Choosing a WordPress theme for your band website and blog

OK I’ll apologise in advance for the rant… But I’ve just been through about 200 WordPress themes aimed at blogs. I have a problem with every one of them…

I run what I would call reasonably successful blog. I also manage Sliotar’s website, which gets a nice amount of traffic every year as well. I have tested with the SumoMe heat maps what works and what does not when it comes to the design. Most of these new themes are made to look fancy with slider photos and so forth, throwing terms like “responsive” and “clean” as sales pitch. Most of them lack the basic tools to do what a good blog is supposed to do, keep reader on the site.

Most of my blog posts have extremely high read through rate (thank you to those of you who read it regularly) so I am not worried about the content. But WordPress theme needs to do more than just look pretty. It needs to get the reader exited about reading more blog posts on the blog. It needs to navigate clearly. I do not want to spend time trying to figure out where everything is.

Responsive themes are supposed to work equally well in any device, whether it is on computer, tablet or a mobile phone. Here’s my beef, most of the time I want my mobile theme to do different things than my desktop theme. For example, photos help a good blog post on desktop, but on mobile device I want the experience to be all  about the easy reading.

And again, as my website is not only a blog, but also my artist website, the landing page has a very different purpose than for example my blog page.  So for those of you working with WordPress, think past the fancy design. Thin what is the purpose of your website. Think what you want people to do on your website.

Just one more thing, if your band does not have your own website and a blog, get on it today!

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE