Are you looking for the best SEO Friendly WordPress theme? You are in the right place!
The theme you use affects the content structure, your metadata, user experience, loading speed, and many other parameters that matter in SEO.
The advantage of WordPress is to offer you more than 30,000 themes. The downside is that choosing the right one for your needs is difficult! That’s why we’ll discuss the criteria to check before installing a template, then list the 7 best SEO-friendly WordPress themes!
Why choose the best WordPress SEO theme?
In addition to the design, the theme used on your website contributes to the experience you offer to visitors. It plays a vital role in the responsiveness of your pages, the speed of their loading, and the ergonomics of the web design.
From a technical view, search engines do not see the visual interface of your website but rather the code that composes it. If the latter is poorly structured and the HTML tags are misused, crawlers will not understand the content of your pages.
Many templates can use multiple H1 tags to style your home page text. Even if you get an excellent design, it negatively impacts your SEO.
Other themes may even ignore titles, leaving your pages with just the title tag and a few content divider elements (div). The crawlers can understand the text in the divs, but the critical part of your site will not be highlighted. And a poorly structured theme is the reason for your website’s loading speed.
So, how to choose the best WordPress theme for SEO?
6 criteria for choosing the best WordPress SEO theme
We have prepared a list of the best WordPress themes for SEO. But if you want to research on your own, here are the things to check to adopt an SEO-friendly template!
1) Coding
Your theme must be developed according to up-to-date coding standards to avoid SEO issues. This criterion is related to the page load speed: the accumulation of code can increase the loading time for the end user and search robots trying to index your site. website
However, as a beginner who does not know any coding language, it won’t be easy to look at the code and get an idea of its quality.
Check for errors with the W3C Markup Validator to ensure your theme uses clean code. If the errors seem excessive, you can consider other options.
2) Loading speed
Themes sometimes cause slow page loading, especially if they contain custom widgets or Google Fonts, which will only slow down your website.
The one you choose should remain fast, light, and customizable, with only the needed features. To this end, check if it is possible to disable specific settings to improve the site’s speed.
Finally, take a test! Install the template, then use PageSpeed Insights.
3) Compatibility with all browser
The best SEO-friendly WordPress themes adapt to all browsers, regardless of operating systems, devices, and screen sizes. It will allow all users to read and share your content from any device.
When choosing a design, look at the details to see if the developer has listed compatible or tested browsers. It should work with modern browsers like Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome, and Edge.
4) A responsive design
The best WordPress theme for SEO adapts its layout to the screen size and resolution. It should be as user-friendly on smartphones as it is on computers.
Hence, the interest in choosing a responsive template improves the overall user experience and your SEO. Need we remind you that Google favors mobile-friendly pages in its ranking?
Generally, developers specify whether the theme is responsive. If in doubt, you can install it and use the Mobile-Friendly Test tool to find out!
5) Content hierarchy
A theme should use the appropriate HTML tags to make it clear to search engines what the main part of the content is. It also ensures to avoidance of the creation of duplicate content.
If the chosen theme includes a builder (Divi, Elementor, Themify Builder, Beaver Builder), the main content section must contain <p> tags. As for the header sections, they must end up in H1, H2, and H3 tags.
You can focus on other tasks while a theme will take care of these aspects.
6) Regular updates
11% of WordPress site vulnerabilities are due to an outdated theme. Regular updates are essential for security and bug fixing.
They also allow you to maintain compatibility with your site’s latest versions of web browsers. In case of incompatibility, your site will not load correctly. As a result, you may lose traffics and places in the SERPs.
Most popular WordPress themes are updated frequently. However, before downloading or buying a WordPress theme, check the date of its last update.
8 WordPress Themes for SEO
Here are our top 8 best SEO Optimized WordPress themes to make your choice easier!
1) Divi theme
Divi is one of the world’s most popular and multi-purpose WordPress themes. Elegant Themes have developed the Divi theme. It is a very user-friendly, fast-loading, and SEO-friendly WordPress theme.
- The theme is fully responsive while being highly customizable.
- It offers 800 pre-built designs that can fit any business and any purpose.
- Divi has a page builder that allows easy drag-and-drop editing.
- The theme will enable you to optimize on-page SEO and customize URLs.
- Divi is compatible with the various SEO plugins offered by WordPress.
Price: $89/year for access to the theme and all Elegant Themes plugins.
