Premium WordPress themes tout that they are designed with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. And they are – to an extent.

Just because WordPress has SEO capabilities doesn’t mean you’re going to rank #1 on Google for your most prized keyword phrase.

So what does SEO accomplish with a WordPress theme? It’s a foundation that increases the odds that you’ll succeed. CSS controls, text navigation, links between pages and other functions are in line with a positive user experience and SEO.

It’s about being sure the search engines can find the pages on your premium WordPress site – whether you make it work for you as a blog or a web site designed to promote your products and services. In other words, you can’t be found in search engines if your pages aren’t indexed (i.e. captured) by search engines.

Rankings are a whole separate matter. If you get listed in a search engine, you want to rank high for your favorite keyword phrases – like the first page of Google. If you’re not at or near the top of the first page of results, you’re not going to get the visitors you’re so eager to reach.

WordPress themes help to an extent because they help with the web site structure, giving search engines a way to get a good sense of keyword patterns and phrases you’re targeting. WordPress themes also include provisions that help avoid duplicate content, which can thwart search engine rankings. With posts, pages, categories and archives, it would be easy for the same content to be seen by search engines multiple times. WordPress plugins anticipate duplication and ensure that search engine only focus on one version of a page or post.
For example, developers are concerned about canonical URLs. Search engines like Google believe that a domain preceded by www is like a different site if the same domain can be reached without the www. It creates the appearance of duplicate content, which can lead to a penalty situation of adverse rankings. Even if it’s only one web site, it can look like two versions to search engines

In that sense, it’s almost like you have two copies of the same site competing with each other in the search engines. With a canonical URL, you basically stipulate which domain scenario the search engines should favor. If you want the non-www, the www will re-direct to the non www because of the WordPress settings.

SEO involves a lot more – keyword selection, content and inbound links. But WordPress sets the stage.

Despite problems in the past, premium WordPress theme designs are a great value.

When they first came out, there were more apparent problems with premium WordPress themes because they required links back to the developer. Some included hidden keywords designed to generate traffic to sites the purchaser didn’t even know about.

Premium WordPress themes may seem like an expense that can be avoided, especially with so many free WordPress versions.

But the premium versions of WordPress typically cost under $100 – and you get a lot of advantages with features that can be customized.

Many have licenses that are in line with WordPress’ own license. Some have very restrictive licenses. That’s more the exception.

Even if you have to pay for a premium WordPress theme, it beats shelling out thousands of dollars to have someone make an entirely custom design.

Most premium WordPress themes come with an administrative interface that helps bloggers easily set up new web sites. Essentially, you’re paying for outstanding designs with enormous flexibility with fonts, layouts, menus, colors, dynamic content display and much more.

The bottom line is that you want a good user experience. That’s why typography is so important, especially when balanced with design considerations and appropriate areas of white space that help call attention to certain elements of the content.