WordPress Monthly Management Service
Just recently, Ethical Champ launched a WordPress Monthly Management Service. This is geared toward business owners looking to offload the hassle of WordPress upkeep, speed optimization, backups, and security. You have better things to do. If you’re tired of wasting time being a part-time web developer, you might be interested in WordPress Care. Check it out here.
WordPress SEO Tips
Recently, I helped a friend redesign her website; she was using WordPress. It had been a few years of the same look, and she had that “spring cleaning energy” to do something new with her small business. I recommended her to check ThemeForest, as it has thousands of professional themes to choose from. I told her to sort by her niche and add “Elementor” to the search, since she had a pro subscription.
ThemeForest can be overwhelming; there are so many options that it’ll take a few times to find the theme you like. I prepared her for this, saying take your time, as you don’t want to buy a theme, spend time setting it up, and then hating it.
After about a week and a half, she found this brand-new theme from a designer with strong reviews. I agreed it was nice and helped set it up for her. We used a staging site and imported the demo site. The redesign actually went quickly, and her new site was live within about two weeks of part-time work.
She enjoyed playing around with Elementor’s design widgets, and I was only really called upon when she got stuck. Once the site was finished, I told her I would optimize her title tags and have a friend look at her SEO.
To my surprise, the theme had a major design flaw.
The company that built the WordPress theme, I’m not going to name names, had built the theme without an H1 title tag on any of the pages and posts. I honestly should have looked at this before buying it, but I just assumed this was an obvious aspect of publishing a theme and expected some sort of quality check at ThemeForest.
I made the correct fixes and then contacted the web designer. What really shocked me was that this theme was five months old and there were hundreds of sales. At no point did anyone discover this? Or maybe they did, but they didn’t mention it to the web designer.
This kind of thing kills me.
I really hate seeing people pour their heart and soul into a website redesign, only to have to totally tank their SEO.
What to Look for When Choosing a WordPress Theme in 2026
Picking a new WordPress theme feels exciting, and it should. But underneath all those beautiful demo sites are technical decisions that can quietly work against you if you’re not paying attention. Before you hand over your money, here’s what to check.
1. Preview The Mobile Experience First
Most people browse theme demos on desktops, but most of your visitors are probably on their phones. Before anything else, open the demo site on your mobile device and actually use it. Tap through a few pages, read some text, and check how images load. If the mobile experience feels clunky, slow, or visually broken, no amount of desktop polish will make up for it, especially since Google now ranks your site based on its mobile version first.
2. Avoid Sites That Show a Loading Bar
First impressions matter, and people have low attention spans; any site that needs time to load should be avoided at all costs. If my first impression when looking for a WordPress theme is a loading bar… I just go to the next one.
A theme stuffed with animations, parallax effects, and auto-playing video might look impressive in a demo, but all of that comes at a cost. Slow load times frustrate visitors and hurt your SEO. Copy the demo URL and run it through Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. Anything scoring below 70 on mobile should give you pause. You want a theme that’s as lean as it is good-looking.
3. Check that H1 tags are actually being used
Never thought this would make the list, but I guess themes are getting built without H1 tags these days.
This is the one that caught me off guard with my friend’s site. Every page and post needs exactly one H1 tag, it’s the main headline that tells search engines what the page is about. On the theme demo, right-click any page, hit Inspect, and search for <h1> in the code. If it’s missing, or if there are three of them on the same page, that’s a red flag. It means the developer didn’t build with SEO fundamentals in mind, and you’ll be doing cleanup before you even get started.
4. Read Theme Reviews, Specifically The Recent Ones
A theme with 500 sales and a 4.8 rating sounds great until you sort the reviews by newest and find a string of complaints about a buggy update. Recent reviews tell you how the developer handles problems, how quickly they respond to support requests, and whether the theme is being actively maintained. A designer who disappears after launch is a liability you don’t want.
A well-built theme should work cleanly with SEO plugins like Yoast or Rank Math without conflict. Some themes bundle their own SEO settings, which can clash with your existing plugin and create duplicate or missing metadata. Check the theme documentation and reviews to see if anyone mentions SEO plugin compatibility issues. It’s a small thing that can save you a big headache.
5. Check When It Was Last Updated
WordPress updates frequently, and themes that haven’t kept pace can break in unexpected ways or introduce security vulnerabilities. On ThemeForest, you can see the last update date on the theme’s listing page. If it hasn’t been touched in over a year, think carefully before committing.
6. Avoid Themes Overly Dependent on Plugins and Page Builders
Some themes are built so tightly around a specific page builder that switching away from it later becomes nearly impossible. That’s fine if you’re fully committed to that builder, but it’s worth knowing what you’re signing up for. Make sure any page builder dependency is clearly documented and that you’re comfortable with it in the long term.
A theme is the foundation your site is built on. Taking an extra thirty minutes to vet it properly before buying can save you hours of troubleshooting after the fact, and protect the SEO you’ve already worked hard to build.
