Choosing a theme for your site is hard, at least it is for me. I get caught up in looking at alllllll the options and the possibilities. If you were sitting next to me you probably would hear a lot of, “Oh that looks cool”, “Oh yeah those colors work”, “Oh neat feature, how could I use that?” and on and on….
Like most I have waded through my share of the free themes on WordPress.org looking for just the perfect theme. In time I learned a few things…
1) I really like working with WordPress and that in order to do the things I wanted to I was going to need to get some training. Which I did and became even more hooked!
2) Many of the free themes were incredibly frustrating to adapt to what I needed and had little to no support… usually no.
3) The code many times was sloppy and not well organized – making a simple change to even the font size could be a messy business.
It didn’t take me long to get the clue that the Premium Themes were with the moolah. I could find a layout I liked and could use and adapt it with my colors, logos, styles etc. It was a dream! At that point I could concentrate on setting up and customizing the code and not spend half my time wading through code that would make little to no sense.
That is when I discovered Brian Gardner and some of his earlier Free themes – on the recommendation of one of my blog training courses. This opened up a whole new world. That soon led me to purchasing a Premium Theme package from Brian Gardner’s Studio Press. Then I was sold! Since then, I have looked back and refer to them often. In working with my clients I have also used iThemes with great results, features and support.
This is definitely a case of you get what you pay for.
So what should you look for in a WordPress Theme?
1) As with any theme – layout is important.
2) What page options do you have? Full, 1 Column, 2 Column, Blog etc.
3) Reputation of the designer – do an Internet search on the designer’s name or the business name, you will get a clue fairly quick on their reputation.
4) Is their an active support system. Do they have a help desk? Do they have forums – active forums? This will also give you a good idea on the responsiveness of their support and a chance to find answers to your questions… usually with solutions or new ideas.
5) Most importantly…. do you like the designs offered?
There are TONS of premium themes out there, which is good, a lot of options for you. Just make sure to take the time to research the options first and feel free to ask!
