Best Wordpress theme for SEO? (possibly free)

Themes don't do SEO... YOU DO. That's all I am going to say

Not really sure what the theme has to do with it, seo is mainly content, tags, and off page. you could rank with no theme, using the default twenty ten. I know I've done it.

No, it's not. It's a useless question, as it was already told above.
Use the default 2010 - it's better than most paid themes.

I'm assuming you are looking for ways to make SEO quicker/easier for you. SEO on its own is pretty easy - it just takes time.

But, to answer you're question, I don't think you should be looking for a theme. Try looking for WP plugins that will make your life easier in terms of SEO.

Theme is not the thing you should be looking for to optimize your site for Search Engines. Plugins are the thing what you should be taking note of. As Istvan Horvath said the default theme of provided by wordpress, Twenty Ten is also very good as it supports all the features that wordpress can provide you with.

Hi there,

While the others' suggestions are helpful (you're the one that enters the SEO data, and there are plugins to help with that), there's a theme I often use that makes that job easy due to the way the admin panel is organized. You can make many adjustments and have a lot of control over the site to add what you want. There's a free and a paid version: Flexsqueeze

Use "Wordpress SEO by Yoast" plugin. As far as I know, themes only handle some part of the SEO. This plugin will give you full control. By the way, SEO is not just a mechanical process. It involves copy writing and links as well.

I suggest you to use theme that lets you to put more content on the page.
I mean that better is to use three columns layout than one, google is looking for more quality content

Wost WP themes that you buy have an "SEO" feature. This doesn't really do that much, but it's just the basics. It'll have things like canonical URLs, custom meta tags etc. Check out themeforest.com

They have a pretty good selection and their themes have all the features listed. You can also demo it and do a pagesource and see what you think about it

Simply install WordPress seo by yoast to the default theme 2011

As long as your code is W3C valid, and you don't overuse heading tags etc. then you should be using All-in-one SEO or some other plugin that helps you out with that.

Thanks everyone, very helpful.."content is king" of course

All of them can be awesome SOE themes and templets. Its up to you to assign alt tags, title tags, generate alot of real and relevant content. Take a look at my article on seo at my site. It explains the very best ways to get good Serch Engine Postions and page rankings.

There's a lot of mis-information - or incomplete info on this page.

Themes that are badly designed, full of bloated code, use bad linking, etc.. can hurt your seo efforts.

For example, some themes put the first link from the home page of a blog to a post on a picture or on the 'read more' text. A good theme will no-follow the picture link (if there is one) and read more text, and only do-follow the article title - which should be an H2.

Also, some themes keep the site title - usually behind the logo - as an H1 on all pages, when it should really be an H3 or less on every page except the home page.

Just a couple of examples. I've also run into themes that use way too many CSS files, unnecessary functions, and too many database calls. You can use the plugin - debug queries - to see how many queries your theme is running. Anything over 50 is way too many and can hurt your theme performance and speed, which can also hurt your search engine rankings.

I agree that the default 2010 theme is well setup - but to say that your theme choice can't help or hurt your seo efforts is silly.

SEO is not a theme in WP.... There is a plug-in called ALL IN ONE SEO and even that is compiled BY YOU! SEO is a by-product of your hard work on the site and following the way keyword and anchor text as well as many other factors are laid out in the site that is built.... If you cannot understand this, then you need to find a new job and leave the site building to those that understand it....

So I guess when guys like Joost De Valk write a post like this:

WordPress SEO - The Definitive Guide - Yoast

He should have just pointed to All In One SEO and been done with it?

Perhaps instead of trying to sell your Design and Hosting services you two should focus on adding something useful to this forum.

You could use twentyten with seo ultimate plugin, the advantage with this is that as you expand the site to cover more and more keywords and phrases, that you can automatically add links throughout your existing pages that already contain relevant keywords by using the deeplink juggernaught feature.

Content is the most important thing, as it is given top most preference.

The Wordpress CMS is already optimized as it is.

You don't need some "SEO theme" to rank well on Google, you just need to build links.

I agree that All In One SEO is a great SEO plug-in but there are others. Some solid themes can be found on Themeforest. Avoid free themes. They are loaded with backlinks and code you don't want.

Use Wordpress with good theme and can show multiple posts on a home page.But do not forget it without quality content it is waste less.

Everyone is saying wrong themes also affect the SEO of a site due to it's loading speed and Maintainance.
Here is a theme that can help you out.

Fastest WordPress Theme NicheWp - Niche Bloggers

Haha! Ok, thank you everyone for your thoughts!

There is a default options to optimize your site with wordpress. You can use any theme its not related to theme. Just find the options.

1. Content is the most important thing
2. Good wordpress seo plug-in like WPS Yoast

This used to matter and even the Thesis framework was superior to other themes, since if you dabbled with the configuration the theme would still be written in the back with the best SEO practices in mind. (content before useless code, etc, etc)

But with so many recent changes with Google, I can tell you'll do better writing 100% for people and not for the search engines. (doesn't matter which theme you use although I still believe using a nice established premium theme can help)

By established I mean frameworks like Thesis, Genesis, Woothemes and a few extras.

You just need to make sure the theme has proper coding in it so it does not harm your SEO effort.

I don't use free themes since some of them might contain links that I don't want to their sites. I personally use WooThemes, ElegantThemes or CTR Theme for my sites.

Themes do not make your seo work you have to do it on your own.
To do that you have to learn the tricks of seo.
I think you do not have much idea about this that is why you are telling like this.

It was answered already above.
You do the SEO stuff not the theme and it should be done manually.
There are also plugins out there that can make your SEO work easy.
If you're still confused the best you need to do is to research more about SEO course in the web.

are you sure of it that it will work for wordpress

It is strange when people says that SEO is not dependent with the theme ! On page SEO is mainly dependent on the theme and for best on-page SEO results use the default 'twentyeleven' theme. Let me know if you've any more question.