Pre-Made WordPress Theme or Custom Design?
For many web sites, WordPress has become the primary tool used to manage the site because of its user friendliness, a seemingly unending sea of plugins to use and a host of pre-made theme templates available, ready to use out of the box.
A big question for a lot of people is whether or not to use a pre-made WordPress theme or go with a custom design.
The answer to that question is that there is no right or wrong answer. It all depends upon your situation.
The Case for Pre-Made WordPress Themes
Without a doubt, the biggest reason to use a pre-made theme is because it’s cheap. Most themes are free and those that aren’t usually are anywhere from $12 to $150. Another big advantage that pre-made templates have is that it’s already made – hence, quicker turnaround time on the entire project.
There are probably thousands of different pre-made themes to browse through – which can be very overwhelming. But the upside here is that you get to view hundreds of different designs – while doing a custom design means there’s usually only one mock-up to look at.
I find that pre-made themes work well for those businesses and non-profits who do not have a strong brand to project to the masses and can easily get the message across using the right theme that suits their content.
The Case for Custom WordPress Themes
The above paragraph leads nicely into the main reason why I believe businesses should have a custom WordPress template designed: to protect your brand.
Maintaining a consistent image across all advertising domains – print, web, radio, tv – whatever the medium, is extremely important in creating an imprint in your potential customer’s mind. I think it’s ironic that so many businesses give almost zero thought to the image they are projecting to the world. If your web site is not performing like you thought it would, then maybe it’s time to re-vamp the design and make sure it’s sending the message you want it to.
The other reason why I like to do custom themes is because so many of the WordPress theme marketplaces either:
A) have the same themes – or
B) all the themes look like glorified blogs – not a beautiful web site.
Another important distinction between pre-made themes and custom themes is the way that content is displayed. We all know that content is king in the eyes of the mighty search engines, so you really want to showcase that content, right? With the pre-made themes, I find that many of them are more focused around promoting the social media (which is a very important part of your online marketing plan) rather than the content. You can have greater control over how your content is displayed if you do a custom theme, rather than trying to hack at someone’s existing design.
In the end, you need to take some time to think about the money you have to spend on a site, the content that you have to display and if it all aligns with your overall brand message. And whatever you choose remember this: a web site is always a work in progress. Hit that reset button anytime.
Leave a Reply
