9 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
9 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Wordpress theme influences ranking?

by bastik
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Could anybody tell me, how much the theme you choose when using Wordpress, affects your SEO?
I have just been outranked by a blog, that is 7 months old, has no backlinks and only three articles were posted.
My blog is the same age, I am posting regularly every week and building backlinks on a consistent base.
We are targeting the same keyword, while the other blog uses a .org domain extension, whereas I have .net.
So I was wondering, whether it depends upon the theme, the domain extension or maybe something else.
Has anybody got an advice for me?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks in advance
#influences #ranking #theme #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author InTheMaking
    How is your on-site SEO? are your backlinks relevant to your niche?

    There's a lot of factors that could be causing this..
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3563775].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author fitz10
    Is the other blog an exact keyword match?

    What are you doing for on-site SEO?
    Signature



    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3563794].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author carleisenstein
    As per the suggestions from the other two - I think it's likely something else that's making the difference. The theme and the .tld shouldn't be the problem here - unless the theme has a spammy footer link that you haven't removed. That's the only theme-related factor I could think of.

    Maybe they're building higher quality links, or they're writing better content or more of it, or even being a bit cleverer with the way the keyword is mentioned in the content. Or maybe they've done lots of other custom on-site optimisation.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3563855].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author GeorgeReed
    Just keep doing your thing and building it up.

    All I can say here.

    Keep it simple.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3563870].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Rexibit
    Originally Posted by bastik View Post

    Could anybody tell me, how much the theme you choose when using Wordpress, affects your SEO?
    That's like asking, "How much does the car I drive affect my gas milage?"

    You need to look at the root cause for this change. All a search engine sees is code. All a Wordpress theme is is code. Your site on the surface may appear different, but underneath it's just a regular HTML page to the search engine.

    Look at the code:
    • Does it have any excess tags that are redundant? If so, remove them.
    • How optimized are the CSS and JS files? Compress them.
    • How are your headings, strong, em, etc. displayed? Ideally they should be with semantic tags and not just style attributes in span or font tags.
    • What's the code to text ratio? You want a lot more text than you have code, so remove any useless stuff and get the same appearance by using CSS.
    Every theme is designed differently, just like every site is designed differently. You should be checking all this before committing to one on your public website.

    All that are parts of on-site optimization. Your ranking is influenced by it and any off-site SEO you do is multiplied by your page and site's quality score (which is a general idea of the user experience).
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3563913].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author freight
    I have just flipped a few sites over to WP and the rankings improved. New to word press so just getting the hang of the tools. I would say keep at your page as consistency will win in the end.
    Signature

    Australian Courier | Magento Shipping Calculator | Wordpress Shipping Calculator

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3564105].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mo Annuar
    Simple, clean and catchy are the 3 rules of design. Never fill your page with crap nobody is interested in.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3564110].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author thetruth23
    Sounds like it's something more than just the guys theme that's causing their blog to outrank you.

    The design of your website (including the theme you choose) has only a very small effect on rankings that it's close to a non-factor imo. If it's a poorly constructed theme that affects page loading time and that has a lot of broken code etc, then that's all I can see for a theme or design working against you.

    Basically, I think it's something else! And if they have no backlinks, and you're building backlinks on a regular basis - either the backlinks you're building are junk, or there's something up with your on-page SEO.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3565220].message }}

Trending Topics