A definitive Guide to select a seo friendly free wordpress theme and evaluate each free wordpress theme before selecting for your world class blog without spending even a single penny

1. binaryno t e .co m http://binaryno te.co m/seo -friendly-free-wo rdpress-theme.html
How to select SEO friendly Free wordpress theme Special
Guide for Newbie
By rakesh 2 Commentsf ind us on twitterf ind us on f acebook
Does seo f riendly Free wordpress theme really exists? When I saw an article on traf f ic generation caf é
about T hesis vs genesis then it seems to me that the whole lif e of wordpress blogs lies in either in thesis
or in genesis? No, My answer is Big No……….Free wordpress theme
T hough a very popular blog post had been published on wpmu.org describing the basic drawbacks of Free
themes and most of the times we do agree with that………..But still I strongly believe that there are a lots
of Good wordpress T heme developers are out there who is constantly developing SEO optimized Adsense
ready Free wordpress theme.
So I decided to search how people can get f ree wordpress theme ?
Tools required f or Checking SEO Optimized Free WordPress theme
1. Web Developer f or Firef ox :
T his Firef ox plugin is “Darling of all the web developer” f ull with tons of f eatures that is required by all the
web developers f or CSS, images, div element , responsive element , CSS validation , HT ML Validation, DIV
element, Java etc etc.
We will use this plugin to audit alt image tags, widget width etc etc rendered by theme.
2. SEO Quake ( My Favorit e Firef ox Ext ension)
As I have already mentioned this plugin in my numerous articles. How to use this plugin to f ind out high
page rank blogs or how to f ind out high ranking post etc etc. Besides that it could help you to audit your
any website f ree of cost.
In our case, You can use this plugin to check SEO aspect of your f ree wordpress theme like where h1 , h2
h3, h4 etc.
3. Theme Check wordpress plugin
T his wordpress plugin was in the limelight when a lots of theme developer start embedding encrypted links
in the f ree themes. Free themes are f amous f or hidden/ encrypted links.
Newwpthemes.com is such a website producing high quality themes with encrypted themes in their f ooter.
T he original purpose of this wordpress plugin was to enf orce standardization of f ree wordpress themes,
to be deposited on f ree wordpress theme repository.
4. TAC (Theme Aut hent icit y Checker)

2. TAC stands f or T heme Authenticity Checker. Currently, TAC searches the source f iles of every installed
theme f or signs of malicious code. If such code is f ound, TAC displays the path to the theme f ile, the line
number, and a small snippet of the suspect code. As of v1.3
TAC also searches f or and displays static links.
How to choose a f ree wordpress theme
T hough a lots of f ree wordpress themes are out there to woo you, wordpress theme repository is one
such location. WordPress repository of f ers you a lot of theme in dif f erent niche and style, but most of
them are not more than the skeleton or having the basic f ramework.
T his is the main reason people use Google or browse f rom blog to blog in search of a perf ect f ree theme
f or their wordpress blog.
Does such perf ect f ree wordpress theme really exist?
Your answer is No and Yes Both,
Yes, if you have the proper knowledge what do you really want in a f ree theme, then such themes exists.
So, I have divided the whole process in two major parts
Secondary issues while selecting a f ree wordpress theme
Why it is secondary when users/readers see it f irst? Because most of the f ree wordpress themes pack with
eye catching design and color combination with lots of f eatures, still worth noticing are
1. Size of theme – How many pixel size width it covers. 960px is def ault standard in this industry. Even
premium wordpress themes also render in 960px.
2. Fixed vs Responsive – if your major concern is – desktop computers, then do not go f or
responsive theme like if you are theme developer then obviously it is no use to use a responsive
theme to showcase your work on tablet and Smartphone.
3. Size of widget area – 300px must be the size of widget as most bloggers love to show 300x250px
Adsense code, according to the Google Adsense policies and recommendation
4. Menu bar – Simple menu bar with drop down menus are the loved one and widely accepted.
Remember here these drop down menu f eature must be coded …not rendered through any third
party plugin.
5. Logo – What is the size of logo in pixel i.e. wide and its height and how your f ree wordpress theme

3. will help you to add your own logo.
6. Favicon – Your brand on the web-browser is displayed through this tiny graphic…Remember there
should be a very standard f eature to upload your own f avicon.
7. Adsense Ready – T hough does not matter a lot still people love to add ads through code instead
of weird plugin.
8. Widgets – Popular post, top commentator, Face book like social presence widget. T hese are
common and should be there, though there is a debate whether these should be hard coded with
theme or rendered through plugin.
Besides theme two issues that bother lots of newbie wordpress bloggers are
1. Encrypted links or hidden links – T hese types of links can be checked easily using TAC wordpress
plugin.
TAC plugin only check the theme f or hidden, static or encrypted links but does not able to tell you whether
your theme had been developed using the standard def ined by the wordpress documentations.
newwpthemes.com provide <a title="Free wordpress theme" href ="http://newwpthemes.com"
target="_blank">f ree wordpress theme</a> which contains encrypted links and top of that if you are able to
anyhow delete that, they will update their theme remotely and reinstall the same.
2. Does this theme is developed using the standards def ined by the wordpress documentation. T he answer
is very simple- Now check this theme using theme check wordpress plugin to see the standard f ollowed by
the programmer.

4. Primary issues while selecting a f ree wordpress theme
T he issues we have just discussed in the secondary issues are trivial, with f ew plugin or little bit tweaking
any average wordpress user can make appropriate changes in any f ree theme to suite his/her specif ic need.
T he primary concern of your f ree wordpress theme should be
1. Loading Time
Loading time of any website depend upon a lots of f actors, ie Premium webhost , CDN, Database server,
Caching System and not to f orget , how ef f iciently your wordpress theme had been coded.
T here are methods available to check the ef f iciency of your wordpress theme.
To check the ef f iciency of your wordpress theme, my suggestion is………… disable all the plugin and f lush
all the cache f rom the browsers memory.
Now using Google page speed / yslow to f ind out the score of your website.

5. 1. Higher the page score better coded the theme.
2. Check whether the jquery is invoked in the header/f ooter. If queries load at header automatically take
longer time.
3. Image sprite – whether theme is using image sprite or not
4. Whether it is resizing images at run time or not
T he above issues are directly related to the wordpress theme, other issues that af f ect the page load time
depend upon the web-host and that we are not discussing in this article. A broad idea you can get f rom
host gator review.
Tools.pingdom.com and gtmetix.com are two widely used online tools available to check the page loading
speed of any website.
2. SEO (Search Engine Opt imizat ion aspect s)

6. Premium themes and theme f ramework normally boast of search engine optimization, so what the hell they
do in their theme f ramework that does not come in f ree wordpress themes?
We have already seen the point required f or on-page search engine optimization, though a lot of issues
had been already solved by SEO plugin available f or wordpress, still some points must be considered while
selecting theme

7. 1. Heading Tags: Every page of your website should contain only one h1 tag and af ter that h2 tags and h3
tags. Premium and customized theme do take very good care of these tags, thus give you maximum
benef its f or all the articles published on Home page
2. Alt Tags: Most bloggers love to show f eatured images though f eatured images f eature of WordPress,
T hat is f ine but it does not bring the alt tag def ined with the associated image, thus dilute the search
engine optimization ef f orts, without even your knowledge.
WordPress f eatured image does not add alt tag to all the f eatured images rendered by its def ault f eatured
image f unction. To overcome that you can use the f ollowing code
<?php if ( f unction_exists(“has_post_thumbnail”) && has_post_thumbnail() )
{
$title_attribute = the_title_attribute( array( ‘echo’ => FALSE ) );
$def ault_attr = array(
’class’ => “alignright”,
’alt’ => $title_attribute,
’title’ => $title_attribute,
’height’=>100,
’width’=>100 );
the_post_thumbnail(‘thumbnail’,$def ault_attr);
}
else { ?>
<img class=”alignright” src =”<?php echo get_template_directory_uri(); ?>/images/def ault.jpg” width=”100″
height=”100″ alt=”pending image” /> <?php } ?>
T he above code you can use either in your index.php f ile or in f unction.php f ile depending upon f rom where
your theme is serving f eatured image.
3. Widget Heading: How widget title had been rendered ie using which heading tag. T his is another very
crucial issue that you cannot ignore. T hough it seems ok if you f ind widget heading been rendered using H3

8. Tag on the home page , but did you notice how much it can adversely affect your single page
article? So the suggestion is h4 Tag.
Your t urn on SEO Opt imized Free wordpress t heme
T hese are some point, you must consider while selecting a f ree wordpress theme. If I f orgot any point or
f eatures, you think crucial f or your online presence; do not hesitate to share with us. You can also spread
the word and educate other newbie sharing this post on social media.
Updated on : Wednesday 17th of April 2013