Choosing a perfect theme for your wordpress blog is a tough and confusing job. There are thousands of free and premium themes available across the web, which always confuse the bloggers when it comes to make a selection out of them. Most of the times bloggers fail to select the best because of confusion which is completely natural because being a human when you get a lot of choices, deciding upon one thing becomes tough.

– Image courtesy: godblogz.com

However, theme selection work seems very easy at the first glance but it surely doesn’t. If someone asks you to search for a good theme then what you do usually? You go to Google and make simple search queries like free wordpress themes, free themes for wordpress and so on. This is somehow good way to start with but you get a long list of themes from search results out of which you would like to select but again you have a lot choices and you need to make the best selection. To make the best of your selection you need to know few essential things to keep in mind.

Okay so I am going to mention few tips which you should keep in mind while selecting the perfect theme for your WP blog:-

1. Blog Niche:

The first thing I would like you to focus on is the blog niche. Yes theme has a close relation with the niche and it contributes in the success of the blog. Suppose you run a fashion blog then you might not use a simple looking blog rather you would like to use some funky, stylish kind of blog in which image display is prominent but if you have a personal blog you would like to have a simple & sober theme in which content looks prominently than images.

If a user comes to fashion blog and see a simple theme then it might not impress that user. So you can see different niche has different requirement in terms of looks and functionalities.

So, while choosing a theme for your blog, ensure your niche and accordingly select the perfect one.

2. Clutter Free

Always look for a theme which is clutter free. I mean everything should be in a managed way. There are many free themes you may find which has good options but they are not organized in proper manner.

No clutter! Simple and elegant should be the choice.

3. Responsiveness

Earlier wordpress users used mobile plugins like wp-touch, mobilepress to show their blog look better on phones but nowadays there are many kinds of devices such as iPad, iphone, tablets etc. There are so many variations in the size and having only a mobile site doesn’t ensure to look better over all of available devices. For example, I have used mobile plugin on my blog techtricksworld.com, it was showing fine on mobiles but was not showing fine on iPad then I tried to edit the CSS codes to make it responsive and now It looks great on almost all the devices. You can check here.

So, I would advise to look for responsive themes only! It is important because in the 20^th century millions of users used to read blogs on their tablets and smartphones. That’s why it is indeed necessary for your blog to look perfect in those devices as well.

Even there are many different browsers as well so if the theme is responsive, no matter where you are opening the blog, it will look perfect everywhere.

Personally, I like simple themes with less clutter. Recently I found a theme by MH Themes, MH Magazine Lite which is very simple yet professional looking. It is responsive too that makes it a right choice for the guys like me. Check the below box for more details.

4. Menu Support

Many free blogs supports only one menu so this is also a matter of concern which needs to be checked as per your requirement. If you need 2 menus then you probably would not select a theme which supports only 1 menu. Also check if the menu supports dropdown submenus as well.

5. SEO Friendly structure

A blog must have SEO friendly structure because it is the key to success in online industry.  Better SEO can take your blog to next level.

How to check if the theme has SEO friendly structure?

1. Check whether the theme has options to put title description for each posts/pages.
2. Check whether the site is using proper <H> tags.
3. Check whether the theme is compatible with the essential SEO plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast, All in one SEO etc.

6. Easy Customization

Make sure that the customization is simple because I have encountered with many themes in which customization is very tough. One mistake disturbs the whole theme design.
I understand you cannot be sure about the theme completely until you use it but you have to do it and the best way is to inquire in your circle if the particular theme is being used by someone else? If you find 1 or 2 people using the same then you may either ask to see the dashboard or ask about the customization things.

7. List out your Requirements

Before selecting theme for your blog, make a list of your requirements so that you can make a good selection. Requirements like container width, width main content area and Sidebar, Colour options and so on.  You must know about these needs of yours because it helps you select the perfect theme!

8. Free or Paid

Thousands of themes both free and paid are available on Internet. You can either choose free one or the paid one. I always prefer paid ones because they are well coded and you get good support from the developer but in the free themes, most of the times you face buggy codes and no support from the developer. I am not saying that free ones are not good but premium themes should be preferred.
Many free themes asks to give credit links as well, but if you cannot afford giving link back to other site then drop the idea of free theme and get premium one.
You can check out MH Themes, elegantthemes, Theme Junkie, Mythemeshop, Thesis, Genesis and many more where you can buy great themes. You can also check out the wordpress theme gallery here.

Conclusion:

I have shared my own views about keeping few things in mind while selecting the perfect theme for your blog. However, many times if you are good at coding then you can mould any theme as per your requirement but it’s always good if the features you want, comes with the theme already.  Any ways, now you have a list that you must keep in mind when you are ready to choose the theme for your wordpress blog. Always choose the best because look and feel impacts the performance of your blog.