Introduction
Making a website is not an easy task; we have to take care of every tiny aspect. Otherwise, it can scare the users with its unmatched designs and nasty colour effects. If the website design is to clog up with unwanted things, it might turn off the readers.
These days, however, numerous search ranking factors have been developed as a term of necessity. Many people have been violating the old SEO methods; therefore, increased efficiency had to adapt to bring valuable results for the users.
In John Mueller’s statement on Google, a website theme is not just the upper skin of WordPress; in fact, it includes numerous functions that have a great impact on your site’s performance or its speed.
If you desire to make a quite long lifecycle of a website, then you need to understand the importance of installing a new theme, its effect on ranking and the specific SEO elements to keep an eye on.
Apart from designing, themes and templates are a tremendous part of a website’s structure that can affect speed. If you don’t get all these things lined up and working well together, you’re inclined to see lower rankings, even after having quality content.
Is the Website Theme just a splash of colours?
It’s good to acknowledge website themes as just a splash of colour on top of a finished structure. But it is not that easy; there are so many things involved in it. A website design consists of a combination of colours, font style, type of templates, and many factors that provide a presentable site. Even one has to make it mobile-friendly.
How does a WordPress theme affect SEO?
Themes indeed have a significant impact on SEO, and they can be either positive or negative. Though, the formation of search engine optimization decides the ranking of your site on various search engines. Even it reads the performance of your website from the perspective of users.
- Impact of theme on Bounce rate
Make sure that your website design is good in visuals. If it is plain and simple, visitors do not feel liable to stay on it for long. That is why you have to keep your site appealing. Otherwise, its poor structure enforces users to bounce away from the site. Organize your site to make it easier for the users to navigate and provide quick answers to their queries.
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Influence on speed and performance
Another ranking factor of the website is speed. If your website has a slow loading speed, it will affect the reach. Though, users will look for another tab to experience quick and smooth services. This will decrease the ranking of your site and its performance.
The expected speed for your page should be 1-2 seconds; despite, if your site takes a time of 3 seconds, it’ll still be quicker than around 50% of other websites.
The changes in themes of WordPress must affect your SEO and the overall loading tempo of a website, so it’s essential to choose one that loads fast and does not compromise additional aspects of search engine optimization.
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Affect on the crawling of Search engine
One more reason that identifies the importance of the WordPress theme is that a poorly-developed theme creates chaos in achieving top rank. It makes it difficult for the site to go with SEO terms to receive a good ranking. The coding used behind the theme has to be fully structured so that a search engine can easily read it.
Here are some other vital points to keep in mind:
- The HTML tags should arrange in a correct form so that Google can observe what your website is about.
- When Google understands the quality of your information and services that you are going to provide to visitors, your SEO will naturally improve.
- Even after doing alterations in the theme, there are several improvements you can make to optimize your WordPress website.
- Here you can also implement multiple SEO practices to manage and improve the website ranking.
SEO Factors That WordPress Themes Can Strike
Modifying a WordPress theme affects SEO in several forms. Therefore, it is necessary to realize what to look for to develop your website continually. Despite the above, transforming or modifying WordPress themes should always be done in a private test environment. It is entirely away from public view till the time you’re sure everything is accurate.
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Page load
Somehow, if you discover that your new theme loads slower than the prescribed time of 2 seconds; no need to panic. You can constantly make some basic optimizations to improve its performance. For instance, you can use a WordPress-optimized web hosting solution, reduce plugin usage, and install a caching plugin.
Cache boosts the speed of the page and its load time for visitors if people access your website more than once. It saves static HTML pages on the server and in the browser to decrease browser recall time for familiar page resources.
Well, these optimizations are easy to implement; it’s always excellent if you choose a lightweight theme. It loads as fast as possible to enhance the SEO results.
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Content Formatting
The theme does not directly harm your actual content; rather it changes the way it is formatted. Like some sites have duplicate heading tags that may affect the structure of the theme. You can ignore this by adding the exact pattern of heading formation.
This includes some systematic arrangement of content, such as:
- The main titles on your web pages should keep as Heading 1 (or H1).
- Other subheadings may highlight as Heading 2 (or H2),
- And subheadings that come under the Heading 2 may depict as Heading 3 (or H3), and so on.
Most of the premium themes will correctly transfer content formatting from the old theme to the new website. It is a great idea to check the website once before launching the new set of website layouts.
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UI designing
While changing the theme of WordPress, the primary concern that stuck to mind was its design. Design is the central portion of the consideration. There are a few methods in which design and user experience have an impact on SEO.
Every website must feature responsive website design in today’s world as mobile search exceeds traditional desktop search in most businesses. Somehow, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, your site will not rank on search engines. Even you’ll lose out on a lot of traffic, affecting your bottom line.
