If you are an avid blogger, but have no interest in learning HTML or CSS to create your own WordPress Theme, you have two choices for your website’s design: Use a free theme or purchase a premium theme.
While it may seem logical to save your money and just download a free theme, you are probably missing out on a few key benefits of purchasing one from a trusted source.
Here are 3 benefits of choosing a premium WordPress theme:
1. Quality Code
Almost anyone can design, code, and release a WordPress theme.
While this can be great for the blogging community, because it gives everyone plenty of options to choose from, it also creates a problem: You will need to search through dozens of sites until you find one you like.
But when you finally do, there is no guarantee the code will be up to par to allow your site to load quickly or be ranked highly in search engines.
Alternatively, premium themes will need to be approved before being accepted by a company who sells them. Therefore, authors are forced to maintain a high quality in their code. If a theme is worthy of being sold, you can be sure it has passed a standard compliance test that ensures a professional level of quality.
As long as you did your homework and found a reputable website to purchase from, you can feel good about the way those themes are built. Writing good code takes time, effort, and experience, which is why developers are able to get paid for their work.
Quality code is easily overlooked (since it can’t be seen by the end user), but it can also be the difference between your blog’s ultimate success or failure.
2. Customization
Free themes come “as-is”, which means there is usually very little flexibility built into the design. Unless you want to learn HTML, CSS, and PHP, or pay someone else to make your changes, you’re stuck with what you have.
Often times, this also means the author will include a link in the footer back to his website, and possibly charge a small fee to have it removed.
On the other hand, premium themes often have an “options” page that allows you to customize many design elements and features that will make your site unique. For example, you could upload your own logo, background, or header image without having to manually edit any of the code.
There might also be features that replace the need for installing extra plug-ins, such as a link to your Twitter account and many other social networks. When you are maintaining your own website, you can save a lot of time when you don’t have to continually update and test all of your plug-ins.
Last, but definitely not least, premium themes should include several different page templates, such as a custom home page and other standard pages for your website.
These custom templates allow you to create a more flexible design for your website without having to do it yourself, which will save you time and energy, while allowing you to focus on your content.
Customization is a benefit that premium themes give you to make your blog one of a kind!
3. Support Options
Another thing that free themes lack is support. At a minimum, there should be some instructions for installing the theme included in the download package.
But, the theme’s author is not likely to offer any unpaid support if you run into problems setting it up or making changes. Even if there is a user forum, there is no guarantee of getting a response when you post a question.
While not all paid themes include technical support, the ones that do increase their value and marketability substantially. Some themes have options for purchasing support, which is a great idea if you don’t plan on making any design changes yourself. It might also include free updates as the theme releases new versions in the future.
Support can minimize some of the frustration for new bloggers, as well as help experienced bloggers make worthwhile improvements that will take their website to the next level.
Benefits Of Free
Free themes do have several helpful purposes. For one, they allow for minimal investment to anyone who is considering starting a blog, but doesn’t want to make the financial commitment up front. If you are unsure whether a certain design will work for your blog’s topic and readers, you can try several before settling on the perfect one.
Free themes also serve the design community, especially for new developers. They allow the community to constantly improve upon itself, because anyone can use them to learn how to design and develop their own themes. Existing themes can continually be improved upon and new ones are always being released.
Have you considered purchasing a premium theme? What has stopped you from doing so?
Eric says
Yep my wife’s site runs off of a premium theme http://dianasaurdishes.com that i customized with her own background changed the navigation and footer, etc. The theme was actually designed from before threaded comments existed in wordpress :(. I’ve looked at standard theme but it doesn’t appear to have 3 columns.
Craig Allen says
First off, thanks for being the first to comment!
Second, cool site! I’m definitely going to recommend it to my wife to check out.
If you check out the “Showcase” page on the Standard Theme’s site, I just saw a few that have 3 columns, so it appears to be possible.
Jimmy King says
For my site I spent a lot of time modding a free theme (Oulipo). However, for my church’s site I use a premium theme because they don’t pay me, and I don’t do THAT much for free. It’s really just a matter of time and money.
Craig Allen says
I like your domain name! What is the church site you maintain?
Jimmy King says
http://www.lovetruthpower.com
Craig Allen says
Nice work! I really wish more churches would see the benefits of using a CMS that can be coded, installed, and maintained both professionally and efficiently…especially mine!
Jimmy King says
Yeah, I know what you mean. We are about to change themes as a part of some major re-branding. The new theme will likely be Moses Theme from http://churchthemer.com
Geek for Him says
Great article Craig.
I used to do Premium wordpress but even then I found the coding was not up to par. Besides John’s Standard them I have yet to find something that the coding is on par to what it should be.
It is better than most free ones, but a unique template by a solid coder is the best choice although most of us can’t afford that option!
Craig Allen says
Very true. Some people certainly try to pass off their themes as “premium” and sell them to unsuspecting customers, which is why I added, “As long as you did your homework and found a reputable website to purchase from, you can feel good about the way those themes are built.”
It’s extremely important to do your homework when deciding to pay for anything online, especially to make sure you are really getting what you’re paying for. The Standard Theme certainly lives up to expectations and is a very affordable option compared to custom programming!