Does Changing Theme Affect SEO (8 Vital Factors To Consider)

Do themes are really important for SEO? Will your site’s ranking gets affected if you change the theme? Let’s break down the whole matter.

In our other article, we have described how much hosting is important in terms of SEO. Similarly, themes are also important and play a crucial role in your site ranking.

However, there is no doubt changing theme affect SEO but if it is done correctly it can improve your SEO ranking.

Does a website theme matter for SEO?

Website theme is one of the most important measures which provides a huge impact on SEO. A simple and attentive theme looks very decent and people can easily find what they’re looking for. 

But, if you choose a complex theme just more premium this will place a bad impression on the customer. 

SEO works on the establishment of various ranking keywords in the website so that the customers will reach the website at preference and leads to high traffic. 

But the whole mechanism of SEO does not only depend upon the searching of ranking keywords. 

The SEO also depends upon the availability of 3 factors: Design, Template, and themes. Why theme? Because the availability of high-quality themes improves the loading time and improves working. 

Speed and structure are the 2 most important things which help to make the website effective and user-friendly. 

Simple themes don’t take a huge amount of time to load. So, customers can easily access the website on different devices. 

Also, a good and attractive theme improves the premiums of your site which improves the reputation of your website. The appearance of a good theme on your website attracts more customers. 

In conclusion, we can say that the “Yes” Theme of a website attains huge importance in SEO. 

Best SEO Friendly WordPress Themes

How do changing themes affect SEO?

SEO leads to search engine optimization which narrates that the website is engaged with Search Engine in their best form so that the customers will get the best service from the platform. 

The main target or standard of SEO is to attract more and more traffic to the website and present the services of the website in the most attractive and best manner. 

Changing the theme from time to time will affect the SEO differently. We have discussed some measures which you face after changing the theme of your website. See the content below to know how the changing of theme will affect the SEO. 

Page load speed

When a visitor comes to your website then your website dictates lots of scripts that you set in your website. So, if your theme attains plenty of scripts then it will make your loading time slow. 

You just have to aim that the theme which you choose will improve your loading time. If the theme is enhancing your loading time then you can shift to a new theme. 

It is a rule of thumb, if you wanna become more improved then shift to a theme that gives you low loading time. 

If the website loading time becomes high then the website takes a long time to load which provides a bad impact on the customer. 

Affects your design & user experience

The design of your website makes your website more enjoyable and attentive. If your website design is impressive and easy to use then people will prefer to reach your website and shop from it again and again. 

The design of the website and user experience will directly impact the conversion rate of your website which relates to SEO. 

For searching for high quality, effective, user-friendly design you can search on the internet according to your device. 

Search for the best design of your website and implement it in your website for improved SEO. 

Secretly changes your SEO metadata

MetaData is a factor that attracts the robots which are called spiders. These robots search for the best possible results according to the search of the website. 

Different types of themes attain different types of additional metadata tags. Google uses this metadata to understand the working if website. So, the availability of themes will directly lead to the SEO metadata. 

Well, if you’re ranking at google and doing very well then we don’t recommend you to change your theme because it will cost you the decrement in rankings on Google. 

Affect site structured data

Different data setup and structures act differently on the performance of your website. So, changing themes will affect the performance of your website. 

Google uses this data to understand the working of your website in a better way. In the condition changing the theme will affect the rankings of your website. 

An impressive website attains good and impressive structured data which is called Schema. If your current website is running with proper schema and all your data and articles are fully structured then changing the theme will lose the schema of your website. 

Change your content formatting

The availability of different themes on your website will lead to the changing of the structure of HTML which is available on the website. 

Changing HTML takes will confuse Google and the reader. This is done because of changing the structure of HTML takes in your website. 

This can become a serious issue because suppose in your current theme you add H1 but in your new theme, it will be added automatically or attains an in-built mechanism. 

So, you have to revisit to abandon them. This becomes complicated and can affect your website. 

Effect with the custom function

It is a common issue that is seen in multi-purpose themes that the website will bloat. If you’re a platform that provides informative content to the audience through the blog and content then we prefer to have a single-purpose theme on your website. 

Multi-purpose themes attained many extended functionalities. A blog-related website doesn’t require this mechanism. 

So, if you have a blog-related website then shift to a single-purpose website instead of a multi-purpose website. 

Affect image sizes and their indexation

Images play an important role in enhancing the effectiveness of SEO in the website. The different themes will change the availability of the images on your website and will negatively affect your website. 

You don’t need to have an image that covers your whole page and is available at HD quality but this type of function is inbuilt in some types of websites designs. 

These types of changes will make your website slow and reduce the performance effectiveness of your website. 

When a blog is posted on a website then the image is set accordingly. Changing the theme of the website will substitute the availability of images on the website. This will make your website less attractive and impact SEO.  

