Does WordPress Theme Affect SEO?
WordPress is an easy-to-use Content Management System that can do wonders or slow down the entire website at the same time. To understand it better, all you need to know is the way it works.
As opposed to some of the fast modern CMSs out there, this works with databases, to be precise MySQL. To briefly understand how WordPress works, it has all the content like pages, posts, links, etc. stored in the database.
These are fetched using the PHP files that form its core. Themes are a set of programs that contributes to changing the look and feel of a website. But the plugins add new functionalities absent in WordPress. They can be called templates too.
In addition to PHP files, the themes folder consists of CSS and JavaScript files that help in doing cosmetic changes.
So with the above information, let us move ahead toward understanding whether website design affects SEO.
Does Website Design Affect SEO?
Website design is the cosmetic change that a website undergoes like what we explained in the previous section on WordPress themes.
Another thing that we have to know about is the speed of the website which is directly proportional to the SEO.
Google has to push those websites that are user-friendly and fast as the experience of the user increase with these. Keeping the user experience in mind, Google has to push the websites that load faster to rank better.
On the contrary, the websites that load slower with the same competitive content might be moved down by Google.
So, a website with complex pages, videos, and animations can increase its weight making it slower and slower. So, it is always advisable to use lightweight templates that load really fast or have the hosting service load even complex animation faster.
Either by not investing in a good hosting service or by using a complex user interface program you will be losing on ranking on search engines, thereby affecting the SEO.
What WordPress Theme is Best for SEO?
In view of the above-mentioned two conditions, while picking up a WordPress theme, we should make it a point that the website loads really fast. You can check out the speed of your website all by yourself by visiting this link and entering your domain.
You can search for WordPress themes here, and filter for light themes that load fast. You can install the themes, activate them and start measuring the speed by visiting GTMetrix.
The site with fast load speeds is the one that you should consider. Here are a few free themes that you can try:
- Blocky
- Kadence
- Astra
You can check this post for more such themes with demos.
What is the Fastest WordPress Theme?
These fast themes are based on their home page size which is further responsible for the fast loading of the themes. The lesser the page size of the theme, the faster it will load. They are displayed in the below table as follows:
| Theme | Total Page Size |
|---|---|
| Kadence | 43kb |
| Blocksy | 208kb |
| Astra | 142kb |
| Sydney | 72kb |
| OceanWP | 282kb |
| Neve | 99.6kb |
| GeneratePress | 88.3kb |
| Schema | 201kb |
| Suki | 109kb |
| Hestia | 286kb |
| Airi | 318kb |
| Hello | 300kb |
Will Changing the WordPress Theme Affect Content?
When we talk about WordPress, as we have already told that there are two main layers with database and PHP files. The changing of the theme will only affect the cosmetics of the website. It does not change the content.
So, you can change the theme however many times you want provided you are careful about the homepage. As the homepage consists of customized blocks specific to a particular theme.
If that is not the case then you are free to change the theme without even worrying about the homepage.
How do I change my WordPress Theme without losing Content?
You don’t need to worry about the content as the content is stored in the database and the only thing that changes when you change a theme is the cosmetics or the look and feel.
Always make it a point you create a website that does not just run on a particular theme by using generic features of WordPress that work on any theme. This way even the homepage of the website that you have created using WordPress will work.
Will Changing the Theme Affect SEO?
Now that you have an idea about how SEO works, there are two ways of looking at it. One from the content point of view and the other from the theme point of view.
From the content point of view, as we have already told, there is no change, absolutely no change. As the content forms the most important part of a website, when we know that this does not change in a website, we are fifty percent safe.
From the theme point of view, we need to be careful about the size and load time. The faster the theme load time the better the SEO is. So, more than the content point of view, the theme affects the SEO, if the load time is not taken care of.
