Choosing a fast-loading theme for your Blogger is one of the keys to success.
Visitors will less likely to stay in a blog which loads slowly. Bad website
performance will also cause your ranking to drop. One of the best and fastest
SEO friendly Blogger theme which you can use for free is Textrim.
Textrim is designed by Igniel. She is one of the most talented Indonesian
blogger in the world. I recommend this theme because it loads super fast even
when you are using AdSense and Google Analytic. It has a lot of features even
though it is completely free.
This theme is very fast because it doesn't show image thumbnail on your blog
homepage. Do not underestimate Textrim even though the interface may look
plain. It may be simple but this theme is actually designed with Search Engine
Optimization in mind.
I have been using Textrim for some of my blogs for more than a year. I do not
encounter much issue with this theme. Textrim is also AdSense friendly. I was
able to
qualify and got AdSense approval for my blogspot websites
when I use this theme.
The automatic multi related posts is probably the only feature which I
considered to be flawed. This feature lets you to automatically insert
internal links within your article. However, the internal link placement is
not perfect because it may break article formatting. Even then, you can
easily disable the feature by deleting the following code:
<b:include cond='data:view.isPost and !data:view.isPreview'
data='post' name='textrimMultiRelated'/>Due to its lack of thumbnail on the homepage, Textrim may not be suitable for
a blog which primarily serves images. Alternatively, for those of your who rely on visual contents, you can use Fiksioner. It is a free fast-loading
theme which is also designed by Igniel. I also highly recommend this theme.
Fiksioner supports image thumbnail on your homepage.
However, if you are using Blogger to share articles, Textrim may be perfect
for you. The absence of the image thumbnail on the homepage is not a
big deal for such website. Most users will land directly to your relevant
articles instead of your homepage anyway.
You can read about the full
Textrim's features and download the theme directly from Igniel. I don't recommend you to download it from somewhere else because the theme
may be compromised. Don't forget to read the theme documentation so that you
can install all of its feature properly. You can leave a comment below if you
need help to install or customize this theme.
The importance of using a fast-loading theme for your Blogger
Visitors prefer to stay in a blog which has great user experience. In fact, on
May 2020, Google introduce a new ranking factor which is called
Core Web Vitals. Core web vitals measures your Blogger's speed, responsiveness and
theme visual stability. A lot of free themes provide you with good looking
blog interface. But the theme may not be good in term of its core web vitals
performance.
Nowadays people prefer something that is simple and easy to use. If your blog
load slowly, people will not wait. They will click away from your blog and
find a faster alternative. Clean design will also help Google bot to crawl
your blog without any problem. It means that your blog posts may
get indexed faster.
You can see the performance of your blog's core web vitals from your Google
Search Console. You will be able to find which urls load fast, poorly or need
improvement. You can also check your posts speed score through
Page Speed Insight.
As you can see from the image above, my homepage's page speed score is 96 if
it is viewed from desktop. It is almost perfect despite the ads and the analytic.
Meanwhile, if it's viewed from mobile, the score is between 53 to 70. The
score indicate that it may need improvement. However it is actually
outstanding score for mobile page speed insight considering that Textrim is a
free theme which doesn't have Accelerated Mobile Page feature.
Using AdSense and Google Analytics tend to slow down your blog speed
considerably, especially when it's viewed from phone. So far, Textrim is the only free Blogger theme which has speed score
above 50 on mobile page and above 90 on desktop even when AdSense and Google Analytics are enabled.
You need to find a balance between monetization and user friendliness. Textrim
is the most balanced theme which you can use without spending any money. You
can use Textrim together with AdSense and Analytic without sacrificing too
much of your blog's core web vitals.
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