The theme or layout is the architecture of your website’s presentation and performance. Many of us have websites on content management systems like Word Press that use themes to layout content on the website. Here are some of questions to think about your theme:
Is it up to date with current styles?
Website design trends constantly change. Even a website design of a few years ago looks outdated compared to the latest design trends.
Does the layout represent your organizational brand?
The layout and content of your website should best represent your organization. A generic template will not do. Invest in a custom designed theme that best fits the brand.
Is it responsive?
Does the website layout look good in both desktop and mobile devices. A good mobile layout is important since more than 60% of Internet traffic occurs from mobile devices. That’s a big market share you might be missing out.
Does it have the correct search engine optimization (SEO) code placed inside the theme?
This is important since search engines will routinely read and categorize your website’s content into their search engine. Well-constructed themes will have the proper SEO structure built into them. This is also known as “on page SEO”. A person with on page SEO technical knowledge and best practices can determine if your theme is up to snuff.
Performance.
Speed. Why is it important? Below are some of the reasons page speed is important.
Customer engagement: If your website is slow then the web surfer might leave your site and move on instead of continuing to wait for your site to load or go to the next page. That’s lost opportunities.
Search engine ranking: Search engines love fast loading websites. If your web content loads too slowly the search engine will move on to the next website to crawl.
Development speed: Your active theme in Word Press is also tied into the backend development screens. Themes with a lot of unnecessary code, will slow down everything from page development, additional programs, media uploads to posting blogs.
Sometimes inadequate website hosting is to blame for slow speeds. (See the article on web hosting options.)
The benchmark for a site running Word Press with a page load time under 4 seconds on average is good. Less than 2 seconds on average is better. Consistently over 4 seconds I would consider looking closely into the theme and other factors to see what could be hampering your website.
Having a quality theme is important for your website. Success Media Services can help you by evaluating your current website and provide honest straightforward recommendations. We build custom themes that look great and SEO friendly. Let us know how we can help you.