The Smug Baldy Speaks

On a business forum, someone asked several questions about what to look for from your WordPress theme and plugins. Having lots of WordPress experience, I felt qualified in responding.

What do you look for first in a theme?

First and foremost, I look for a theme that I think looks good and fits stylistically with the site I’m creating. The first few seconds of a new visit is where you either convince a user to stay or scare them off. I never want the appearance of my sites to drive away potential customers – because it will (case in point: Fabric Land).

You’ve got to remember that WordPress isn’t anything more than a vehicle to drive your vision home to your customers, readers, fans, or market. It’s a great bit of software – and like all software, what you intend to get out of it is as important as how you use it.

I also keep my wordpress installs up to date, and I test themes and plugins in a sandbox to make sure everything plays together well. This may be easier for me than some other folks, since I’m technically savvy, and have wordpress servers out the ying yang. I also have a full blown wordpress test environment on my computer, so I can try out new themes, plugins, settings, page templates, etc in the privacy of my own system. When I get things the way I want, I upload. Obviously, this is something that you want to outsource if you’re not doing wordpress development.

Some additional questions were:

Some themes make certain plugins obsolete. So which combination are you using?

I try to use the smallest number of plugins I can on each site, but here are some that I almost always include: Akismet, WPTouch iPhone Theme plugin, WP-SpamFree, Google XML Sitemap, All in One SEO Pack, Sociable, Twitme, Adsense Deluxe

The key is to only add plugins if they add to the business value of the site you’re building.

Some themes seem to have too many options and others not enough. I don’t want to have a theme with too many or it may slow the site down. What is a good balance?

This is a bit subjective – you need to know what you’re trying to get done on your site and then you look to see if the theme or a combination of theme + plugins gets you where you need to be. When in doubt – make a list of Must Have features, Like to Have features, and Can Live Without features for your site. At a minimum I make sure the Must Haves are in my site plan – and consider everything else gravy.

I want a theme that allows me to have a description of my site and services at the top and a list of posts below. Is that better to do it with a plugin or a theme?

Again – it depends. If you go with a premium theme like Woo Themes or Elegant Themes, then you’ll typically have more functionality in the theme itself – since they often bundle plugins with their themes. You’re always going to have a mix – right? You WILL have a theme, and there WILL be plugins. You need to find the right mix for you – or be able to describe what you need in sufficient detail that your guy in the Philippines can build it for you.

Can I change the header image easily?

Almost always, yes. Also, almost always, your mileage will vary. Many themes have options or instructions on how to change the header. It’s also not too difficult for a junior developer to change the HTML, CSS or PHP in your theme to make it exactly how you want it to appear.

How do I know how stable a theme is? Does it work consistently on all browsers?

Look for popular free themes for both stability and browser compatibility. Many premium themes need to be both stable and browser friendly, or they won’t sell. The bottom line here is to test, test, test!

Can I start out with a free theme until the business is bringing in income?

Absolutely. Most free themes also allow you to modify them under the GPL, so you can change this part or that to make it look the way you want.

There are lots and lots of great themes out there. I like the style of many of the themes on the smashing magazine list.
I’m even using a custom version of the Dilectio theme right here on my blog and twitter page.