Whether you're building a personal blog, an e-commerce site or a business website, the choice of template or theme will be one of the biggest decisions you will make that will impact greatly on your web presence and visibility level. It will decide the foundation of how your website will ultimately look like and functions. 

Most beginners are overwhelmed by the number of template options available. Whether the theme options are Wordpress or any of the other relatively popular platforms like Joomla, Drupal or Static, there are thousands of free and paid options to choose from. To the template shopper, each one seems to have a feature that makes it look outstanding and at the same time lack another superb feature that is present in the other.

It is natural to feel slightly confused on which theme best fits the kind of website you envision and the type of business or brand you want to promote on your website. Here are points to consider when deciding on template options from your web host company :

Does it fit your business niche or industry?

Templates are designed with various consideration and objectives in mind; and each one fits a particular industry or business niche better than the other. Although sometimes you could make do with a template that looks generic and corporate, you should look out for specific details on the template that suggest its proclivity or suitability for an industry. These might include the image bank, font, design, and other indicative details. Some businesses actually require the website to have an industry-specific look.

What's your vision of the website?

Before you set out to register a domain and shop for template, you'll likely have viewed a couple of websites in your industry or outside of it. You may even have checked out your competitor's website. From all the research, you may have crystallized a vision of how you want your website to look like.

So you would want to look out for a theme which structure, function and display pattern is closest to your envisioned website. You should, however, keep in mind that your need should supersede your want when choosing the right website for your business. Therefore, you should find the right balance between your specific industry need and your personal preferences. 

Aim for Simplicity

There's a certain sophistication and elegance about websites that strive for simplicity with optimum functionality. Don't get over excited with the fancifulness and multiple colours of many templates; most times they don't really suit your objectives and could distract your web visitors from your content

"Your goal should be to focus on a theme that is in tandem with your website objective. The design layout needs appeal to the eyes while at the same time promising simplicity and ease of use by visitors. Skip on layouts that look too complicated or difficult to navigate." -  Web and SEO Experts - Rank No 1

Look for Responsiveness

The design layout should be adaptable to all screen sizes and devices - desktop, mobile, iPad, et cetera. Most people access the web on their mobile and other handheld devices, and depending on the business category or niche of your website, mobile web users could form as high as 50% of your web traffic.

Google also analytics rate mobile-friendly websites higher, which is another key reason why you should look out for themes that are responsive and mobile ready.  Most layouts are responsive and mobile friendly by default, but you should still double-check to sure. One way to test the mobile readiness of your preferred theme is to resize it on your browser screen. The layout should adjust to the screen width.

Check for SEO Friendliness

The design layout of your selected website theme affects its effectiveness of its search engine optimization capabilities. A visually appealing theme could still generate poorly coded HTML and negative impinge on your website's search optimization.

This is slightly technical area for beginners to understand or analyse properly, which is why most theme developers will let you know their pages are SEO-optimized.

Read the Ratings and Reviews

This is one of the most vital pointers of the quality and responsiveness of a website theme. When you have selected a shortlist of themes, using the indices that have been outline, you should head to the reviews and ratings section to read the honest perceptions of current and past users.

For more independent assessments, you should check on a third-party marketplace where the theme is sold to read customers reviews. For free Wordpress themes, you will see the review and rating (indicated by stars) section is below the download button.

However, note that no matter how good or bad a theme may be, there will always be varying comments and ratings. What you should consider is the number of bad reviews. If it is unusually high, then read carefully the issues people have with the design layout.

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