John Hawkins Unrated

Paid themes Vs Free themes

Posted on Dec 02, 2008 by john in WordPress, blogging

Almost everybody who uses WordPress has gone in search of new templates for their blog. They are easy to find. A search on Google for the term “wordpress themes” turned up 6.99 million results. The trick is finding one that:

• Works for your intended use
• Looks good
• Works with the plugins you use
• Is free of malicious code

Wordpress.org helped out with a few of these points by creating the free Theme Directory where you can find 718 themes that have been downloaded 1,695,648 (at the time of this post) times. I’ve paged through nearly all of the themes that are up there over the past few months and have found several that are decent looking, but once I install them on a test site, it doesn’t take long before I realize it’s missing something. I then go back to the theme directory, find another theme and repeat the process. For me it was a process that was getting really old.

The other side of the coin is the increasing availability of paid themes. Companies like Unique Blog Designs, DIY Themes, and the group that brought us the Revolution and Revolution 2 themes are all putting out high quality, highly configurable site templates that can be yours for a price.

I recently purchased the Revolution 2 Theme bundle for use on a couple sites. So far I’ve launched a site for my Son using the Elements theme (VideoGameDude.com), I’ve used the LifeStyle theme for a client (HandsInMotion.info - still in progress), and the TV theme is being used on a site set to launch in the next few weeks. Each theme makes use of the custom fields feature to allow for easy inclusion of images that are displayed as part of the post layout giving each site a decidedly different look and feel. The Elements theme options page provides space for entering your adsense code(s) to be included in several spots throughout the site. Easy, quick and  powerful.

Obviously not every blog requires you spend a few hundred dollars on a site template, but for any business blog or if you are trying to build your own personal brand, don’t you think you should set yourself apart from the masses?

Tags: design, templates, themes