Most people tend to focus on the content of their blog, and while that is crucial, selecting the right theme for the blog can be just as important. Before visitors even get the chance to read any of your posts, they will notice the theme. Therefore, the theme and layout are responsible for creating your first impression on visitors, making them determining factors of whether visitors stay and read or simply leave your page. The following are just some of the many ways that selecting the right theme can impact the success of your blog.
Selecting a Free Theme
One of the first things to think about is how much you want to pay for your theme. There are plenty of paid options available, but when working with WordPress or other similar pages, you will also find thousands of free choices. Daily Blog Tips has a list of the top 50 options in terms of responsiveness and adaptability. The list includes a wide range of themes of all color schemes and customization levels, providing enough free options for any type of blogger to find the ideal theme, whether you are writing a blog for a business or for personal use. Any of the themes on this list will lead you to success, but to optimize the visitors to and profits from your blog, you also need to consider the following factors.
Easy-to-View Content
One of the biggest ways that a theme can affect a blog’s success is by making the content easy to view. If, for example, you select a dark background with a dark font color over it, visitors won’t be able to read the content. Instead of highlighting everything before reading it, they will most likely just leave, never to return. The same is true if you were to select a font that is difficult to read, such as Comic Sans. If, on the other hand, you select a theme that provides a solid color behind each text block with a contrasting font color, visitors won’t have a problem viewing the content, making them more likely to stay.
Layout, Sidebars, and Pages
A blog is simply a mini-version of your main website, and as such, it needs to have room for expansion and organization. Therefore, selecting a theme without the ability to add various sidebars or additional pages will severely limit what you can do with your blog. As soon as you have several articles on the blog, you will need at least some organizational sidebars or other features for visitors to navigate and find specific posts. If your theme doesn’t have this ability, visitors will simply leave. When you select a theme from the list with sidebars, top buttons, and other organizational features, you can keep your website easy to navigate, making your visitors more likely to stick around. After all, if a viewer really likes one of your articles, they may want to find more like that, and if they aren’t able to easily navigate the page, you will lose a potential regular visitor.
Place for Images
Because the main focus of any blog is its content, some people tend to forget about the importance of pictures. Keep in mind that longer blogs will do better on search engines, but without images or other forms of media to break up the articles, they can begin to bore readers. Therefore, it is essential that you find a blog theme that lets you easily incorporate images within posts as well as on the blog’s landing page. Infographics can be one of the best ways to bring in more traffic to your blog, but without a place to put them, you can’t take advantage of this ability.
Making the Page Unique
Blog themes are ideal, as they make the process of designing a page much simpler and let anyone do it, even without programming or coding experience. However, you should always select a theme that is customizable, like most of those on the list from Daily Blog Tips. Imagine someone visits your blog, only to realize that he or she has seen another with the same exact layout and color scheme in the past. If you aren’t able to differentiate your blog from others via theme customization, visitors will either think they have previously visited your page without finding what they wanted or that you are blatantly copying from another website. In either case, they will most likely leave your blog, losing you a potential visitor and clicks.
Pay Attention to the Fold
Another aspect of the theme that can impact your blog’s success is the amount of information you can fit above the fold. The fold refers to the portion of the website that is visible without scrolling, and this will vary greatly by theme. The ideal page is one that hooks readers before they ever need to scroll, so selecting a theme that allows for this will lead to a greater chance of success. That means that you should avoid themes with large, bold fonts for the headlines, as these will not only distract the reader, but also take up valuable space above the fold. Opt for a theme with a noticeable, but not overly large, header and room for at least some text above the fold.
Browser Compatibility
A final aspect of any blog theme is its compatibility with any browser. Each of the themes on the above list from Daily Blog Tips is compatible across multiple platforms, meaning both personal computers and mobile devices. In addition, you need to ensure the theme you select works in all of the major browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer. Remember that if the theme won’t work with a certain platform or browser, you will lose out on a group of visitors. For the best chance of your blog growing and earning money, be sure that it works on every platform and follows the other tips mentioned above. The list from Daily Blog Tips is a great starting point for theme choices that meet all of the requirements.