The Internet contains thousands of WordPress templates, with various designs and functions that they provide to various sites, depending on the features and code of each template. One of the most important things that must be carefully determined at the stage of creating a WordPress website is choosing the best and most appropriate template to perform the website’s functions, while at the same time fulfilling the attractive design part. Due to the different WordPress templates and their multiple designs, we provide you with the most important tips that will help you choose the best WordPress template for your site.
First: set the goal
Before anything, you must first determine the purpose of the template you want. Do you need it for an online store? Blog? Personal website? Multifunctional public website?
Each WordPress template has a specific design. E-store templates provide the ability to display products, launch discounts and offers, in addition to including payment pages, shopping bag, etc. Blog templates are intended to display articles and news in a convenient manner for audiences. As for personal website templates, they are all about showing your portfolio, the most important information about you, and so on!
Let me tell you that the first and last function of a WordPress template is to be the appearance of the site designed for the visitor to use to reach his goal of visiting the site, whether browsing news, purchasing products, etc. It’s like driving, and if you intend to provide the visitor with the experience of driving a plane, don’t give him a car!
Second: Determine your target market
This step is more customized than the previous step. Suppose you have set a goal (choosing a WordPress template for an online store), now comes the stage of delving into the details and determining the target market! Is your store interested in fashion and clothing? Then you should go to the WordPress templates for this category, as their designs are elegant and their colors are calm to reflect the user’s experience of purchasing fashion products.
Do you intend to build an online store to sell gaming products? So, look for a WordPress template that includes movement, action, and dark colors in its design!
Web developers provide virtual templates (Demos), through which the design can be customized to serve the group that the site targets, and this is done by changing the colors and other appearance elements according to your desire.
Third: Determine the template requirements
After you determine the target market, and choose the best suitable shape for the template depending on the consumer’s personality and the type of market. You must ensure that the WordPress template includes the appropriate design for your site and reflects it in a simple, streamlined form that is far from complex.
As mentioned, site functionality and template capabilities vary depending on the site type. However, you may feel confused when you find yourself among several good themes without being sure that they will meet your site’s requirements.
For example, there are templates that specialize in photo galleries, templates that specialize in providing the requirements for publishing courses and video playback, and templates that specialize in publishing products, articles, services, etc.!
Be specific from the beginning about the exact requirements that your WordPress theme must have, so that it cannot do without it, and then use those requirements to advance your search for the best theme.
Fourth: Focus on user experience
In my opinion, the most important thing that a website template should have is to provide an unparalleled user experience! What do I mean by that?
I will talk about my personal journey. I created an online store years ago, and after a while I decided to change the template despite going a long way in the process of adjusting the new template. Just because it provides a better user experience. And it paid off!
The user experience on your website should be as easy and simple as possible. If a user stops in front of a page and does not know what to do with it to reach his goal, believe me, he will leave the site in that moment!
For example – and this is a common example – many sites make the mistake of not providing (the button) to create an account on them! Is it familiar to you? You will find a login button, but you will never find a create a new account button! Although if you take one curious step toward clicking the “Sign In” button, you will find that it directs you to the account creation page as well. However, users won’t like being stuck at a step they don’t know what to do with!
The website visitor always prefers to use the fewest possible clicks to reach his goal, in addition to finding the most important options within his visual range, or at least easy to reach.
Does it just depend on that?
Well, what about interactivity? The beauty and consistency of the design? Responsive template for mobile?
All of these elements are important to check with the WordPress theme you choose, in order to achieve the best user experience.
Fifth: Template compatibility with plugins
It is known that WordPress websites are not devoid of plugins that enhance their functionality or add new functions to them. However, not all WordPress themes may be compatible with all plugins!
Let’s show a practical example:
Suppose you created a new WordPress website and installed a blog template on it, then decided to use it as an online store by installing the WooCommerce plugin. Is this addition compatible with the blog template?
Each WordPress plugin has a software system that contributes to enabling “certain interactions” on the site. For example, a WooCommerce plugin gives you buy and add to cart buttons and limits the number of products, right?
When you click on the “Add the product to cart” button, the site will do that. But what if the WordPress template does not contain purchase buttons in its design at all? The process will not be completed from the beginning, and adding WooCommerce will make its presence useless.
Moreover, some templates may not be compatible with Visual builders, which are tools responsible for adding, designing, and modifying some site elements such as pages, menus, etc.
On the other hand, some WordPress themes include AMP services such as Google Analytics, which help you analyze site traffic or collect email, among other tasks.
