Elements to Avoid When Choosing a WP Theme: Advice from WordPress Theme Developers
Tags: wordpress, wordpresstheme
Published: 2023-10-05 09:03:23



**Summary**

There is no hard and fast rule to explore the perfect WordPress theme for your site, but keeping an eye out for things to avoid can prevent it from running slow. Learn about them from this article.

**Introduction**

WordPress themes lay the foundation of websites. They determine navigation, layout, colour, font and images, all of which are aesthetic choices visitors lay their eyes on. The right combination strikes an outstanding first impression among users and converts them to paying customers. Therefore, WordPress custom theme development agencies take the matter pretty seriously.

From a layman’s perspective, imagine it to be decorating a physical outlet. The more pleasant the atmosphere, the more likely it is for customers to stay back for long and keep coming back for future purchases. 

Sadly, WP theme repositories are crammed with poor code, bloatware, massive file sizes and avoidable pre-installed plugins. These are actively responsible for slowing down a site. We bet a professional and experienced [wordpress theme developer](https://pluspromotions.co.uk/resources/free-wordpress-theme-for-ecommerce/) would never want such things to frustrate visitors. Therefore, the specialist avoids a set of things while developing a theme for a website. Let’s look at them one by one.

**Issues to Avoid When Choosing WordPress Themes**

Before diving into the list of issues, let’s get this straight: even the most popular themes, like the ones available at ThemeForest, are not devoid of complications. Truth be said, they are not strictly bad, but you need to be careful of the following:

• **Endless options**

When going through a theme description, you may find a massive list of features. They may appear great from the outset but eventually slow down a site. It’s a telltale sign of a bloated theme with uncountable bundled plugins, dozens of premade templates and the multipurpose element. The truth is you can never get all these features working for you, but they will stay in the background and slacken the pace of the site. Haven’t you thought about the security holes they may punch into your site? There is little wonder why WordPress theme developers recommend lightweight ones with only the right plugins installed.

What about premade templates? They too bloat the size and price. They are pretty much useless unless it's urgent to put together a site in less than 24 hours. Look for a few templates with various layouts instead of hundreds of demos, as they pose excessive.

• Inaccessibility

More often than not, WP themes are inaccessible. While wordress theme developers can fix it themselves, it’s never recommended. After all, it’s time-consuming. Therefore, never believe in themes that say they are accessible but check for accessibility features like support for high contrast mode, keyboard navigation, and others like skip to content links and semantic HTML that includes landmarks.

• **Bloats**

Themes are often bloated to their core, with features far from being user-friendly. They are responsible for inflating the size, and when clubbed with poor optimisation, they together ruin the speed of websites. Believe it or not, that endless list of features from the outset may look great on paper, but they hamper the performance when left unutilised.

The only way to eliminate bloat is by choosing lightweight themes. However, a WP core with all its functionality comes to around 8MB. So, you can imagine the level of clutter it holds when appearing aesthetic was all you needed your site to be. Take the advice of a [wordpress custom theme development](https://pluspromotions.co.uk/resources/free-wordpress-theme-for-ecommerce/) agency, pick well-optimised ones that do the job while leaving the actual functionality to be incorporated through plugins.

• **Inactive support**

Whether it’s about installing a theme or fixing a bug, inactive support is never solicited. When there is no official developer to rely on, you can rest assured that the theme is no longer being updated. The only way to determine if a theme from a WP repository is being supported is through the checkmark. However, those on third-party sites are less transparent and better avoided.

A wrong WP theme today can break your site in future. Experts recommend lightweight ones with only the essentials. Partner with a WP developer today and unlock such fabulous insights for your business success.

**Author Bio**

The author here is a technical content writer. When she is not collaborating with her teammates in a WordPress custom theme development agency, she is either playing with her pets, food blogging, upskilling herself or window-shopping at online sites.