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How Important Is Quality Of Theme To SEO

by Dele
12 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi Warriors,

I currently use a free wordpress theme and i am thinking of purchasing a premium theme for my site mainly for aesthetics but gather it also enhances SEO. What do you think?

If it does, in what ways specifically?

Thanks.
#important #quality #seo #theme
  • Profile picture of the author Look4VGames
    themes do not increase any form of seo, unless for some reason the theme allows widgets for your sidebars to add additional information and/or keywords to your website.
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    • Profile picture of the author theentry
      Originally Posted by Look4VGames View Post

      themes do not increase any form of seo, unless for some reason the theme allows widgets for your sidebars to add additional information and/or keywords to your website.
      They actually do, the theme sets if the heading are done via h1,h2,h3... or just regular font size tags etc. so it does a lot
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  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    As opposed to what? Quality content? Backlinks? What is google going
    to do with a nice looking theme, assuming it could recognize one?

    If people link to because you sure look pretty, well, maybe that's a plus.

    I would go for a plain theme, easy to edit, and put all the right pieces in
    the right places.

    Before I bought a premium theme, I would make sure it is easy to SEO.
    Better still, came SEO'd out of the box. That's why you go premium.
    Fancy graphics you can add yourself.
    Granted, you want a decent looking theme. But as far as SEO, I can't
    think of anything except a visitor saying, "wow!" But that's not SEO in
    the true sense of the word.

    Better still, get a warrior to do a custom one.

    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author Dele
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      Better still, came SEO'd out of the box.

      Paul
      Is that not confirming that some themes might have some SEO advantages inherently?

      For example, Thesis which is a top shot claims its themes enable faster page load times which ultimately has an impact on SEO and enhances SEO generally.
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      • Profile picture of the author mad.hat
        Originally Posted by Dele View Post

        Is that not confirming that some themes might have some SEO advantages inherently?

        For example, Thesis which is a top shot claims its themes enable faster page load times which ultimately has an impact on SEO and enhances SEO generally.
        Yes, but what Paul is saying is that there are better ways to spend your money seo-wise than on a theme. Of course, some themes are more seo oriented than others but depending on how much you are spending on content, backlinks etc you may want to use your funds on those than a theme.
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  • Profile picture of the author Abledragon
    I wrote two articles recently that addressed this point:

    Can Changing Your Theme Affect Your Search Result Placings? | Create an Awesome Home Business

    ... and this one, that explains why good code is important for SEO (and good themes should have good coding):

    SEO: Why Your Website Code is Important | Create an Awesome Home Business

    Cheers,

    Martin.
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    • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
      Originally Posted by Abledragon View Post

      ... and this one, that explains why good code is important for SEO (and good themes should have good coding):
      While it's nice to have a well designed site using modern HTML coding, it makes no difference at all for SEO purposes unless the site is extremely sloooow due to serious coding errors.

      For example, many a corporate site I've encountered doing consulting have used tables, especially if they were done with ASP or ASP.NET. Many ranking hobby sites I find in my niche searches are also table heavy and appear to be written using FrontPage 98.

      I'm not saying that you shouldn't have good code on your WP theme but don't think it's going to magically give you a huge advantage in SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author socialbookmark
    If you are sure that you can do other seo works well, like link building, optimizing on-page factors and like these, then you can purchase a premium theme. Because theme can not improve your ranking on its own without other off-page factors.
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  • Profile picture of the author socialbookmark
    If you are sure that you can do other seo works well, like link building, optimizing on-page factors and like these, then you can purchase a premium theme. Because theme can not improve your ranking on its own without other off-page factors.
    Signature

    I love warriorforum. zendegiyesabz

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  • Profile picture of the author socialbookmark
    If you are sure that you can do other seo works well, like link building, optimizing on-page factors and like these, then you can purchase a premium theme. Because theme can not improve your ranking on its own without other off-page factors.
    Signature

    I love warriorforum. zendegiyesabz

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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    Originally Posted by Dele View Post

    I currently use a free wordpress theme and i am thinking of purchasing a premium theme for my site mainly for aesthetics but gather it also enhances SEO. What do you think?
    I think the "enhances SEO" line is used by a lot of affiliates to help them make sales of a particular premium theme that offers a very nice affiliate commission. That's what it really 'enhances'.
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  • Profile picture of the author joy brown
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author Shirlyn
      Yes you can change your Site theme but remember one thing SEO efforts are not being improved because of your site design update but because of your strategy behind it. New site design will help you to increase time at site and visitors can spend more time if they found it really interactive.
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