Things to Look For When Picking a WordPress Theme
August 9th, 2007
One of the best things about the WordPress product is the themes made available by the wonderful WordPress community. The problem this creates for someone wanting a new theme for their blog is the need to dig through hundreds of themes looking for the one that provides the look they want. In addition to being extremely time consuming, people often forget to focus on theme functionality. I’ve found functionality tends to be much more important than the look of the theme when trying to run a successful blog.
If you aren’t comfortable doing the coding work yourself, here are 5 things to look for when shopping for a new WordPress theme that will improve your blog’s functionality:
- AJAX Comments – Maybe Web 2.0 has just spoiled us, but it is extremely discouraging to comment on a site that requires the full page to reload. Many WordPress themes now come with AJAX comments, which allows a comment to be left without the entire page reloading.
- Widget Ready – Does the theme support widgets? If you aren’t comfortable adding code on your own, this is extremely important.
- Page Menu – A lot of WordPress themes tend to have the page menu somewhere in the sidebar. Not only does this look tacky, but it also uses up a lot of valuable sidebar room that could be used for sponsors, advertisements, or displaying your most popular posts. Your theme should have the pages displayed in a menu somewhere above the blog’s content (usually either immediately above or below the logo).
- Plugin Compatibility – Many themes come already setup for certain plugins. If you want to use certain plugins on your site, you’ll want to look for what plugins are already compatible with the theme before selecting it (why don’t more theme makers add plugin compatibility to their themes?)
- Logo Space – Back when I used to use pre-made themes, I noticed several just have your blog’s name in standard text, or no room at all to easily integrate your site’s logo. This may only apply to a few themes, but it is something to be aware of.
Got something you look for when picking a theme? Sound off in the comments below!
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Great list. All the important ones covered. I've made my own Top 10 list at the following;
http://thatimportantblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/10-best-greasemonkey-userscripts-2009.html
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IT sounds like you covered all the most important things we should be aware when choosing a theme. What I’d like to say is that not many themes do come bundled with widgets, all plugin compatibility, and frankly it’s a bit hard to make your theme with all possible plugins, there might be some plugins that will interfere with one another and that’s a problem that in no longer in the designers area of expertise.
However, these are important things to look after when choosing a WP theme.
Cristian – Actually, I’ve found that a good portion of the themes available will take the time to optimize their sites for plugins, but I wish all of them would. The reason I think this is important is because the designer has a vision of how the theme should look. This often gets interrupted when someone using the theme decides to add a plugin and it doesn’t look right.
For example, by adding a simple “if” piece of code like this:
< ?php if(function_exists('related_posts')) {related_posts(); } ?>you can display the sites related posts plugin if its activated and not cause a problem if it isn’t.
This also allows users to pick their plugins. I could add the Notable and Sociable plugin for example to a theme then release it. User A wouldn’t want to activate both, but the user could pick the one they like and use it and another person downloading the theme could pick the other one and activate it without any coding work required.
Anyway, I got a little sidetracked
I do think over the past year alone many themes have been made widget ready, and I think adding plugin compatibility is steadily growing.
Thanks for your contribution Cristian!
Nice points Kyle , well covered . However sometimes i prefer themes with AJAX less commeting as they dont work well with my internet speed in college which is quite low .
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Nice article, but Ajax comment need not be a priority as we cannot customize comments section using CSS if you are using Ajax comments, some CSS fail to pick with Ajax.
This comment is to point out the problems with Ajax.
1. Once I post a comment in your blog, the previous comment number was four, when I post it, my comment becomes 1.
2. I’m not able to post a comment soon after posting a comment if I do not refresh the page.
Good point, although I’m not really sure what the problem with AJAX not picking up the CSS is. If someone else visits the site, or you re-visit the site, everything looks fine.
I suppose if that is a concern, then I can see not using AJAX comments, but it would probably be at the expense of commentators who don’t bother on sites without AJAX.
I like to think of this as an anti-spam feature
Nice review, Kyle! Stumbled..
As much as functionality is important, a theme should match the tone of a blog! I think a theme should reflect the tone of the blog.. And search engine friendly and AdSense friendly themes are best for a blog that is big on monetizing!
But, I could tell only so much about a theme when I preview it and I learn its shortcomings as I go. And I am on the wall about trying a AdSense friendly theme myself.
I might not go with for AJAX comments, I lean towards Nirmal on that! AJAX comments are good but not necessity.
I think the theme should have a more customizable color scheme. This will allow you to show you’re unique at least in someway from others
K – I think the theme you have now is great! I really wish people would take the time to disclose things about their theme when they release them. What are the features, what is it optimized for, what plugins are ready to use, what ones support widgets, etc.
I think this new theme page WordPress is switching to will help a lot with this and also allow rating themes.
Benedict – I’m not sure you could have a theme have customizable colors, but you could release several versions of the same theme with different color schemes. I think that is a great idea!
Kyle, I’m sure on it. I have seen themes allowing to do it in Theme option. More over certain themes will allow to use custom style sheet also!
Good post, Kyle. I’d go with Benedict here. It’d be great if themes have a customizable font schemes as well