Theme bloat

There are plenty of themes available online that you can select for your website but a good theme attains some additional and effective functionalities. 

If you’re looking for a good modern theme for your website then you must consider that your website must attain a custom features facility so that you can easily customize the available website theme. 

If you’re using WordPress for your work then you know that the developers will introduce new updates to improve the odds in the functionality of the platform. 

If your website is against in-built custom features then you change and update your website and remove all the odds according to the updates which occur from time to time.

Tips not to hurt SEO while changing theme

In the above discussion, we’ve discussed what is the effect which you may face at the time of changing the theme of your site in respect of SEO. 

SEO is the essence of every online business or website because this is the medium by which you can improve the availability of traffic on your site. 

Yes, you face some really serious problems but with the help of some easy tips, you can minimize this risk while changing the theme of your website.  

SEO-friendly theme 

When you’re going to change the theme of your site then you should take a look at the standards of the SEO which your website is currently taking. 

Selecting an SEO-friendly website will be highly beneficial for you. An SEO-friendly website meets the standards of your current theme and is engaged with proper SEO. So, selecting this type of theme will reduce the risk of poor rankings and other measures. 

Reduce plugin numbers with a functional theme

The availability of a functional theme is also a great tip for you to reduce any kind of risk while changing the theme in your website. 

Well, the functional theme also attains a lower rate of plugins. This will lead to a lower loading time. 

And if you get a well-organized and systemized theme then it will attain a higher rate of plugins which enhance the loading time of your site. 

Opt for a very fast theme if using a page builder

If you’re using a Page builder platform then you have to make sure that the theme you’re using must attain fast and effective working with minimum loading time. 

With the great loading time and fast theme, your platform is recognized by Google and it provides a positive impact on your website ranking. 

Getting a lightweight and Simple looking theme will assure that you’ll get the very fast working of your website. 

A theme with fewer scripts will always assure that you’re experiencing a very fast working website theme. 

Don’t change the theme frequently

This is one of the most important tips because ignoring this will cost you heavily. When you change the theme you have to take care of all of the measures related to your website and SEO. 

So, make sure not to change your theme too often and take care of every single measure while doing this. 

Changing the theme places a huge impact on the ranking and reputation of your website. So, it is a risky process and you ignore those changes too often.  

Check your website before and after the change

When you decide to change your website theme then may compare the new theme with your old theme. 

Scroll every single page of your website theme so that you’ll get a proper examination of the new website which you’re going to use. 

Now, you can also use various types of tools and Crawlers to adjust the odds and errors of your website. 

If you ask us then we recommend you to have a priority on Screaming Frog crawler which is one of the best crawler platforms which you can use. 

Check both scripts (external and installed) 

The working mechanism and effectiveness of every website depend upon the scripts. The availability of scripts decides the loading time, content quality, and many others. 

So, you must have a detailed check or we can say double-check on both external and installed scripts of your newly customized theme. 

Changing the theme will change your scripts and this will change the appearance of content on your website. 

Check Google Search console data

Google console is one of the most important instruments for every website holder in Google. This is a platform that provides you with an analysis of how Google is seeing websites. 

This is an analysis of the effect of your website on Google when you’re using SEO. This platform also guides on how you can make your platform better. 

This provides proper guidance regarding how to work and many others which will help you to improve the errors of your website.   

Maintain structured data by using a Plugin For SEO 

When your website is doing well and all your data is systemized and becomes fully structured then you must look for future plugins also. 

If you’re changing your theme then make sure that you’re doing proper management of your meta descriptions, titles, and plugins. 

We prefer you to use Yoast SEO plugin. This platform will take care of every aspect related to the meta-title, description, Plugins, and titles. 

So, you can easily shift to your new theme without any worry. All your customization and modification will automatically be done according to your need and you’ll get an error-free website theme for working. 

An error-free website leads to a positive impact on conversion rate and level of traffic in your website. 

Go for a single-purpose theme

It is always my first recommendation to use a multipurpose lightweight theme like THE GEM THEME (trusted by 64,434 users). 

The benefit of using a multipurpose theme is that you can use it for any purpose whether it can be your personal blog site or maybe an attractive personal finance blog site. 

Multipurpose themes come with advanced functionalities to fulfill the multipurpose requirements and they need user skills and time investment. Many multipurpose themes are heavy coded and take a long loading time. 

Whereas a single-purpose blog theme like Typology (trusted by 4,522 users) is a simple lightweight theme with less coding that is best for particular niche-based sites. But yes you will get less functionality compared to a multi-purpose theme. 

Whereas single-purpose themes are easy to use, customize, and easy to navigate for your site users. To understand more about the niche and multipurpose themes you can check the breakdown here.