Best WordPress webshop themes 2021: our top 8

December 24, 2020/in WordPress, WordPress & Online marketing/by sowmedia

Are you planning on making your own webshop or do you want to build a webshop for a client? Then you for sure need an attractive, fast and responsive WordPress webshop theme that is user-friendly as well. Luckily there are plenty of great webshop themes to choose from and it is often not necessary to build one yourself from scratch.

To create your webshop you can choose the free Storefront theme of Woocommerce itself. This is a free theme with a quite attractive design that meets most Google pagespeed scores. The theme also offers a number of options for implementing your own branding and is maintained by the main developers of Woocommerce. Which means that the integration with WordPress and other WooCommerce extensions is seamless.

If your goal is to design a website where you can customize the branding, it is best to choose a premium (paid) theme of WooCommerce. Most themes cost between $50 and $70 and offer numerous options for applying your own style and design. Moreover, the themes are often fully responsive and have a good speed score which is beneficial for SEO. Furthermore, the themes usually take a lot of account of user experience factors, making it easier for your webshop to convert. Which is the main goal of most webshops right?

Enough talk, below we present our top 8 WordPress webshop themes.

Top 8 WordPress webshop themes

1. Astra

Astra is a very light WordPress theme that can be used for creating webshops, portfolios, agency’s blogs and many other purposes. The theme is above all very suitable for building webshops because it is very user friendly and meets all Google pagespeed scores. The theme also offers many options for customizing your webshop. Furthermore, the theme offers very good support and is being updated with many new features on a monthly basis due to the large number of users. You can choose to extend the functionality of Astra by upgrading to the pro version of the theme. However, this is most of the time not necessary because a wide range of functionalities are completely free to use.

2. Astra

OceanWP is a flexible WordPress theme that is suitable for almost any webshop, in any sector and of any size. The theme has a very clean code and is quite light, making the website optimally secured and also very fast. Also, the theme is fully responsive, works very well with Woocommerce, has an extensive mega menu and is compatible with almost all popular page builders. In addition, monthly updates are performed, making the theme better and better by time.

3. Shoptimizer

Shoptimizer is a WooCommerce theme of CommerceGurus, built around the two goals of speed and conversion. Research shows that even a one second delay results in a 7% reduction in conversions. Because Shoptimizer meets all major page speed scores, you don’t have to worry about your webshop converting less well due to poor website speed. Besides the lightning-fast website speed, Shoptimizer also has a number of very handy conversion-oriented features, including a distraction-free checkout process, trust badges (in addition to attractive call-to-action buttons) and a callback option. Moreover, this theme is designed to be completely mobile-first, which is beneficial for SEO as well.

4. Jayla

If you want to go for a minimalistic and modern Woocommerce website then Jayla is definitely a suitable option. Jayla contains every functionality you need for creating a professional looking webshop to promote and sell your products/services online. The theme is fully responsive as well and super flexible through the advanced panel options and mega menu’s. Moreover, you have many options for customization through the Multi Builder blocks and an unlimited number of colors for the layout. Video backgrounds and even portfolios are also available! Building general pages can be done with the easy-to-use page builder Visual Composer and the Bootstrap framework.

5. Metro

Like Jayla, Metro is an excellent choice if you want to go for a minimalistic WooCommerce design. The theme comes together with two premium plugins called WooCommerce Variation Swatches Pro and Woocommerce Variation Images Gallery Pro. These two plugins are built to make your web shop pages even more attractive and convert better. Metro also offers a wide range of layout choices, with an unlimited number of color combinations and seven unique multi-page homepages. Like all the other themes in this blog, Metro is fully responsive and mobile friendly, making your web shop look great on all devices.

6. Divi

Divi is an immensely popular theme, suitable for all kinds of applications – from creating blogs to building webshops. Especially when combined with the bundled WooCommerce plugin, Divi is transformed into a true e-commerce monster. Thanks to Divi’s very user-friendly page builder (called Divi Builder), designing layouts is a breeze for everyone. When you download Divi you can choose from pre-programmed layouts with different homepages, portfolios, e-commerce storefronts and much more. In this way you can start building your webshop right away!

