Can Website Ranking Be Affected By Changing The WordPress Theme?

Impact of Changing WordPress Themes on Your Rankings WordPress is one of the widely used platforms to build websites for almost any purpose. Over the years it has grown into a robust platform that allows easy setups and comes with a range of options that helps you achieve almost any functionality for your website. Be it an eCommerce platform or content with 1000s of articles, it’s capable of managing all.

We already know how WordPress plugins help in improving SEO and ensuring your content is well-optimized. Some plugins help you scan your articles and give detailed inputs through which you can improve your chances to rank better on Search engines. Yoast SEO is one such plugin that is handy in optimizing your content and helps in improving the quality of content.

You need to set up your WordPress website using themes. With the increased popularity of the platform, we already have millions of both Free and Paid themes to choose from. Moreover, each theme now comes with unique custom backends and quick-setup templates that allow you to launch a website in minutes. However, did you know that WordPress themes also play a role in changing the ranking of your website? Yes, they do and you must choose a good theme carefully before making any changes to your website.

Impact of Changing WordPress Themes on Your Rankings

In a recent video as a part of #AskGooglebot short videos, John Mueller has answered this question. He elaborates on how changing WordPress themes directly impacts your Google Search rankings. He stresses that the impact is dependent on things you change on the website while changing the theme. However, in general, changing a theme impacts your rankings in Google Search.

He explains that changing a theme not only changes the look and feel of your website. Several elements of your website and its functionality are affected too. Some of the most common ones discussed were:

  • Display of your content that includes texts, images, and headings
  • Navigation of the website and internal linking
  • Page speed and load time
  • Content Options
  • Usage of Structured Data

John Mueller concludes by saying that a good theme contributes to making it easier for Google or other search engines in understanding your website. Hence, changing the theme will eventually impact your rankings. In his video, he also shares some important tips that help in evaluating things that get changed after switching to a new theme and if they impact your rankings at a high level. You can watch his video at the link below:

https://youtu.be/Ayaovhfy5Uw.

In case you are planning to change the look and feel of your website, but are concerned about how it may affect your SEO, it’s recommended to consult an experienced professional. If you are searching for one in Clearwater, FL, then contact Alphabet Marketing. An experienced team of professionals can guide you and manage all aspects of managing your website as per the best practices.