Buying your first premium Magento template? That’s great – it means your web store is off to a good start or else meeting expectations. But don’t get carried away. Your first premium template for Magento shouldn’t be an impulsive buy.

Professional Magento templates can get quite expensive even on a regular license. Most template stores give you a money back guarantee, but it’s better to minimize risks from the start.

There’s an almost overwhelming number of premium templates out there in the Magento marketplace and on third-party stores. But choosing the right one for you shouldn’t become a struggle. Buying a Magento theme should be enjoyable.

To make your choice easier, we’d like to draw attention to the key features a Magento theme should have. Here are sometimes on buying the best theme for your money.

1.    Go for In-Depth Customization Options
A good theme lets you change more than the layout or widget arrangement. It lets you adjust design elements like the homepage slider or social media buttons. You also want to be able to change the font, which comes in handy when you want to maximize readability.

The best themes go beyond the usual customization options, allowing for unlimited custom color variations, custom background patterns, and customizable product pages and grid views. Being able to choose how your products are displayed makes a big difference.

2.    Make Sure There’s a Moneyback Guarantee
The theme’s description covers everything you need. The demo is beautiful. And there are many five-star reviews, too. That’s great, but the truth is that you won’t know whether the theme is right for you until after you see it in action.

You may find that the customization is restrictive in some areas. For example, product display options may abound, but not layout options. Or that stripped of stock photos, the theme isn’t half as exciting as you thought. Or that there’s just one possible placement for social media buttons.

A money back guarantee mitigates all the big risks that come with buying a new theme.

3.    Ensure the Web Design Quality Is High
Evaluating the quality of your theme shouldn’t be too hard. First, leave aside the catchy graphics — which are usually stock photos not even included in the theme. Instead, pay attention to usability, and especially loading speed and navigation. Is the visitor’s journey from the home page to the other pages smooth?

Also, pay attention to readability and aesthetics. The style of the theme should be consistent. Check that by breaking down your theme into parts and analyzing them. Finally, the social media implementation should be smooth.

Buying your first premium Magento template? That’s great – it means your web store is off to a good start or else meeting expectations.

4.    Make Sure the Template Adheres to Web Design Standards
Clean code, responsive design and customization, and cross-browser compatibility — these are the big web design standards. But Magento also comes with its own set of theme development best practices.

You’ll need to have a look at the theme files themselves to make sure the theme developer adhered to these. When these are in place, the theme is less likely to suffer from conflicts with other extensions, which can be a pain.

5.    Consider the Benefits of Extended Support
Extended support is an extra feature some theme stores offer. While it increases the cost of your theme, it can bring you peace of mind. Especially if you’re setting up or redesigning your site on your own, without a technical team to help you.

Even if you’re a web developer or web designer, certain themes may have quirks you only become aware of once you start customizing them. Asking the developers to solve them for you could turn out to be a lot faster than fixing them yourself.

6.    Buy a Theme That’s Optimized for Search Engines Out of the Box
Most themes will boasts that they are “SEO friendly,” but you shouldn’t take their word for it. You can run a few tests on your theme of choice, to make sure Google likes it.

You can start by using a theme code validator to check that the theme has valid HTML and CSS code. Next, you want to make sure your theme loads quickly. Last but not least, use Google Webmasters Tools to ensure it has a responsive design.

To run all these tests, you may have to buy your theme first, so once again, make sure you get a money back guarantee.

7.    Check Whether Competitors Are Using It Already
This may be the last thing on your mind when buying a premium Magento theme, but it can make or break everything. If your top competitor already uses the same theme, you may come across as a copy-cat despite your efforts at customization.

8.    Make Sure It’s Mobile Friendly
Don’t just settle for responsive design. A theme that’s “fully responsive” may work amazingly well on the iPhone, but underperform on Android due to a different web browser. Check the theme on mobile yourself, on all the major mobile platforms — ask friends for help, if you need to. Also check on tablets, as sometimes display quirks creep in at larger widths.

9.    See If That It Has a Blog Template
Having a blog integrated into your Magento web store is good for SEO. Even better, it can increase engagement with customers. A blog’s a great way to create a dialog with your customers while sharing with them more information about your company and the people behind it.

If your theme already has a blog template page, it can save you money on web design.

10.    Check the Negative Reviews and Comments
A great Magento template may have a dozen five-star reviews and just two or three one-star or two-star reviews. Sometimes, those handful of negative reviews are far more valuable than the positive ones.

While the good reviews validate the theme description, the bad ones can highlight small but important issues of compatibility, performance, and design.

In the end, no Magento template is perfect. But paying attention to all the points we’ve covered, you can choose a theme that looks great, runs fast, and fits your web store like a glove.