WordPress powers more than 30% of worldwide websites built with a content management system hence makes it the most used CMS ever. Even though there are many other CMS available, but you get more flexibility and thousands of tutorials at your fingertips. But, to make your sites load quickly in a matter of a few seconds, you should consider installing the fastest WordPress theme developed with clean code and highly optimized for SEO.
We already shared dozens of fast themes which can be found here, however, below are some of the top choices regarding premium WordPress themes to enhance user experience as well as bounce rate. Online businesses especially, eCommerce stores double check the loading speed of their websites as a single second in delay results in thousands of dollars loss depending on the size of your business.
You might be surprised to know that Amazon could lose $1.8 billion per year because of a single second delay in page loading. People nowadays, don’t wait more than two seconds and leave the site which takes too much time to fetch the content. Now, one thing is clear, besides clean coded and well-optimized template, it’s also mandatory to choose the fastest web host backed by cutting-edge hardware, latest technologies, and modern infrastructure to render the data blazingly fast. Though it would cost you a little bit more but worths every penny.
Key features to look for before buying any theme:
- SEO friendly and Schema ready
- Clean coded alongside minimum inline CSS
- Responsive design
- Performance grade in GTMetrix and Pingdom
- Fewer HTTP requests
- Regular updates and security patches
Now, without further ado, let’s start.
7 Fastest Loading WordPress Themes
1. GeneratePress
We recently reviewed GeneratePress WordPress theme and found that it’s one of the fastest, lightweight, and minimalistic template packed with excellent features. You can customize the entire layout right from the “customize” section according to your website and blog nature.
The best part is it’s available in both premium and free version so webmasters can try first and buy the paid version. Keep in mind; you’ll get full functionality as a premium user to modify colors, fonts, hooks, and import/export features.
Furthermore, it’s schema markup ready thus helps in higher ranking. There is a wide range of premade responsive templates library which can be imported easily as well. Bloggers obsessed with lightning fast loading can choose GeneraPress without any doubt.
2. Avada
Avada is the #1 most selling theme with 425k+ customers all around the world on ThemeForest marketplace. It has 41 pre-made fully responsive and feature-rich templates to target all kind of webmasters, bloggers, and businesses.
Avada also includes hundreds of pre-made web design layouts suitable for sale pitches, email collections, webinar announcements, and deals pages. You can check each layout’s demo before implementation. Import any template’s content is dead simple.
A highly organized panel of 50+ sub-panels allows easy customization and control over your website to change any part of it. In a nutshell, Avada is bundled with hundreds of functions that can be enabled without playing with a single line of coding making it the most beginner friendly WordPress theme.
3. Genesis Framework
Genesis Framework is a famous yet powerful SEO ready WordPress theme built with highly optimized architecture. It’s compatible with Schema markups data which plays a vital role to output star ratings and microdata in SERPs. When implemented strategically, it not also helps to improve ranking but also a higher CTA rate.
The entire framework and all Genesis child themes developed with light-weight code to deliver the fastest possible performance across all devices. There are dozens of child themes available to choose from but Generate Pro is an awesome layout consists of minimalist design.
However, Foodie is also best seller product by the company for the last couple of years. Even though it requires a minor optimization but worth using. It allows customization of header areas, homepage, and sidebars according to your needs. If you’re planning to start a personal blog, then pick Generate Pro.
4. Astra
Compared to GeneratePress theme, Astra is also lightweight and clean coded best fastest WordPress theme developed by Brainstorm Force. The company has a team of passionate and avid web designers, developers, and artists to innovate unique templates.
The state-of-the-art framework behind Astra makes it the world’s lightest (under 50KB) yet multi-purpose theme you can use on a variety of niches. Instead of relying on JQeury which causes sometimes blocking, they utilized the Vanilla JavaScript for the same purpose.
You might be shocked to know that the default Astra theme loads just in 400ms in GTMetrix, has 100% speed grade in Pingdom, and 95% speed grade in Google DEV tool, are not these fascinating numbers? Furthermore, there are 90k users worldwide who use Astra for a reason, and that is “SPEED”.
Talking about the features, you get everything including RTL, page builders, SEO friendly markup, hook and filters, responsive design, seamless integration with third-party page builders, and eCommerce integration as well. Right from an intuitive control panel, you can customize everything in a matter of few mouse clicks.
5. Schema
When it comes to speedy themes for WordPress, ignoring Schema by MyThemeShop would be a foolish thing one could make. In fact, it’s a widely used theme in Amazon niche based websites. There are many reasons to choose Schema including HTML5 and CSS friendliness, intuitive back-end control panel, ads management, and a built-in review system.
Its review system allows you add star rating without installing any third party plugin. Coming with fully responsive design for all devices to fetch your site perfectly regardless the device your audience use. With 99/100 performance grade in GTMetrix and 659ms loading time, Schema delivers an unforgettable user experience alongside UI.
Just like any premium WordPress theme, you can import and export settings, add custom CSS, translate and shortcode ready, and can be integrated with social media easily. You can design your homepage and modify sidebars with a drag and drop option. The company also help you regarding technical stuff via a community forum.
6. Divi
Elegant Themes has a killer collection of beautiful WordPress templates suitable for all niches including blogging, personal blog, eCommerce store, marketing agencies, and adsense sites. There is a variety of themes packed with advanced features to help you design your website. Divi is a multi-purpose theme coming with parallax backgrounds, drag-and-drop page builder, ready-made layouts, and fully customizable feature.
Plus, they also have many WordPress plugins to enhance your blog’s performance as well as functionality. For instance; their Bloom plugin comes with great features to build an email list or increase CTR for a specific post or promote special discounts.
You can rather choose from default layouts or pick from 20+ pre-made designs to get started right away without spending any extra time on the designing process. All of these layouts brings page builder by default so you can create custom pages. Apart from features, Elegant Themes also has an intensive database of tutorials and guides.
7. Spike
Spike is another simplistic fastest theme for WordPress built with HTML5 and CSS coding. Just like Schema theme mentioned above, it’s also Schema.org markup ready and has built-in rating feature to insert starts in your review posts.
The advanced features allow customization of fonts, colors, insert advertisements, and add custom CSS code. There are 9 pre-made layouts (Gaming, Relationship, Default Template, Career, Lifestyle, Health, Sports, Wedding, and Blogging) which can be imported in a matter of few mouse clicks.
You can change the pagination style as there are 4 designs available. Plus, you also get dozens of background images options alongside plan colors. For ultimate SEO friendliness, theme control panel has a webmaster section where you can insert webmaster tools code for site verification including Google and Bing.
Final Thoughts
Deciding which theme should you choose for ultimate performance and loading speed solely depends on your website content. If you’re running a blog, then we recommend picking GeneratePress and Spike as both are clean and minimalistic themes but packed with all the bells and whistles. On the other hand, Divi is an excellent all-purpose fastest WordPress theme which comes with different layouts to provide customization for multiple niches.