7. Storefront

Storefront is the official WooCommerce theme of WordPress, which can also be downloaded for free at WordPress.org. The theme is seen as a lightweight basic theme that forms an excellent basis for creating a webshop. The integration with WooCommerce is seamless and makes it easy to create a fully functional webshop. The theme looks pretty simple, but the lightweight and bloat-free design makes it easy to expand and customize Storefront to your own wishes.

8. Atelier

Atelier offers a high-quality look that you would expect with a premium WooCommerce theme. Because of its luxurious look, the theme is very suitable for selling art or more luxurious clothing for example. Moreover Atelier contains and supports a number of popular plugins, such as Yoast, BuddyPress, Visual Composer, Gravity Forms, Revolution Slider and Go Responsive Pricing Tables. It also has a large number of layouts to choose from, with seven demos, three product pages, 10 headers and more. Also included are shortcodes and a child theme for easy customization.

Enough WordPress webshop themes to choose from..

As you can see there is enough choice for your ideal WordPress webshop theme. We are curious about what your favorite theme is for creating a webshop, in a comment at the bottom of this blog.

Google Ranking factors: what is going to change in 2021?

December 17, 2020/in WordPress, WordPress & Online marketing/by sowmedia

Google Ranking factors: what is going to change in 2021?

About a month ago, WordPress Tavern published a rather disturbing article about a number of new Google ranking factors in 2021. The article states that as of May 2021 Google will rank websites more strongly based on user experience factors by means of ‘Core Web Vital statistics’. This includes factors such as page speed, responsiveness and the stability of content during loading.

The upcoming Google update combines these factors with previously announced UX-related signals for mobile friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security and intrusive interstitials (intermediate pages or web elements that appear before or on the mobile web page you actually want to visit, for example ads, banners or pop-ups).

Google has promised that website owners will have until May 2021 to improve their website metrics in terms of user friendliness, speed and structure. Since then, the company has seen a 70% increase of Lighthouse, PageSpeed Insights and Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report users in preparation for the update.

But what will be the effect of these new ranking factors on the current ranking system? That is of course the big question and nobody knows exactly. What we do know is that Google has promised to still give priority to pages with the best information in general. Hence, the website metrics related to user experiences, which will be used from May 2021, help a website to score better when there is a lot of competition on similar content.

Most likely this means that already existing Google ranking factors such as backlinks and content will remain important. So we think there is no reason to worry that the entire ranking system will be blown over by the Google update. Below we have made a list with which Google ranking factors will all remain relevant in 2021, taking the new update into account.

Type Google ranking factors

Before we present our top 6 Google ranking factors, with which you can optimize your website, we will first discuss the three different types of Google ranking factors. Marketers usually talk in terms of ‘on- and off-page’ Google ranking factors, but there are actually three distinct types:

Off-page ranking factors: external ranking factors that are not measured on your website by Google and mainly relate to backlinks.

On-page ranking factors: ranking factors that are measured on your website itself and are related to the keywords and informative quality of your pages.

Technical ranking factors: factors that are also measured on your website itself, but have more to do with the overall performance of the website as a whole, as opposed to individual pages as is the case with on-page ranking factors.

It is important to note that there is not a single Google ranking factor that will make or break your SEO. It is the sum of all your technical, on-page and off-page efforts that will determine your website ranking.

The 6 major Google ranking factors in 2021

Now that we have categorized the Google ranking factors, we are pleased to present the 6 important ranking factors in 2021, starting with the technical ones.

1. Core web vitals

As discussed in the introduction, Core Web Vitals are the latest user experience metrics that will soon become very important Google ranking factors. The statistics measure the first impression the user gets when visiting a website. For now this impression will be made measurable with three metrics, but there will most likely be more in the future. These three measurement factors are the loading time, interactivity and stability of a website.

Source image

Google has released a detailed set of guidelines to optimize every vital website part. In summary: for faster loading, Google recommends better service response times, less JavaScript and CSS blocking and faster loading of resources. For improved interactivity, Google recommends splitting codes and using less JavaScript.

Finally, for improved visual stability, Google recommends using size related guidelines for images and videos. This content should also be loaded from above so that images and videos are visible immediately. For more in depth knowledge about the Core Web Vitals we recommend reading the following article.

Want to know how to measure core web vitals on your own website? Then read the following article.

2. Mobile optimization

Since September 2020 Google uses mobile-first indexing when crawling websites. This means that Google’s search engine mainly uses the mobile version of a website for evaluating a page.

