Here you are finally going to realize, or to be made by a professional, a website with CMS WordPress.
Among the first questions you will surely ask (or that your web designer will help you solve) is: what theme do we put?
You will then need to know how to choose a WordPress theme.
If you do not already know, a theme allows you to change both the appearance and functionality of your website. The themes can be installed (and often even changed) without altering the content of the site. The theme is responsible for how the site “appears”, i.e. the management of the frontend. That’s why every WordPress site requires that a theme be present and installed in your system. It is thanks to the theme you have chosen that determines the general style of your site:
- The design and layout of the pages
- Font color and style (characters)
- The widgets available (they are “objects” with information, animations …)
- Forms and formatting ready to use
- Other objects and style details
Keeping these basics in mind, let’s make a first important classification immediately. When choosing a WordPress theme, know that you can:
- Install a free one (free WordPress themes)
- Purchase a paid one (premium WordPress themes)
1 : Free WordPress themes? Better to invest a few euros and get updates and assistance
Basically it is worth what you are reading in the title.
There are many free WordPress themes, but it is worth visiting the most popular marketplaces and for a few dozen euros buy a professional WordPress theme.
The code base is usually firmer, updates are included as well as technical assistance (which never includes customizing the theme).
It is not necessarily necessary to buy a very expensive theme! On the Internet there are premium themes at truly affordable prices.
You can buy them on offer already at $ 19 or so. If you have to use a free theme, choose at least one of those available on the official WordPress website, looking carefully at the ratings and reviews.
2 : Choose a professional WordPress theme paying attention to functionality, but also to sales success
The premium themes, that is paid, we can distinguish them in two macro categories, depending on whether it is a purchase with a single license or purchase with a subscription.
3 : Premium themes with single license
They can be purchased for a single website and at a one-off price which includes updates (as long as the subject is supported by the manufacturer) and technical assistance for a specific period (usually 6 months). Assistance can be extended by paying a surcharge. The choice of professional subjects is very vast.
What do you have to pay attention to?
- To the functionalities of the theme you are buying: does it support a certain service, a certain function or a specific plug-in for my site? It is true that WordPress is a very flexible platform that allows you to mix themes and plug-ins from different sources. But checking the above is essential
- That there is a visual composer, such as Visual Composer
- To the market success of the theme
- To the liking: votes and positive comments
- On the date of the last update: if it has not been updated for more than two weeks it is not a good sign
- On his release date, i.e. his “seniority”
Related : 7 WordPress Plugins That Use AI To Provide Better Service
The most popular marketplaces where to buy
To choose a single-licensed WordPress theme and purchase it, go to a marketplace. A marketplace is indeed a “market” where there are several manufacturers that sell.
The main place is the Envato marketplace called Theme Forest. At the time of writing, over 40,000 WordPress themes and templates are on sale, as well as several thousand themes for a number of other CMSs.
Theme Forest is not the only market place to buy a professional theme. Let’s see others.
We report Template Monster that offers paid professional design themes not only for WordPress, but also for other CMS (Content Management System) such as Drupal or Joomla! In addition to the themes, you can buy logos, animations, images for the fan page. You can also download free themes. At the time of writing, more than 20 thousand premium templates are on sale on this marketplace.
The third marketplace we mention is called Mojo Themes. Here you can buy professional WordPress themes from all over the world. This marketplace offers technical support and updating for life. In the next section we will see what to pay attention to get really technical support and updates for as long as possible.
How to receive technical support and updates for as long as possible
Being a marketplace, as we said, there are several producers. The level of themes that is offered is always professional, but to ensure technical support and updates for as long as possible, you must choose not only a theme that you like and that supports the features you are looking for, but also and above all:
- Some success (measurable in sales number)
- Not too old (creation date not too far away)
- Recent updates (last update must go back no more than 2-3 weeks before)
If you do not pay attention to these three signals, it is possible that in addition to the theme you can not buy enough assistance and updates. Why:
- if the theme does not sell, it can be assumed that the producer will stop supporting it soon and in any case will not have much resources to update it and improve it
- if it is so old (or has undergone the last radical update a long time ago), even if it has been very successful, you cannot bet on how long it will be supported by the producers
- if we see that the last update is not recent, we can suspect that something is wrong: but usually if the other two criteria are met, the updates are very frequent (every one or two weeks)
All this information, fundamental before the purchase, you can find them by selecting the preview of the theme you prefer and (on Theme Forest) by scrolling the page on the right column. Here you can read the technical specifications you need. This screenshot shows the right column of a theme for car rental site, for sale at just 12 dollars.
Theme Forest makes its ranking of the best sellers. The stars indicate the number of downloads of professional themes
Know Here More About WordPress
Premium themes with a subscription contract
WordPress themes sold under a subscription contract are not purchased on marketplaces, but are offered by individual and independent software houses and usually include different themes and plug-ins. As long as you remain a subscriber you can download all the plug-ins and themes you need and get help for all the websites you need. Buying with a subscription contract can be very useful for studios and professionals, especially for software houses that have a standardized offer. Choosing with caution remains the password here too, because if it is true that a single supplier can be a convenient and economical solution, it is also true that if you want a particular function it is not said that these “packages” have it layout.
