In early May I helped launch the new website for Vigilant Inc. of Dover, NH. The site is built on a custom PHP framework with a ZenCart powered shop. The new look is based on a modified version of ThemeNectar’s Salient WordPress Theme, a responsive multi-purpose business theme.
This theme (I did not choose) has a 4.8 review rating from almost 4000 reviews. But I’d give it a far worse review (1.0 rating) because it has 1) a ton of unused css, 2) lots of duplicate and obsolete css, lots us unused javascript, and gets bad marks by Google PageSpeed Insights.
One of my jobs was to streamline the template code as much as possible to a get decent PageSpeed score. In the template I found two stylesheets had 95% unused classes/styles. Another stylesheet contained two copies of font awesome, and both were very old.
My point. Before you fall in love with an off the shelf WordPress Template, run it thru Google PageSpeed Insights. Or even better, ask me to review it for you.
