A little back story to this post: I've been extra busy lately learning some sweet bartending skills at a class downtown (because deep down inside, we all want to have awesome random skills).
If you follow me on Twitter, you know I'm also hustling on Fiverr.com selling silly songs for fun.
All of this has had me up late and up early, which is hard to sustain! So today I've been a little late in getting a post up, for which I apologize. I was mulling over what post idea I should pick from my idea list and drafts.
Paid themes for WordPress seemed like a good one, but I hadn't really decided. That's when I saw the question from one of my awesome Facebook fans, Georgiaberry, asking about whether she should pay for a theme. That settled it- I was going to write a post on this today.
What are the theme upgrade options?
Okay, first of all let's review your options so that you can make an educated decision about what seems best for you in your situation.
- Hire a designer/developer.
- Buy a premium theme.
- Find a freemium theme.
- Make one yourself.
Pretty simple, no? Let's go over these one by one.
Hire a designer/developer.
If you've read [much of my work]({{ site.url }}/website-guide "The Small Business Website Guide for Business Owners"), you'll know that to me this is a top-tier option. There is definitely a time and a place for the expertise and customization a designer can offer.
That said, if you're the audience I intended this for, you're probably not sitting on a big chunk of change you can dole out for a web designer - and chances are you wouldn't know how to get the most out of using one.
My recommendation? Pass on the web designer for now. In the future, when you've really familiarized yourself with your business's website needs, then you can effectively put your money to use and invest in a custom design.
Buy a premium theme.
This is the sweet spot of paid theming - you can get a very professional, full featured theme for a pretty reasonable amount of money.
There are two ways to go about it, and which one will work for you depends on what you need.
Premium Theme Subscription
Case study: Woo Themes
This is a tiered system that allows you to access one or more themes depending on what package you select.
In the case of WooThemes, they do offer a single payment option (one time fee) which gives you lifetime access to a single theme plus 2 or 3 bonus themes - that includes support and all updates they do for those themes in the future.
However, they also offer an actual subscription service.
If you'd like to try out more than one theme, you can pay double up front and a monthly fee to access pretty much everything they have to offer. This works well if you want to test things out and see what works best for you.
Woo Themes is a high-end premium design company, so they may not be in your price range - but they put out extremely good work. You can learn more from their website and see if they would be a good fit for you.
Is this for you? If you want to put down a small price for a high end theme you know is going to work exactly how it should, then a service from a design company such as Woo Themes is probably a good option.
20% off coupon good through 9/14/11: 4E6F8CA
Single Theme Purchase
Case Study: ThemeForest.net
Theme Forest has a lot of more affordable options than Woo Themes, but they are made from various designers an developers all over instead of being a single company producing themes. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. Just understand that there will not be consistency from one theme to the next, so you need to thoroughly review each theme.
The good thing about Theme Forest is that you can get a pretty neat theme for as cheap as $12.
Is this for you? If you are willing to take a little bit more of a risk on the quality of a theme (and perhaps the quality of support), and don't want to shell out more than $25 on a theme - this is the place to be. With the right research you can walk out with something just as good as a Woo Themes design.
Disclaimer, I am using affiliate links in this article, which means if you click and sign up for either Woo Themes or Theme Forest I get a kickback.
Find a freemium theme.
This is always where you should start.
See if you can't find a theme that you like that is free!
The funny term I'm using here is "freemium" - which is a play on the words free and premium: essentially, finding a premium quality theme that is being offered for free.
Obviously the benefit here is free.
Resources for finding free themes:
- Smashing Magazine's 2010 Round Up
- Smashing Magazine's 2011 Round Up
- WP Tuts Round Up - Mix of free and paid so keep an eye out!
Test a theme before using it!
Make sure you download this free plugin (or find one that does the same thing) so that you can test out your theme before putting it live on your site:
Make one yourself.
There's a couple of things for this one.
First of all: You're capable of it. With enough time and effort, you can make your own theme.
Second of all: You need to evaluate if you have the time to put into learning a new skill (basic web design) for it not to be worth going in another direction.
For example, I am a web designer and developer by career, but I bought a premium theme for this blog. Why? Because I simply don't have the time and patience to dedicate to creating a full on custom design right now.
Will I eventually create a great custom design for myself? Totally.
But design isn't going to write my blog or put out great content for you. So I chose to buy a premium theme (from Theme Forest) that meets my needs right now.
That said, I do recommend you check it out to see how quickly you might adapt to the process! That way you have a good idea of what you'd be getting into.
Here's some good links to get you started:
The decision is yours!
At the end of the day, the decision is yours. Hopefully this post will have helped educate you so you can make the right decision for you and your business.
What are you planning to do?