When we consider superficially, there doesn’t seem to be much correlation between the theme of a website and its SEO prospects. But changing the theme overnight (or selecting an inappropriate one for a new website) can drastically affect your rankings.
This is because a website theme (particularly in WordPress) encompasses a lot more than mere visuals. It includes many crucial elements and factors that directly impact search engine ranking parameters.
Here are 6 important ways in which your website theme choice can impact its search rankings:-
- Loading Time
As per top Web Design Services, the most significant change observed with website theme alteration lies in the website speed. Based on which theme you choose and how it converges with your website content, the loading time of each of your web pages can increase or decrease. It is therefore recommended that you consult a good SEO company before changing the theme of your business website.
- Metadata and Schema
The advantage of using WordPress is that each theme comes with in-built optimization features for on-site elements such as metadata, title tags, and other types of schema. Whether these are direct ranking factors or not is immaterial. Switching themes abruptly can have a detrimental impact on these on-page SEO elements. Using an SEO plug-in is advisable to avoid affecting your search rankings.
- Formatting (Headings, Subheads, Font Type, and Size)
The entire content formatting, layout, and presentation are dependent on the theme of your website. While some companies prefer to have custom themes created for their business websites, others opt for ready-to-use, free themes. Either way, the headers, footers subheadings, font styles, font size, and so on are a direct consequence of the site theme. When you change the theme, the formatting will get altered, thus changing the site appearance and ultimately the user experience. This will affect its SEO prospects.
- Indexing
When Google or any other search engine crawls through your website, it indexes it in a certain order before giving the appropriate ranking. Changing the theme implies that the previous indexing data is nullified. Search engines will re-crawl your site and re-index it, bringing about potential technical snags and discrepancies. You need to have a proactive Web Design Services Team to address these issues immediately. If you are planning to get your website redesigned, liaising with a professional SEO company will ensure that your search rankings don’t get affected.
- Navigation
The hierarchy of pages, the site map, and the navigational features of a WordPress website are dependent on its theme. If the altered theme leads to navigational complexities for end-users, it will cause your bounce rates to shoot up. Moreover, a site that is difficult to navigate for search users is also difficult to navigate for search engines. This in turn will cause search engines to lower your search rankings on account of diminished user experience.
- Custom Site Functions such as Site Search and other User Experience Parameters
User experience is a direct outcome of your chosen website theme. Whether it is the ease of conducting a site search, lucidity of content or various other on-site factors that affect user experience and conversions, changing your theme as part of website redesigning can affect all of these substantially. Google algorithms are getting smarter by the day, finely attuned to user experience parameters. This is yet another reason why any site design overhaul or theme alteration should be pre-planned and aided by the prompt support of experienced web designers and SEO experts to prevent any drastic search ranking fallouts.
What website themes are best from the SEO point of view?
The primary considerations for choosing the right theme for your business website include your business type, industry/niche, product and services categories, customer preferences, and cost considerations. But a good web designer will always take a step further to recommend themes that are SEO-friendly.
Here are some noteworthy WordPress theme recommendations to boost your SEO:-
- Native WordPress Themes with minimal customized add-ons
- Reduced use of unnecessary plug-ins
- Themes with minimal functionalities
- Themes that don’t alter your image SEO
In the case of all of the above themes, any updates will not affect your SEO because these are close to the WordPress Core. So WordPress developers will ensure no SEO glitches owing to the updates. However, if your business warrants the use of multi-purpose themes or additional plug-ins, always have an experienced technical team ready to prepare for any changes.
Conclusion
Be it the choice of theme for a new website or selecting a new theme as part of your website redesigning project, the SEO impact needs to be carefully ascertained. Accordingly, the necessary steps need to be taken to counter any negative effect and accentuate the positive impact. A well-experienced web design team can take care of these aspects seamlessly, ensuring you get a well-designed and well-optimized business website with an apt layout.
