WordPress repository receives more than 123 million theme downloads every year, which is a staggering number. However, it’s not surprising as WordPress now powers over 16 million websites around the globe and everyone loves it for one major reason, which is extendability. If you are a novice, you can build a complete website in a few hours using standard themes and plugins.
It’s extremely crucial consideration while choosing a theme for an e-learning site is how it will most effectively deliver your content to your student. Let’s explore a few of the most common mistakes people make when choosing a theme to deliver online eLearning with WordPress.
1st Mistake: Searching for free themes.
Due to the wide availability of free themes, people refrain from paying for a theme. But the question is why should they pay? It is because its their business. For instance, if you are opening a tea stall, you will not choose a location in a bad area of town with no traffic just because the rent is low. You will invest in an area with high traffic and where people are willing to spend $3 on tea because you need to sell tea to pay the rent.
Financial investments are the key to every successful business. While one of the free themes available could be perfect for your site and your customers, don’t stop your search there. A $40 theme which saves you tons of time configuring the styling of your website and allows you to make changes efficiently can be worth an investment in your business.
2nd Mistake: Searching for a theme without a “must-have” requirements list.
Just because of ease, most people begin browsing which becomes very easy to get sucked into previewing demos and reading feature lists and before they know it, they wasted hours just browsing. Simply by writing out a list of things you require, like navigation elements and color schemes, you can make the theme selection process much more efficient.
3rd Mistake: Trusting on your theme for functionality.
Using a theme to design your site and plugins for functionality is the best practice within the WordPress community. People think of evaluating WordPress after getting completely frustrated because of the LMS theme chosen. They want to change their theme due to its unavailability to continue delivering their required e-learning experience. Consequently, they are bound with the task of completely recreating their e-learning platform around a plugin.
There are numerous themes available that deliver an “all in one” solution by combining packing into themes. To avoid ending up with severe limitations and frustration, it’s not advisable to be tempted to save a few bucks by shooting two animals with one bullet.
4th Mistake: Forgetting responsiveness
More than 70% of students who have enrolled in an online eLearning platform report that they’ve accessed that content at least once from a mobile device. Also, almost 50% report that they’ve accessed an online module on a mobile device while in bed.
You must test prospective themes for mobile responsiveness if you are evaluating themes to use alongside your LMS WordPress plugin. With the availability of live previews for most of the themes with dedicated sites, you can grab your phone or tablet to take those previews for a test drive.
Conclusion
It is very crucial to ensure that your content is delivered effectively to the students. While choosing a theme for your e-learning site, ensure that financial investments play a major role in the growth of business growth. With the enormous availability of free themes, which at times may be perfect for your site, do not hesitate to search for a paid one.
Keeping a list of necessary things you require for your WordPress LMS will make the theme selection process much more efficient.