you’re browsing around.

Think about what you want

Before you start looking for a theme, think about the sort of thing you want. You probably already know if you like lots of images in a post (so choosing one with big images in the main text), or three columns instead of two, so write down all the things you’d like to have in your layout (or even sketch it out!)

It’s also a good idea to consider what your brand looks like (or how you want it to look) Check out these posts about 5 easy steps to branding your blog and how to brand your blog if you need a place to start.

Try to look past the example layout – but check if they provide sample data

It’s easy to fall in love with a layout, but one of the good and bad things about WordPress layouts in particular is that they are incredibly customisable. What you thought you were getting from the demo doesn’t always match up to how the layout looks when you install it, and that can be so frustrating. Check out the reviews and documentation to see whether the creator provides sample data that you can import to make the layout look as you expect it, or if they give directions (that look easy enough for you to do!) on how to make the layout look that way.

Don’t be totally put off if it’s not totally perfect

Lets face it – there’s no such thing as the perfect theme for your site. You may be put off by the font for the headers, or the colour of the links. Most good WordPress layouts will make good use of the customisation screens (either built into WordPress or have their own custom menus in the dashboard) but if the thing you want to tweak isn’t there, it can be easy enough to tweak something using CSS. (As an example, this theme has a few things in the layout that we didn’t want – using CSS, it was easy enough to hide those items without having to edit the actual template.)