Most people use mobile phones to go through the sites. But, if your site does not optimize for mobile devices, users may not stay there. Maybe they decide to jump from your website on a permanent basis because it doesn’t satisfy their needs.
To lower your bounce rate, make the site that is easy to navigate. It drags the people to your site. The visitors can easily gather the information that will ensure their extended presence on the site.
Don’t be careless about the above things; otherwise, your bounce rate will increase. However, if the site is challenging to navigate, that tells search engines like Google, Bing that your website isn’t user-friendly or helpful.
Therefore, make sure that changing themes, consider how mobile-friendly, readable, and navigable your WordPress site will be.
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The functionality of the Search engine
The theme of WordPress may affect the functionality of search on your website; either it can remove it or change it. Therefore, you must ensure that the new theme supports your current website while using a search bar.
Most of the time, it happens that your older site doesn’t have a search function. But if your new WordPress theme supports it, it is good as it positively affects your SEO rankings. Having this functionality improves the navigation of your website and makes it safe for the users. It can help people to reach the information they are looking for easily.
Tips: Site search tracking can help you track and learn your web visitors’ interests and needs to optimize your website.
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Plugins
It is good to ignore the themes that require multiple plugins to function precisely. Otherwise, it slows down the speed of your page that hits the performance.
The sound themes do not require plugins to perform essential functions – so, stay conscious, and choose wisely!
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HTML for Search Engines
HTML markup is the initial part of an SEO-friendly theme. Make sure that the new theme of your site uses proper HTML tags to arrange content. This way, the crucial aspects of your content are perfectly emphasized for Google.
If somehow the title tags are present nearby the bottom of the web page instead of the top, it may affect Google’s mood. That means your HTML won’t make any sense and depress Google terms.
Furthermore, it can cause a lot of problems on your site with the default processing. Generally, professional web developers follow HTML coding quality guidelines. Still, it’s essential to be aware and stay on top of all aspects. Otherwise, it can create a lot of trouble for the SEO ranking.
SEO Metadata
Metadata is not a primary factor of SEO ranking yet an essential feature of search engine optimization. Many of the users will click (or not) on your site after reading the Meta description.
Some of the WordPress themes have framed the terms of SEO that include the auto-optimized metadata. For instance, page titles, post titles, or a title tag and so on.
This feature will help the users to understand your content in brief and provide them with the information they are searching for. Even it makes it easy for several search engines to analyze the content of your site.
The current theme may have a proper schema, while changing WordPress themes may alter or remove the vital information. It will directly affect your search results.
Protect website theme from the negative effect of SEO
You have to follow some ways to protect your website theme from being influenced by search engine optimization’s adverse effects.
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Create an SEO friendly theme
The primary step to keep in mind while changing the WordPress theme is finding an SEO-friendly theme. It enhances the functionality of your site and maintains the overall SEO outcomes to rank higher in SERPs.
Make sure that the new theme you will use for your WordPress site provides a fast loading speed. Only then it will give an excellent experience to the visitors of your site and increase their presence. The theme code should be well-organized, optimize image sizes, and additional standard SEO settings should be in position.
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Test drive of Website theme
Before you apply your new theme, it is necessary to take a test drive of it. This will let you know how your SEO works on it and what effect it commits. So, checkout the formation and user-friendly behaviour of your site by creating a staging site.
While taking a test of your website, make sure of the usage of the plugin. If it consists of too many unnecessary plugins that are not required, it will slow down the site’s functionality and speed.
Taking a partial test of your website to look after its structure, content, and search engine optimization ensures reliable results. Test all the elements until you are sure of everything to make a good website experience. You can also check top wordpress themes for your website with Ads
Hire a Web design Agency
It is good to hire a web design agency to create a customized WordPress design to ensure website ranking. A team of professionals never lets the unfavourable elements have a terrible impact on your website. They will assure the optimization of SEO and ranking of the website on several search engines.
How does this benefit you?
Hiring an expert makes it easier for you to manage your website because you don’t need to spend hours looking through 10,000+ themes for your WordPress website. Specialties along with SEO-friendly techniques will do it perfectly, such as SEO settings, ensuring optimal image size, page load speed, and that your content structure hasn’t been tampered with.
In addition, it allows you to invest your time in your business while the pros take care of all the heavy lifting. The custom WordPress website design will assure you get all the functionality you require to run your business right out of the gate.
Summing Up
It is necessary to understand how WordPress themes affect the SEO ranking of your website. If you are aware of it, then you will enjoy the top ranking on search engines. But make sure to follow experts’ views for it; otherwise, one SEO mistake will lead to disastrous effects on your site. The website will drop in the search results and has a negative impact.
Whereas hiring a professional web design agency has the bucket-full of experience to secure your website performance and ranks. It can help you to focus on driving your business forward.