Conclusion: Every WordPress site has certain functions that must be compatible with the template installed on it, and since plugins constitute an unavoidable third party to use, the template must be compatible with the type of site and plugins together.
Sixth: Compatibility with different languages
Not all WordPress templates are compatible with all languages. There are some that are compatible with the English language only, and there are those that allow it to be compatible with more languages, such as Arabic.
Make sure to read the details of the template, and if you intend to use an English template and want to know whether it will be compatible with the Arabic language or not, try searching in its details for the (RTL) feature, which is an abbreviation for the phrase: (from right to left), meaning that the template allows the direction to be The location is from right to left, which is consistent with the Arabic language.
International websites provide most of their templates in English, but if you choose or buy the template from an Arabic templates site, it is natural that the template will be compatible with the Arabic language at that time.
Seventh: Determine the budget
WordPress templates do not cost a large budget. You will find most of them free, while the rest of the paid templates will have a budget ranging from 20 to 60 dollars on average, and some may reach more than 400 dollars.
So what’s the difference between free and paid templates?
Free templates don’t give you exactly everything you want, and you may have to add hundreds of code to get the right design. While paid templates provide you with additional features and greater ability to control the design of your site according to your vision.
If you think you need to use a paid template, set your budget within the average, and do not forget to spend some time searching for offers, and most importantly, buy the template from a reliable source, whether from major sites or from the developers of the template itself. There are most sites that offer stolen templates or with an invalid license, for a small price.
Eighth: Determine the source of the template
The WordPress template industry is one of the most emerging fields over the past decade, as there are thousands of professionals who are able to create all types of templates and designs, and they now have their own markets, such as product stores, but for WordPress templates.
It is worth noting that some stores provide you with templates for a sum of money for each template, such as the Theme Forest website, which includes thousands of templates. Some other sites provide paid monthly subscription plans that allow you to access all templates for free, such as My Them Shop .
Here are also some points to help you ensure the quality of the template you choose:
– The professionalism of the code : This appears through the functions provided by the template, and your ability to modify it more freely.
– Template speed : There are some templates that may slow down your website, especially when you are designing many elements on one page. So, check user experiences and feedback about the template.
– Responsiveness to different screens: Do not forget to choose a template that is responsive to different screen sizes, from large screens to mobile phone screens.
– Template support for most web browsers : Not everyone uses Google Chrome or Firefox, so make sure that your template supports at least most known web browsers.
– Technical support from the developer : You may need technical support from the developers of your template, especially if a conflict occurs with one of the template codes, so make sure that the technical support team provides the ability to communicate with them.
– The template receives continuous updates : Templates that receive continuous updates indicate the developer team’s interest in providing the best user experiences, and you can find out about this through the information provided with the template before purchasing it.s
How do you apply the previous steps in practice?
Now that you have identified all the clear features about your template, comes the research and selection step. In the following points, we present to you the steps to choose the best WordPress template for your site:
1 – Search for sites that sell WordPress templates.
There are many online stores that provide you with excellent templates, and in most cases you will find what you request on them. Among these stores are: – Theme
Forest – Themify
– Elegant Themes – Mojo Market Place ( Mojo Market Place ) – My Theme Shop If you do not find exactly what you want on those sites, or you have a special vision for your site, you can use an independent programmer to design your own template, and you can hire him from freelance sites. Such as independent and fives.
2- Select several preferred templates.
While searching the aforementioned stores, you will find a number of templates that you liked and that match your list of requirements. You then have to select their names and start sorting them.
You will not want to spend a lot of time browsing through thousands of templates, as the multiplicity of options will lead you to not choose in the end.
3- Try the DEMO version
. WordPress template developers provide the ability to try a demo version (DEMO) of the template you want to see in person, and you will find this option available in almost all WordPress template stores.
Try the templates you chose and examine all their options, and consult your friends and specialists about their suitability for the site you want to create.
4- Purchasing and installing the template.
Now comes the final step, which is installing the WordPress template after it is chosen and purchased. If the template is paid and was purchased from an online store, you will be able to download its compressed files.
After saving it on your computer, follow these steps to install the new template:
– From the WordPress control panel, click on the (Appearance) option, then choose (Templates), and on the next page click on the (Add New) button located at the top right.
– At the top right of the page, click (Upload Template), then choose the selected file (Choose File), and press the Install button.
With this, you have completed choosing and installing the best WordPress theme for your site according to its requirements and needs. After that, you can begin the journey of adjusting the template settings to get the design to the look you want, so that it meets the best experience for visitors.
