Can changing WP themes/layout cause SEO setbacks?

[burgerman]

If I had an in-depth informational site about cosmetic products but later changed the word press theme I was using so I could include an online store, could my actions hurt my search engine rankings with Google?

[Yofie]

From my understanding, some WP themes are better for SEO then others.

[burgerman]

From my understanding, some WP themes are better for SEO then others.

Hi Jamie, thanks for the advice. And thanks for DotWeekly.com

[Arizal]

Some themes have SEO advantages over others.
Make sure that on pages/post pages the article title is wrapped with an h1 tag, while h2 and h3 are for headlines within the article (that's what you have to do while writing). no h-tag for the blogtitle, but a div or span
On the homepage I would go for the blogtitle as h1, featured categories as h2 and their posts as h3
while on category and tag pages h1 for the category name and h2 for the post-listings which should show only the first part of the post, not the entire post. furthermore, category pages ought to print also the category description. this way you can also allow them to get indexed and followed.

many wp-themes use h2-tags in the sidebar, including the classic theme, but h5 or h6 are actually indicated, if any.

for the meta tags I would use all in one seo or wpSEO (not for free, but I use it, it's worth it's money).

Just my 50 cents

Regards
Arizal

PS: and because I don't know what you are up to, just in case: if you have a network of interlinked wordpress blog, don't update them all to the same theme, but make at least some minor modifications to the code, width/height/style attributes and template based images.

[AbsoluteKC]

I guess it is best if you can install the online store separately from the site.

[carlton]

Interesting comments. I had no idea the h tags, and switching themes, could have such a pronounced effect on placement.

[Arragon]

No I don't think so... the H1,. h2, h3 tags are customize-able. So I don't think changing theme may cause an SEO issue.

but of course you may need to find someone capable to do the change.

[alloo]

If you submit your online store listings to Google Base you could actually improve your search engine ratings with the store.

[richrf]

Yes, the theme can definitely affect rankings. I have experienced this in practically real-time on Links.com.

The obvious ways that it may affect is the placement of the information on the page. Google reads the blog in a certain order for indexing purposes and if the information is placed inappropriately on the page or cannot be read by Google, then this will impact performance. But this is the obvious way. Now I will let you in on some information that is not well understood but I have discovered by trial and error while experimenting with SEO for Links.com.

Google nowadays uses traffic information to rank. Specifically it is looking at metrics such as amount of traffic, source of traffic, linger time (e.g. avg. time on a page and website), and bounce rate. So this is what is important:

If the blog is slow loading and visitors leave before they read any information (i.e. they don't linger), Google decides that the website is not of interest to readers and thus downgrades the website for SERP. I have experimented with this quite a bit and it is incontrovertible for my website and I believe that it is similar for all websites. So ... make sure that the blog theme loads quickly and encourages at least one click.

Hope this helps!

Rich

[burgerman]

Thanks to all who have responded, your advice and input is greatly appreciated