Do you need a website or blog based theme?
Some WordPress themes are designed to accommodate blogs and some are designed for full-blown websites. While you can take a theme designed for a website with a blog and convert it into a blog only site, it is difficult to do the opposite. Expecting that you can convert a blog theme into a professional company website is a step towards disappointment.
If you need a theme for a website, then search for WordPress themes that specifically say they are for business, corporate use, or a CMS.
Does the theme support basic WordPress functions?
Again, don’t assume your theme has multiple layouts and will accommodate things like full width pages, one or two sidebars, columns within content, etc. Review the theme description and demo to make sure the theme layouts will support the content you want to create. Also verify the theme has widgetized sidebars and that the sidebar content isn’t hardcoded into the theme.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Do you need your theme to offer multiple layouts and columns?
Again, don’t assume your theme has multiple layouts and will accommodate things like full width pages, one or two sidebars, columns within content, etc. Review the theme description and demo to make sure the theme layouts will support the content you want to create. Also verify the theme has widgetized sidebars and that the sidebar content isn’t hardcoded into the theme.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Does the theme’s navigation support your website or blog’s content?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Before you start looking for the perfect theme, decide if you need one menu or two menus. People many times use one menu for pages and secondary menu for categories. Do you need footer navigation or footer widgets with links? Is the navigation bar long enough to accommodate all your primary menu options? Some are not and I’ve even fallen into this trap with one of our designers. She created the nicest theme and it wasn’t until we were building it out that I realized the menu bar was way to small for the average amount of links people would need.
Learn from my mistake and consider your content sitemap and navigation requirements before buying your new theme.