I want a simple SEO friendly wordpress theme... Any suggestions?

I’d like to purchase an elegant WordPress theme. It should be simple, SEO friendly and has the potential to accommodate ads without disturbing the design. I’m a bit lost; as the website offers a wide variety of themes and I don’t have much experience. What should I look for and what are your suggestions?

*I want to create an online journal and earn through advertising.

Probably best to look through some of these http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress/blog-magazine for one you like. These will fit what you want to do and most(check the ones you like) can handle ads.

the SEO thing is only partly down to theme. Most on here are well coded and therefore will have best practice in mind on SEO but this is only a small part of what actually controls SEO e.g. you need to look at the content you are producing, sharing, social integration, back linking, keywords in content etc.

First of all, thank you for your reply. I’ve been going through these themes, but I just don’t know what’s best for me. I want a theme that is elegant, yet has a good loading speed. I’ve read somewhere that homepage sliders are not a good thing when it comes to SEO. If I pick a theme with simple unwanted features, can I customize that later?

I know that content and several other factors are what controls SEO. I’m a beginner in the field, but I’ve been writing SEO content for quite some time now. So, I’m just getting lost due to my ignorance; I don’t want to make an avoidable mistake.

You can customize most of the features, but not all. In this case it’s probably the best if you contact theme authors and ask them what can and can’t be changed.
There are other factors that will impact SEO performance and slider is not one of them. Page speed is much more important.

Good luck!