Does Your Theme Matter?

[Nyla C.]

The more I venture into online entrepreneurship, the more I wonder if your theme aka the 'look and feel' of your website really matters?

I get so stressed out trying to find a good starting theme that's as close to my idea of professional as I want it. Meanwhile, people I know around me are throwing up websites that look like they were designed in microsoft paint, and are selling with no customer complaints. So it makes me wonder... does your theme matter? Does my theme matter? Should I just toss 'looks and feel" to the wind and not care what my theme looks like - just as long as the shopping cart works? 

 

Eh... I don't know. Sometimes, I think I should but then I'd feel embarrassed to have a website like that. Other times, I think I'm being silly and only holding myself back. Long term merchants (and even newly successful merchants) and developers... what do you think?

Edited January 15, 2016 by Milliona (see edit history)

[Paulito]

Hello

 

I think it is more about Speed, Information, Ease of use, Quality content, than design.

 

I am sure you have visited lots of websites, what did you like or dislike about them?  Were you interested about about what they looked like or were you interested in how long it took to navigate around, how easy was it to buy a product etc.

 

If you are going to buy a theme just remember that the biggest are not always the best.

 

Paul

[Nyla C.]

You make an excellent point. I've shopped online quite often, and the only time I've ever really paid attention to how it looks is if it looks like one of those scam wholesale websites... they all tend to look the same. Other than that, I do focus on how easy it is to navigate and find what I'm looking for, complete checkout, etc. 

 

I have learned the themes with the most "features" are always the most difficult to set up and often the buggiest. I have learned that less is more. I guess as a first time online store owner, I really wanted my site to look good.. like 'the big guys'.

 

Hello

 

I think it is more about Speed, Information, Ease of use, Quality content, than design.

 

I am sure you have visited lots of websites, what did you like or dislike about them?  Were you interested about about what they looked like or were you interested in how long it took to navigate around, how easy was it to buy a product etc.

 

If you are going to buy a theme just remember that the biggest are not always the best.

 

Paul

[Guest]

There probably is not a right answer there

 

Even speed of website is open to debate

 

 

Our sites are very basic, and fairly slow, but do alright because of what we sell. Customers looking for a u-bolt are not too fussed about slide shows, and blogs and youtube links and colour schemes and font styles and .....well you get the idea

 

Much will depend on what you are selling, and what your competition is. 

 

My view is you cant sell unless you can be seen. So get your website up and running in a basic form, you can update as you go along

[Nyla C.]

You're right as well. I'm in the apparel industry. I think looks might matter somewhat, but they'd most likely be more focused on product photos. Thanks for the advice. 

 

There probably is not a right answer there

 

Even speed of website is open to debate

 

 

Our sites are very basic, and fairly slow, but do alright because of what we sell. Customers looking for a u-bolt are not too fussed about slide shows, and blogs and youtube links and colour schemes and font styles and .....well you get the idea

 

Much will depend on what you are selling, and what your competition is. 

 

My view is you cant sell unless you can be seen. So get your website up and running in a basic form, you can update as you go along

[Guest]

Also, remember what the big boys are starting to do. Look at Amazon Ebay and all the others. They are all moving towards much simpler designs. Lots of white space and simplicity

[Nyla C.]

That is true. Amazon.com has been consistently rated as the ugliest website of all time for years now, but that hasn't stopped their billion dollar revenue. 

[RobbieBlokeToys]

The problem with designers is that they don't give a rats behind about SEO, in the majority of cases they are all about how something LOOKS, not how it works or how the search engines manage the information found on a page.

There are plenty of "designers" of themes out there who do nothing other than change another theme a little and call it their own, and 90% of them have no idea what SEO is.

 

A good example of this is the comparison between Presta and a Wordpress blog. My WP blog posts are in Google within days and usually on page one for my search term, but Prestashop doesn't appear in Google for weeks, and usually starts on page one (because the new item is listed in various places on the shop, so those links appear in Google) before dropping to page three - or worse.

 

This basically shows that WP is lighter, gives Google what it wants, while Prestashop struggles. I have yet to find out exactly what I need to improve about the theme or the PS install to make it Google friendly, but right now I just know that Google hates it with a passion and I have to work 10 times as hard to get a product page in Google than I would for a blog post.

[Simonas Invertus]

The question of the topic is 'Does your theme matters' and answer is yes, a lot for SEO.

If the code done right it will get higher ranking in Google, and Google does not care about pretty.

 

'Ugly' and 'pretty' depends on the people. Different industries has different 'look and feel'.

You do not want bank website to look like adults toys website. 

 

Look at the giants of your industry and aim for something close. 

They have a lot of money, so they can invest in research how to do most attractive website for the clients.

[RobbieBlokeToys]

The question of the topic is 'Does your theme matters' and answer is yes, a lot for SEO.

If the code done right it will get higher ranking in Google, and Google does not care about pretty.

 

'Ugly' and 'pretty' depends on the people. Different industries has different 'look and feel'.

You do not want bank website to look like adults toys website. 

 

Look at the giants of your industry and aim for something close. 

They have a lot of money, so they can invest in research how to do most attractive website for the clients.

If the code is right, and that's a very BIG if.

As said, there are hundreds upon hundreds of PS themes that don't pass even the most basic SEO checks, because they are made by designers who only care about how a site looks and not how it functions.

 

I agree with the point about different industries having a different look and feel to their sites, but this basically comes down to colors and layout. Image content on any page is an immediate indicator of whether a site has what you are looking for, the colors and positions of things are something to be considered months or years down the line when you have the ability to invest in research to see how a slight change affects conversion.

[Nyla C.]

Do you use friendly urls and meta info?

 

The problem with designers is that they don't give a rats behind about SEO, in the majority of cases they are all about how something LOOKS, not how it works or how the search engines manage the information found on a page.

There are plenty of "designers" of themes out there who do nothing other than change another theme a little and call it their own, and 90% of them have no idea what SEO is.

 

A good example of this is the comparison between Presta and a Wordpress blog. My WP blog posts are in Google within days and usually on page one for my search term, but Prestashop doesn't appear in Google for weeks, and usually starts on page one (because the new item is listed in various places on the shop, so those links appear in Google) before dropping to page three - or worse.

 

This basically shows that WP is lighter, gives Google what it wants, while Prestashop struggles. I have yet to find out exactly what I need to improve about the theme or the PS install to make it Google friendly, but right now I just know that Google hates it with a passion and I have to work 10 times as hard to get a product page in Google than I would for a blog post.

[Nyla C.]

That is true. I see A LOT and I mean A LOT of 'ecommerce themes' that are the most horrible designs I've ever witnessed in terms of being shopping friendly and useful for conversion. Sometimes I just think the designer must have had no clue about how ecommerce works to make such a theme. I don't believe design has anything to do with SEO though. Google only looks at code when crawling images and to make sure you don't have keywords stuffed in hidden places. Like shop here 1,000,000 times in the header in a size .001pt font with white text on a white background or something. 

 

If the code is right, and that's a very BIG if.

As said, there are hundreds upon hundreds of PS themes that don't pass even the most basic SEO checks, because they are made by designers who only care about how a site looks and not how it functions.

 

I agree with the point about different industries having a different look and feel to their sites, but this basically comes down to colors and layout. Image content on any page is an immediate indicator of whether a site has what you are looking for, the colors and positions of things are something to be considered months or years down the line when you have the ability to invest in research to see how a slight change affects conversion.