Changing WordPress Themes Affects Your SEO, Says Google

Looking to revamp your website and play around with a new WordPress theme? Proceed with caution, says Google.

In a short video hosted by John Mueller, the Google Webmaster Trends Analyst confirmed that your website theme does have an impact on SEO.

Here’s why:

The theme you use has a direct impact on how content elements appear on your site. This includes content that affects SEO, such as:

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Headings

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Text

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Images

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How pages are interlinked

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Page load times

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Structured Data

Having a good theme also makes it easier for Google to understand your content.

“It’s easy to consider website themes as just a splash of color on top of a finished structure,” said Mueller. “But there’s so much more involved.”

So, what should you do if you find yourself needing a new theme?

Test it out first to see how the theme affects how content is displayed on your website before pulling the trigger.

Additional recommendations from Mueller include:

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Try out different themes on a test website

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Block indexing of a test website to ensure that Google doesn’t crawl it by mistake

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Review HTML from certain themes

#contentoptimization #WebsiteRankings #WordpressTheme