Even if the desktop version of your website is fully optimized, your ranking in Google’s search engine can take a huge hit if the site is not optimized for mobile traffic. So always preview your web pages on the mobile to see if they are easily accessible on this device.

You can use this test of Google to check whether your website is mobile friendly. If your website is sufficient, you’ll get a green light and if not, you’ll get (some) suggestions for improvement.

Checking your website page by page may be a bit impractical. You can also choose to use the Google Search Console tool to check all your pages at once. Instructions: Start the tool, go to Enhancements > Mobile Usability and view a report compiled with a list of suggested improvements.

In this article on Mobile SEO you can read more about how to optimize your website for mobile traffic.

3. Internal links

As mentioned in the article about Mobile SEO, search engines crawl different types of content and index them accordingly. The search engine uses internal links as a method to analyze information and index it correctly. In this context, the term ‘internal links’ refers to any hyperlink that refers to an internal page on a website.

In practice, this means that the more organized and thoughtful your internal link structure is, the easier it is for search engines (and users) to find what they are looking for.

To realize this, when creating a new page, you need to think about which pages you are going to link to. As we also have done in this article.

A popular method to structure internal links is by creating subject clusters. The idea is simple: you create content around a specific overarching topic and maintain interconnectedness within this cluster.

Furthermore, topic clusters are also beneficial from a user experience perspective. It makes content easy to navigate and readers will find that they do not have to go to multiple sites to find what they are looking for. This also increases the ‘average time on website’, which is also an important parameter for a better ranking.

4. Backlinks

On the contrary to an internal link, a backlink is a hyperlink that comes from a page outside your website. In 1996 Google launched its groundbreaking PageRank algorithm update that made the number and quality of links to a website or page a strong indicator of a website’s ranking. Ironically enough, this is still the case more than two decades later.

It seems that Google is planning to abandon backlinks in the future, but for now this still seems to be a pie in the sky. Backlinks are and will remain the most important ranking factor for a website for the time being. So your goal should be to get as many backlinks as possible from domains with a high authority.

There are several backlink strategies to grow your backlink profile. The three most important are writing quality content that peers in your sector can share, guest blogs and the most difficult one: cold-outreach. To get more ideas of what kind of backlinks are suitable for your niche, competitive research is very useful. Tools that can help you on your way are for example SE Ranking and Ubersuggest.

5. Relevant keywords

There is no doubt about whether relevant keywords are the basis for an effective SEO strategy. Keywords are the search terms that people use when they visit a search engine to find what they are looking for. Before you start creating content for your website, it is crucial that you do a keyword search.

It can be a challenge to find out which keywords to use, where to place them and how often to do this. In order to have as much chance as possible to rank well, it is a good strategy to benchmark the top pages of your competitors. You can do this with the tools SE Ranking and Ubersuggest, which in our opinion are two of the best SEO tools.

Once you’ve determined your keyword strategy, it’s time to create content. One tool that can be very useful for meeting SEO variables on the pages you are going to create is Yoast. Yoast gives you, among other things, an indication of how often you should use the keyword and where to place it. It also gives advice about the link structure on the pages you are going to design.

6. Quality content

In the good old SEO days it worked to stuff your pages with many different keywords at the same time. Nowadays focus is very important in SEO and a page has to meet an appropriate number of relevant keywords, titles and images in order to rank well. Hence, the page should be written in a ‘natural copywriting style’ with qualitative information as the main focus. After all, the goal of the visitor and Google is to get an answer to the question they have been looking for.

Most content loses its value over time. Articles you have written in 2018 become obsolete at some point and Google search trends change over time. So try to take a closer look at older pages and complement them with new keywords and information.

Some pages may need a complete rewrite, while others only need a few minor adjustments to bring them back to life. If you are updating a message, republish it with the new publication date. This will give your visitors the impression that the message is brand new. Don’t forget to delete the old message otherwise Google will see it as duplicate content.

Google’s algorithm keeps evolving

The new update of Google that will be implemented in May 2021 shows us to keep an eye on the ever evolving SEO landscape. It is highly likely that in the future current Google ranking factors, such as backlinks and keywords, will gradually lose their value. Other factors, such as user experience and qualitative content, will take their place.

