Choosing the Best WordPress Theme for Small Business

Choosing the Best WordPress Themes

For the best WordPress themes for small businesses, click here

At the very onset let me say this article is not a list of recommended WordPress themes or theme design companies. If you just want a list of themes for WordPress then go to the free WordPress themes directory where there are almost 2000 themes to chose from, or my article, Top WordPress Theme Design Companies for Small Businesses, for some excellent premium and free themes.

This article is about obtaining the right WordPress theme for your web site. A theme which will represent you and your business.

Building your website with the best WordPress theme for your chosen niche is a really good strategic move. WordPress has become the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world today, and for all the right reasons. WordPress is flexible, rock solid and easy to use, with thousands of high quality themes and plugins.

When looking for a suitable theme one of the main problems is the overwhelming number of themes available, it is indeed like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. To help you get started, I have done some of the hard work for you and compiled this list of what I consider to be the best WordPress themes and suppliers.

Choosing the Right Theme Type

Before looking at any themes, compile a list of your required specifications. Decide what the overall colour scheme should be, what features you need and try to compile a list of WordPress plugins the theme must work with.

Colour (black, blue, green, orange, red, silver, white, etc.)
Columns (1, 2, 3, 4, left-sidebar, right-sidebar, no-sidebar)
Width (fixed, flexible, both)
Subject (holiday, seasonal, dogs, cars, etc.)
Features (Custom backgrounds, colours, headers, menus, etc.)
Plugins (Akismet, BuddyPress, Broken Link Checker, Contact Form 7, Google XML Sitemaps, Platinum SEO Pack, WordPress Super Cache, etc.)

Custom Premium Themes!

If you require something out of the ordinary or very specific, such as a, Pet Food Shopping Mart, F1 Membership site or Property Portal of London, then you might require something specifically designed for your needs.

There are generic shopping cart plugins, membership plugins and property/realtor themes but unless you’re capable of a little HTML and PHP coding you might find it more expedient to get a coder to do the work for you.

Try taking a look at my article, Top WordPress Theme Companies for Small Businesses.

Which Theme, Free or Premium?

So which theme should you chose, free or premium? Simple answer really, if you think about it. The fact that a theme is either free or premium is irrelevant, particularly for a business web site. The cost of a one off payment of maybe £$20 or £$30 for a premium theme is really quite immaterial.

It’s the versatility, time saving and whether it get the job done that matters.

Consider the thousands of hours you will spend using your chosen theme. It needs to do everything you need. You don’t want to be messing about tweaking the theme every time you want to do something different. Okay, you can also use plugins with the theme but they have to be tested with your chosen theme, so more messing about.

Not all plugins will work correctly with all themes and when things go wrong they tend to go wrong is a really spectacular way, so always remember to backup your data before installing new plugins.

So pick a theme which presents your business at it’s best. A theme which is easy to use, is well maintained, is updated quickly with each version of WordPress issued and has rock solid support.

What Theme are You Looking at Now?

The theme used by this web site is: Suffusion, designed by Sayontan. Full details of the theme can be found in my, Suffusion WordPress Theme Review.