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5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use a Free WordPress Theme

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At first, a free WordPress theme for your blog may seem like a simple and effective way to garner attention and attract customers to your products. It’s true that there are a lot of color and layout combinations, and given the advantage of saving money, it’s easy to see why a free theme might be the way to go. However, a free wordpress theme will actually end up hindering you in the long run due to opportunity costs.  If you’re thinking about a free wordpress theme, before you finalize that choice, here are some things you should definitely consider.

A Free WordPress Theme is Not Unique

A free WordPress theme has already been created and made available to everyone. If you decide to go with a free WordPress theme, another business has also probably selected the same theme. More than likely, several other businesses have also selected the same theme. If you’re looking to make your business stand out, you want to make sure that your products, services, and platforms stand out from the competition. Consider a list of the top 50 free WordPress themes: big picture background, words laid over it. Impressive, right? Think again.

A Free WordPress Theme is Not Personal

Along the same vein, it is distinction and brand distinguishing that wins in marketing. If your product and platform looks the same as everyone else’s, it doesn’t matter if you’re offering superior quality. Branding requires a personalized touch that clearly separates your business from others, complete with qualities and features customers can’t find anywhere else. A free WordPress theme is not made with your vision in mind, and therefore has no ability to convey that vision, quality of service, dependability, or system of values. It’s a generic template with no life or personality.

A Free WordPress Theme Indicates Little to No Effort

If you settle for a free WordPress theme, it suggests to your customers that the products and services you provide are nothing special (see distinction). If you have a generic, basic platform, potential customers probably think your company is also generic and basic. If customers don’t believe you care to present and support your products thoroughly, they certainly won’t care to invest their money in those products. You didn’t invest in your own product. Why would they? A customer would no doubt prefer to see commitment and control. Speaking of control:

A Free WordPress Theme Offers Less Flexibility

A free WordPress theme comes completely set-up, right out of the box. As mentioned earlier, it lacks personalization, and you are limited in your ability to add to this. You have a limited ability to tailor it to your needs, and if you do so it’s at your own risk. What does this mean? Well, if for whatever reason you end up having difficulty, you’re on your own for the most part. That’s never good. Furthermore, you become reliant on plugins or add on packages, which may or may not be available, in order to stay up to date and secure. Essentially, it’s like buying a car, except you only get half of the trunk space, have to rely on maintenance to come to you on their schedule when something breaks, and you never get to look under the hood to make any real modifications. Would you drive a car like that?

A Free WordPress Theme Offers Poor Search Engine Optimization

This last heading is misleading. A free WordPress theme doesn’t really offer search engine optimization(SEO) to begin with. That is up to your business, your marketing department, etc. However, when you consider the previous points about personalization, customization, and the lack of support, it becomes clear how difficult SEO is when working with a free WordPress theme. Sound bad? It gets worse. When it comes to websites and hosting in general, the thing about free themes is that there is often some kind of cost in trade, usually in the form of a plug. Somewhere in the html, there’s likely to be advertising- only it’ll be advertising WordPress, rather than your business. That plug won’t help you climb search rankings. In fact, it will definitely hurt your rankings.

All in all, a free WordPress theme is not going to do enough for your business when you consider all the costs and limitations that come with it. Not convinced? Take a look at a comparison between a free theme and its premium counterpart. Even setting functionality aside, perception is king; having a custom made platform well tailored to the specifics of your company increases your image rather than taking away from it. In the long run, you’re better off with a professional, personalized website that is continuously customizable and upgradeable; one that fully expresses your vision and demonstrates quality of care and commitment to customers.

5 WordPress Website Themes To Use In 2016

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Finding a needle in a haystack might seem easier than choosing from the staggering collection of available WordPress website themes. That job becomes a lot easier with careful consideration of your website’s purpose and priorities. Use this rundown of features in five important WordPress website themes to determine what’s best for your site.

5 important WordPress website themes

While WordPress website themes come in free and premium editions, those listed here are all premium. Due to their price point, there is a glut of websites using free themes, while a premium theme offers more features and customization to set your site apart. Customer support is multifaceted for premium themes, including email, chat and public forums. Premium themes are updated more often, usually periodically, so security issues are identified and patched.

1. Avada

Avada

Avada by Theme Fusion is one of the best-selling WordPress website themes, known for excellent customer support. The visual page builder allows for fast and easy customizing with no coding necessary. Avada offers full responsiveness, optimized speed, auto theme updates and 2D/3D layered sliders. It has five custom headers, a built in SEO plug-in, and is optimized for speed.

2. X Theme

X by Themeco is one of the most customizable WordPress website themes available due to its stacks, which are four exclusive designs in one, rather than a few standard layouts. Drag and drop page builders make everything customizable without coding, including logo, font, color, menus, sidebars and headers. The live previewer ends the need to constantly refresh, granting intuitive front-end editing. Along with SEO readiness, X also brings custom extensions, Responsive Visibility, and optimized speed.

3. Enfold

Enfold

Enfold by Kriesi has been called one of the most user friendly WordPress website themes out there, with 18 predefined skins for non-coders to insert their own information. The drag and drop templates support customizing layouts, typography and color, with options for audio and video. Enfold is optimized for SEO, high resolution, and 2D/3D layers. It is responsive for any size screen and optimized for speed.

4. Jupiter

Jupiter by Artbees is known as a one size fits all WordPress website theme. Now on version 5, Jupiter’s modular composition, reduced file size and total number of files have improved the loading times. Users find numerous drag and drop variations for customizing layouts, headers, post types and content importers as well as a background customiser using color gradients. Features include SEO readiness, Edge Slideshow, adaptable responsiveness, and 50 templates.

5. Salient

Salient

Salient by ThemeNectar is one of the most innovative WordPress website themes, giving websites a creative edge. The visually enhanced features include video backgrounds, sliders, and a custom homepage that lays out all parts of the website in an array. SEO compatible and speed optimized, Salient contains 350 icons and eight page layouts formatted for any size screen.

How to choose?

With so many features available in these WordPress website themes, pinpointing priorities can be difficult. Website speed should be near the top of your list; if your site takes too long to load, viewers will give up and Google will assign a low rating. Sluggish themes are characterized by an overload of features and too many large files. Focus on the features that best characterize your business, whether flashy background videos and sliders or simple customized colors and headers, and choose a theme that specializes in those particular components.

User experience goes hand-in-hand with speed, since the purpose of having a website is to attract users. Ease of use can make or break your site, so limit complicated features. Smashing Magazine suggests experimenting with demos to get a feel for each theme: “Do you get a headache looking at it? Does it excite you?” First impressions are important, and your first impression should be a positive one.

Just like looking at a model home, however, a theme demo can distract you with a beautiful set-up that has nothing to do with your needs. Look for demo features that will fit your purpose and content. Make sure positions and sizing of logos, headers and text blocks fit your requirements. A live preview admin area will allow you to test-drive the demo for a better idea of how it meets your specifications.

All of these WordPress website themes demonstrate SEO compatibility, responsiveness, optimized speed, customizable design and easy-to-use drag and drop options to various degrees. Your priorities and personal impressions will determine the best fit for your website (your needle in the haystack).