How do you choose the best WordPress theme for your business or blog?

Whoever said variety is the spice of life could never have set up a WordPress blog. If they had, they’d have known that selecting a theme, from what Scepter Marketing counts as over 31,000 options from more than 200 companies, can feel a little overwhelming.

In this blog, we’ll help you see the wood regardless of all the trees. We’ll present a no-fuss and step-by-step guide to picking the WordPress theme that’s best for your blog or business.

STEP 1: Look at what’s popular

When it comes to WordPress, there are a number of standout themes as far as popularity is concerned. When you’re perusing the options in WordPress’ Theme Directory, you can filter the list of choices by which ones are most popular by selecting the ‘Popular’ tab.

Below are five themes that are firm favourites amongst WordPress users:

OceanWP

Installed by more than 300,000 users, OceanWP has been designed as a multipurpose theme that’s appropriate for both WordPress beginners and developers. It can be used for blogs, business websites and eCommerce sites, being what the creators describe as ‘the best friend to WooCommerce’.

OceanWP’s creators also describe the theme as being ‘easier to use than swimming in a kiddy pool’ and users tend to agree in the reviews. Other pluses that reviewers point out are its fully responsive nature, fast page-load times and high levels of support.

Hestia

Clocking up more than 100,000 installs, Hestia calls itself a theme for professionals and can be used for everything from eCommerce sites to websites for small businesses such as wedding planners and restaurants.

It’s praised for being beginner-friendly, compatible with page builders such as Elementor as well as for having a huge amount of documentation and advice to help users get to grips with all its functionality.

Astra

One of the main reasons the Astra theme has had more than 200,000 installs is because of its speed. The reason for this is because it’s incredibly lightweight – less than 50KB on the front-end.

Other perks include the fact that the theme can be customised without code, making it easy for beginners to use. Plus, it’s compatible with a range of page builders such as Elementor and SiteOrigin.

Another feature that will appeal to anyone who just wants an easy life and quick set-up is the fact that Astra also comes with a selection of ‘starter sites’. These are templates designed to fit in with a certain industry, such as fitness or food, that can be imported to use almost immediately.

Sydney

Installed more than 200,000 times, the Sydney theme stands out from the crowd thanks to its full-screen image background. Sydney also makes it easy to download any of the 600 plus Google fonts, which means it’s easy to be creative with this theme.

Reviews suggest that Sydney is ideal for beginners because the free version comes with just a dozen custom widgets, which they say is enough to get a website to function well but not enough to overwhelm WordPress beginners.

2019

There’s a slight element of red herring to the popularity of the 2019 theme because, as the name suggests, it’s the default theme for WordPress in 2019. As a result, it’s been installed more than a million times. For more insight into exactly what this theme offers, hop over to our blog on Getting to grips with the 2019 theme.

STEP 2: Look at what’s highly rated

The great news is that WordPress themes get reviewed. Users can score themes with marks out of five within the WordPress Theme Directory and leave comments too.

From the list of the five most popular themes above, the most highly rated are OceanWP and Astra. OceanWP has 2,098 five-star reviews with 21 four-star, four three-star, one two-star and four one-star reviews respectively. Astra, meanwhile, has 1,628 five-stars, 16 four-star, three three-star, two two-star and three one-star reviews.

STEP 3: Fit the theme to your purpose

It goes without saying that you need a website that’s fit for the purpose of your business. Some themes lend themselves to certain industries and intentions more than others. For example, you wouldn’t want to use a theme like ‘Photos’ for a plumbing business.

On the Theme Directory, you can use the ‘Feature Filter’ option to sort the collection by subjects such as blog, eCommerce, education, entertainment, food and drink, holiday, news, photography and portfolio.

STEP 4: Think about your personality

Whether you’re a business owner or a blogger, you need your website to reflect everything that you are from the first second users set their eyes on it.

It’s possible to search the directory of WordPress themes using words that mean something to you – from words for colours, to nouns such as biker or mommy.

STEP 5: Look at what’s new

The newest WordPress themes are less likely to have as many reviews as those that have been doing the rounds for a few years. However, if you make sure a theme comes from a respected developer, you could end up with a fresh and distinctive website by choosing one of the newest themes available on WordPress.

In the Theme Directory, you can filter the list of results by clicking on the ‘Latest’ tab.

Want your theme to work at its optimum?

At tsoHost, we create hosting packages that are designed to help WordPress websites run at their slickest. Our options are made to keep your site speedy, safe and reliable.

Our WordPress hosting starts at as little as £2.92 a month and ranges from start-up to eCommerce options. To find out more about our packages, visit our WordPress hosting page.