When Themes Go Wild – Importance of Using a Properly Coded WordPress Theme

It is surprising to see how many of my customers/users do not use a properly coded WordPress theme. Using a properly coded theme on a WordPress powered site is very important without any doubt. So I wanted to quickly make a blog post to highlight a few points to make sure you don’t go down the path of using a wrong WordPress theme only to regret it later. Remember, just because a theme looks good to the naked eye does not mean it has been properly coded.

Also, just because you paid for a theme doesn’t mean it is a properly coded one. Usually premium products are of good quality but there are always exceptions. So make sure to do a little background checking on the developer of the theme so you know who you are buying it from.

Why is It Important to Have a Proper Theme?

Before I talk about some of the main points, here is the summary –

The amount of time you will be spending to fix issues that all stem from the bad theme is just not worth it!

Issues with WordPress Plugins

It is common to have issues with WordPress plugins that uses JavaScript for example to do various things when your theme is poorly coded. So you will think that the problem is with the plugin but actually the theme is the true culprit here.

Example1: I have had many clients who complained about the WordPress Simple Shopping Cart’s variation not working properly on their site. After I finished my troubleshooting, it turned out that the theme was missing the following piece of code in its footer file (footer.php)!

<?php wp_footer(); ?>

This piece of code tells WordPress to add certain bit of code to go in the footer of the page (e.g. load a JavaScript file). So any plugin that tells WordPress to do some stuff in the footer will not work because the above code is missing from the theme.

Example2: Similar sort of event happened with another plugin and it turned out that the theme was missing the following bit of code in its header file (header.php)!

<?php wp_head(); ?>
Example3: A lot of theme developers do not seem to know the proper way to include the popular JQuery library to the theme so that it doesn’t create a conflict with other plugins running on the site. These theme developers tend to include their own copy of the JQuery library in the theme rather than using the one that ships with WordPress! The following post explains this in detail:

• Including jQuery in WordPress (The Right Way)

The JQuery library that ships with WordPress runs in no conflict mode by default.

Example4: Some developers do not seem to understand the concept of running JQuery code in no-conflict mode. Whenever you are adding JQuery code anywhere on your WordPress site you need to make sure it is running in no-conflict mode so you don’t cause trouble for other plugins or themes.

Some of these issues may be minor in your case but the point is that it can waste a lot of your valuable time figuring out what the issue is when you can avoid all these issues just by making the right choice at the start.

SEO Related Reason

If you don’t care about the above reason because you don’t use many plugins then that’s fine but what about the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your site? Don’t you care about the search ranking?

Having valid HTML code for your site is good for SEO so why not go for it? Not all HTML errors are fatal but some of them can be, so it is a good idea to aim for having no HTML code violations on your site.

Browser Rendering

If you have valid HTML code then it is likely that your web pages will be rendered properly on all browsers. Not all of your customers will be using the same browser as you, so it helps if your web pages render properly on all major browsers.

How to Ensure that You are Choosing a Properly Coded Theme?

• It is very easy to check if a theme code is valid or not. All you have to do is head over to the Markup Validation Service by W3Cand enter the URL of the site where the theme is being used. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or W3). Pretty much every theme will have a live demo, so you can use the URL of that demo site to see if the theme code is valid. If the theme has valid HTML code then you will get the following output:

Valid XHML Code Check

• There is more to it than just validating the theme on the W3 Markup validation site. If you want to dig down into this then read the 10 Checks to the Perfect WordPress theme from Yoast. Yoast is a fine WordPress plugin developer in case you didn’t know.
• The WordPress theme choosing tips and tricks article that I wrote a while back is also a good read.
• Should WordPress themes include plugin functionality is another very good read.

I have got nothing against free WordPress themes (I love free things like everyone else) but a lot of the free theme developers usually copy another theme which wasn’t properly coded in the first place then make some tweaks and release it. If you are going to be using it just make sure you have checked the different aspect of the theme first.

You can also purchase a theme if you can’t find a good free WordPress theme. There are many fine WordPress theme selling sites these days. To be honest with you, I don’t think investing $20-$50 for your online business is such a bad idea if you are serious about your business.

Would you prefer to have a doctor who has never done a surgery before to operate on your heart? Probably not  … then why are you taking chances with your online business? I am sure you care about your online business as much as you care about your own health 

Anyway, my point is… please  do not just look at a theme and put it up on your site just because you fancy it. Please feel free to share your experience about themes going wild.