At the same time, there is no such thing as an SEO miracle cure. Climbing into the search engine takes time. It turns out that Google’s algorithms are erratic and that updates can completely overhaul the current ranking system. The most important notion to keep in mind is therefore to keep your website as relevant and informative as possible for your visitors.

Google wants to show the most relevant search results for each search, so that everyone can find the information they are looking for as quickly as possible. So if you do your absolute best to show your visitors the most relevant information possible, Google will notice it and will reward you with a positive ranking.

Icon fonts: the 10 best icon websites and tools

December 10, 2020/in WordPress/by sowmedia

During the design of your website you have undoubtedly needed them: icons, also called icon fonts. They come in all shapes and sizes, and are often available for free. In order to meet the demand of minimalist website design, the large supply has become more or less a necessity.

In this blog we present an overview of the icon fonts where a distinction is made between free and paid options. On certain websites you will be asked to refer to the icon font source when putting it on your website. And this is mainly the case with free variants.

Most of the time this is not considered convenient by web developers as it gives an amateuristic appearance on a webpage. Therefore we mentioned in this whether it is the case you have to give a reference when using the icon font.

The follow-up of this blog will be about how you can best implement the icon fonts in your website and how to determine which icons are suitable.

Our top 10 icon fonts websites and tools

Option 1: Font-awesome (free and paid option)

Font-Awesome is one of the most widely used icon sets and toolkits for developers. The biggest advantages of Font-Awesome are that you can choose out of more than 7.000 icons! The icons are very customizable as they are very css friendly. In addition, their library made it super easy to add the icon to your website and the tool is easy to use as well.

Moreover, It is also possible to add your own created icons to Font-Awesome.

Option 2: IconMoon (free and paid option)

IcoMoon has over 5000 open source icons available in their library. All IcoMoon icons are designed on a precise pixel grid, making the icons look attractive on any website.

With the extra feature ‘IcoMoon app’ you can create your own icon packages and use them in many different formats, including SVG, polymer, PDF, XAML, CSH, icon font with ligatures or good old PNG / CSS-sprites. IcoMoon offers both free and paid variants.

Option 3: Dashicons (free)

Dashicons is the official icon font of the WordPress administrator from 3.8 onwards. Since 2018, no new icons have been created but there is a whole list (more than 300 icons) to choose from. The icons are very compatible with Gutenberg, which is the standard pagebuilder of WordPress.

Option 4: Bytesize (free)

Each Bytesize icon is hand coded along a 32×32 grid and uses a SVG line for maximum style flexibility; meaning you can adjust the weight, color, size and shape of the icons.

If your goal is to build an uber lightweight website, then Bytesize is definitely a good option. All their 84 icons weigh only 9kb in minified form and 2kB in SVGZ or Gzipped.

Option 5: Flaticon (free)

A good option for unique and fun icons is Flaticon. With the free version you can download up to 10 icons per day. The icons weigh around 16 kb each. However, the disadvantage is that if you use the free version, you will have to reference the source of the icon on your webpage.

Option 6: Fontello (free)

Fontello is a free icon font generator, where you can discover and build new icons. There are standard icons available but it is also possible to convert vector images into an icon font. You can also upload your own images and have them converted.

Option 7: Free Icon Shop (free)

Just like Free Icon Shop, this is a good (free) option for unique and good looking icons. The advantage of this website is that there is no need to mention the source. The disadvantage is that the website does use advertising which hinders you from downloading the icons.

Option 8: Iconfinder (free)

On Iconfinder you can choose from more than five million icons! Approximately 319 thousand of them are free. Via the search function you can set whether you are looking for free or paid icons. You can also indicate if you are willing to put a backlink on your website for the icon packs where this is obligated. So you can filter in such a way that the website only shows the icons that you can use completely for free.

Option 9: Envato (often paid)

In addition to many other images, Envato also offers icons. Most icon packages are paid for but you have so much choice on this platform that it is not difficult for you to find a unique set of icons.

Option 10: Emojipedia (free)

Of course you can also just use classic icons: emojis. These are very easy to integrate into your website and are all freely accessible. They also weigh almost nothing.

So plenty of options to choose from..

As you now know, there are a lot of options that can help you in finding your ideal set of icons. Let us know what your favorite website/tool for icons is, in a comment at the bottom of this blog.