2) SEO Crawler
As its name suggests, the SEO Crawler theme is available on the ThemeForest marketplace. It offers everything you need for natural referencing. It has a minimalist and modern design that will suit marketing agencies, start-ups, healthcare companies, etc.
Its main characteristics are:
- GDPR compliance.
- Compatibility with most major SEO plugins.
- Advanced customization options.
- Google web Font integration.
- Regular updates.
- A responsive design.
3) Astra theme
Astra deserves its place in our list of the best SEO-friendly WordPress themes! Light and fast, it weighs less than 50 KB and does not depend on jQuery.
Among its main qualities are the following:
- Automatically adding important Schema tags.
- Minimized and quick to load code.
- An optimized header tag structure.
- Built-in AMP compatibility.
- Compatibility with all major builders: Elementor, Divi, Thrive, Architect, etc.
4) Eco Coded theme
If climate change is essential to you, EcoCoded is your WordPress theme. In addition to being lightweight, fast, and optimized for search engines, EcoCoded minimizes power consumption when loading your visitors’ devices.
Minimalist, the theme loads only one font while reducing and compressing the code. There are no built-in animations or frames to make the display as light as possible.
In addition to these benefits, EcoCoded:
- It offers a responsive design.
- It has many SEO features.
- It’s also compatible with Elementor.
- It comes with an advanced design customization option.
5) Genesis Theme
Genesis is not just a theme but a framework. Choosing this solution offers you a practical toolbox to build your website.
Genesis has many advantages:
- Clean, lightweight code that helps your site load quickly.
- Automatic Schema tags adding option.
- Regular updates.
- Great flexibility.
- You can activate and deactivate options according to your needs.
- Options to control SEO titles/descriptions and add no index tags to specific content.
Price: You can download Genesis for free with some limitations. Genesis pro price starts from $360, including all the tools and child theme per year.
6) GeneratePress
Among the best SEO-friendly WordPress themes, we can mention GeneratePress. A template with multiple qualities improves the accessibility and referencing of your site.
Among its main strengths are the following:
- Light and minimal code that ensures super-fast loading.
- Natively enhanced antivirus security.
- Easier support for schema.org tags.
- A library of pre-made designs to speed up launching your new website.
- Compatibility with Beaver Builder and Elementor builders.
- Complete customization of the mobile display.
7) Neve theme
Simple and effective, Neve deserves its place at the top of the best WordPress themes for SEO! Its sleek design adapts to all types of businesses and allows the creation of a showcase site, e-commerce, or blog.
In terms of functionality, we can mention the following:
- Native support for the AMP format.
- Compatibility with most builders: Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, and SiteOrigin.
- Complete customization options to build a site in your image.
- Regular updates.
- Responsive and efficient technical support.
Price: This theme is available free version with limitations. It also has a paid version ($69/year) if you need more features.
8) Rishi Theme
Rishi Theme is another lightning Fast, lightweight, and highly customizable WordPress theme. Rishi theme is free, but using its premium add-ons, you can use its 75+ pre-designed starter templates to develop your SEO-friendly Website.
Rishi theme seamlessly works with the most popular plugins such as Elementor, Gutenburg, RankMath, WooCommerce, Yoast, etc. Rishi theme is also famous for its top-notch support and extensive documentation.
- Core vital optimized
- Less than 90KB Size
- Load in just half a second
- Lightning Fast for Great Performance
- Advanced Typography Options
- Advanced Header Builder
- Advanced Footer Builder
- Elementor and Gutenberg Compatible
- SEO Optimised for Better Ranking
- Schema Markup Integration
- Multiple Blog Layouts
- Highly Customizable Single Post
- White Label for Custom Branding
- Cross-Browser Compatible
- RTL Scripts Ready
If you want to create a stunning, blazing-fast, and SEO-friendly website, then Rishi Theme is bundled with everything you need.
Best WordPress Themes for SEO – Take Your Pick
Using one of the best SEO Friendly WordPress themes can help ensure your website is clean, fast, and has minimal code bloat.
The above list represents the best WordPress themes optimized for performance and SEO. Each one is created by quality developers and will ensure your website provides a quality user experience for many years.
To make sure you choose the best SEO-friendly WordPress theme, do not hesitate to read comments and consult the opinions of other users. You will find exciting information there to make an informed choice.
And if you have a WordPress site design and development project, consider getting support from OrixLab. We have a team of expert WordPress developers.
