Optimizing Your WordPress Blog Theme to Get More Readers

If you’re looking to revisit your WordPress blog theme, to get more blog readers, or if you are a new blogger who’s decided that having a fully equipped WordPress blog is what you need, there are certain elements you should consider as you decide what theme you’ll use.  As a matter of fact, your theme is an extension of your small business and your personality, so you want to choose wisely.

I’ll go beyond colors and sexiness here and talk about the elements that will keep readers and increase readers.  The bottom line is that your WordPress layout should be conducive to a user friendly experience.  Your theme should be  as unobtrusive as possible – providing quick solutions.

Now every theme is not perfect. In fact, we’re changing the skins here soon   However, you can ensure you’ve got the essentials taken care of.  And as the WordPress aficionados we are here at Secrets to Web Success, we’ve found the following points contribute to a clean user friendly theme and experience.

While this post won’t show you how to create a WordPress theme yourself – we tend to cater to the Internet beginner – you can find themes everywhere online.  This post will focus on a few elements you can control (choosing your theme), or even tweak, in order to create the ultimate user experience for your readers who are also your potential clients!

Making it easy for your visitors to find your content, information about you, and keeping them engaged, educated, and entertained will help you gain readership and fans.  So, here we go!

7 Elements of a User Friendly WordPress Blog Theme to Get You More Readers

1) Navigation

Your navigation simply is where your readers will find the pages of your blog.  Normally you place information about your business, yourself, and your services.  Examples of pages include:

• About
• Services
• Products, etc.

Make sure your navigation isn’t too small or not clearly visible.  Visible navigation is key to giving your readers what they are looking for.  Many WordPress Blog Themes have the navigation above or right under the header graphic.  Some have navigation on the left or even inside the header.  You want to ensure your readers can easily go to your About Page and get more information about you, your products and services.  So ensure your theme has visible navigation.

2) Search Bar

Having a very visible “search bar” on your WordPress blog is very important.  If your visitor has not found what he or she is looking for on the first page of your blog they will look for your search bar to type in some key terms and see if you have blogged about them.  If you have an archives tab in your navigation, they might look there, but it is quicker for your visitor to enter in a few key terms and find what they are looking for as opposed to studying your archives.  Make sure your theme has a visible search bar to make the visitor experience friendly.

There is also a WordPress plugin called Psychic Search that will save all of those search queries your visitors are typing in your search bar as well as tell you what others are typing in the search engines that pertains to the focus of your blog.  This is powerful because even if you don’t have the content your visitor is looking for (and maybe they leave end up leaving your blog) now you have a record of those searches and psychic search will help you create new content that is in demand.  Make sure to download and activate the Psychic Search plugin on your blog if you don’t have it already.  It’s sweet, so take advantage!

3) Header

Use a header graphic that represents you and your business.  It makes a greater impact on your clients if you have your logo and images to differentiate yourself from others using the same theme.  It is easy to FTP your logo image and replace the theme’s default image.  Make sure that your graphic is not so huge that your visitor has to scroll down to access your content.  You want your content to be above the fold (the area on the computer screen that your viewer can see without having to scroll).  The less you make your visitor work to find your content, the more time they’ll spend on your blog.

4) Sidebar(s)

In layman’s terms your sidebar (the columns by your main content) can include very useful information for your readers.  Don’t clutter your sidebar with frivolous information.  A two column WordPress Theme is easier on the eyes than the three column themes. However, there are 3 column themes that are not too overwhelming.  If you look at the theme and feel overwhelmed chances are your readers will feel the same way.  Use your judgment.

The sidebar should contain information such as:

• Subscription options (RSS & email)
• Your web form to build your opt in email list
• The categories of your blog
• Social connection options (i.e. to Twitter, Facebook)
• A short “about” blurb, and anything that would be useful to your visitor at quick glance

5) Comments

Make sure it is easy for your reader to leave comments on your blog.  I can admit a theme like the Bible Scholar WordPress theme, although visually nice, almost hides the comments section.

6) Social Connection Options

If you are an active participant in online conversations on social networking platforms such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, make sure to have your social connections options listed in a widget on your sidebar.  You will want to build relationships with potential clients outside of your blog as well.  Give several options for folks to connect with you.  Blogging allows room for developing more genuine relationships a lot quicker than it would be possible offline, so add those social connections and make time to connect and engage your readers outside your blog.

7) Plugins & Widgets

Ensure your blog theme is widget-ready.  Widgets will add functionality to your business blog and allow you to engage your readers and save time on blog maintenance, among other short cuts.   For instance, if you want to include a widget in your sidebar that tells your readers what your 5 most popular blog posts are but your theme is not widget ready, you will have to manually tweak your blog’s code in order to get that information on there.  Naturally we don’t want to do that!  We all want to work smarter.

Having a widget-ready blog will allow you to download a widget that automatically will do that for you in your sidebar.  Widgets leverage your time and energy and enhance the visitors experience that way. So now that you have a widget telling your readers what the top posts are, given they have enjoyed their experience on your blog already, they will stay on your site longer.  The longer they stay on your site, the likelier that visitor will become a subscriber. Hey, they may even comment too and add value to the conversation.  And then you can befriend them across other platforms and continue building that relationship… but I digress

So a widget ready-blog is a must, especially for those of you who don’t care to learn code.  You know what.. you don’t have to!  That’s the best thing about a blogging on the WordPress platform.

With the free themes you will have to get a bit dirty or pick the brain of some code geeks to help you with certain things.  However, things like color, header graphics, and some click and drop widgets to help you it’s a piece of cake.

There are a few paid themes such as the Thesis and RevolutionTwo themes that allow the beginner to easily customize without knowing a lick of code.  Sweet, huh?

Finding the Perfect WordPress Blog Theme

Finding the right theme can take quite a bit of time, but the following are some excellent places to start:

1) Social Bookmarking (tag “WordPress Themes” on delicious, for instance, to see what other bloggers favorite).

2) Google, Yahoo, MSN search

3) Some of our favorite spots to find themes (most are free and some are paid):

WordPress Theme Directory

Skin Press

WordPress Remix

Top WP Themes

Free Theme Layouts

Premium WordPress Blog Themes:

Thesis by Chris Pearson allows for easy customization for those who do not want to learn code.  You can customize almost everything in the theme without the need of writing a single line of HTML/PHP.

Do you have any other questions and concerns about choosing the right blog theme or how to tweak certain elements?  Tell us below by commenting.  We’ll be glad to deliver the tech goods to help you leverage your time and focus on what you do best.

We appreciate you.

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About The Author

Dali Burgado, also known as "The Dali Blogger" teaches creative entrepreneurs how to carve a web presence that connects with their Inner Guru and their target audience. Her first online marketing love is SEO. She's an avid connector on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. When she's not coaching or teaching, she's tweaking sites for Search Engine Visibility, working on her PHP and Javascript coding skills, Singing Opera, or learning about gardening. Circle Dali on Google+