Choosing the Right WordPress Theme For Your Amazon Store Blog
Using WordPress, provides a great way for you to get your Amazon store blog up and running. It takes only a few minutes to install through your hosting account, and it’s fairly easy to use and maintain. One of the wonderful things about WordPress is how easily you can change the entire design and functionality of your blog by installing a new ‘theme.’
When it comes to choosing the right WordPress theme for your purposes, here are three things you need to consider . . .
#1: Paid vs Free Themes
There are literally thousands of themes available for WordPress which include both free and paid options. The question is how you go about choosing the right one for your blog.
Free Themes. The good news is that there are tons of free WordPress themes to choose from. Once inside your admin panel you simply go to “Appearance” – click on “Themes” and proceed to search for a theme you think is suitable. But beware: far too many free themes lack a solid support system to help if anything goes wrong. So it is important for you research the track record of the theme provider and choose carefully.
Paid Themes. Premium themes are usually coded well, tend to be more professional-looking, and most importantly, are backed by good support. You can buy good-quality themes from around $30 and up.
#2: Look and Feel
It’s important that you have the right look and feel for your blog. So make sure that the theme works within your niche and complements the look of your Amazon store.
Example: If you have a camping affiliate store, you don’t want to use a corporate-looking WordPress theme for your blog. Likewise … if your Amazon store sells higher-end watches, you don’t want a casual-looking theme.
If you have the wrong look and feel for your blog, then you might end up sending mixed signals about what your business provides.
#3: Features & Functionality
Most importantly, you need to think about the requirements you have for your blog. In other words, what features do you absolutely need that you can’t go without?
A) The Theme Must Be Mobile-Friendly. These days, a huge proportion of traffic on the web uses mobile devices for surfing the web whether those are mobile phones or tablets.
If your website only looks good on a computer screen and doesn’t display correctly on a smartphone, you could very easily undermine the objective of your blog and possibly miss out on potential business. Therefore you should look for the following:
. . . Responsive Design. A theme with a responsive layout means that the layout of your site will change in order to adapt to the monitor it is being displayed on. For example, on mobile devices, the side menus will disappear and your visitors don’t have to scroll sideways when navigating your page.
. . . Large Elements. Of course for your site to be easily legible on mobile devices, your text needs to be at least a certain size. Likewise, you should ensure any buttons or links are big enough to be clicked with even the biggest of fingers!
. . . No Mouse-Overs. Some WordPress themes have a mouseover (or hover) feature that is activated by hovering a mouse over an element (like a drop-down menu). This is a cool feature for viewing on desktop computers and is great for easy and rapid navigation. However, on the majority of mobile devices, it actually makes navigation impossible. Why? Because your phone can not detect when your finger is ‘hovering’ over a button. So make sure you don’t fall in love with a theme that has this feature.
B) The Theme Must Load Quickly. Have you ever clicked on a website link and it took forever to load the page? What did you do? Did you click off the site and continue your search elsewhere?
A WordPress theme that loads quickly when you arrive on the site, serves to get your visitors to the information they are looking for. On mobile devices, this becomes even more important as people are super-impatient when surfing on their phones.
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Choosing the right WordPress theme for your Amazon affiliate blog provides a great experience for your visitors (and some say that you may even rank better in Google). At any rate, put some thought into your theme choice, based on the criteria we shared.
Having trouble finding just the right theme? Check out what Fresh Web Market has to offer.