Whether it’s from clients, or attendees of my workshops, I often get asked, “What theme do you think is the best?” Wow, now that’s a loaded question!
Why do I get asked that so often? And is there really an answer? To be honest, no.
What is happening is there are a lot of WordPress “so-called experts” out there who have found one particular theme they like, or a series of them from a certain theme developer. Why the “experts” decide on pushing it could be several different reasons:
- They have learned a particular theme inside and out, and have decided it’s too much work to explore other themes.
- They have a vested interest in it, which may be financial.
- They bought the developer’s licence and so it costs the nothing to offer the “free premium theme” as an incentive to hire them to create your blog or website.
- They feel the theme has worked miracles for them, and believe it will do the same for you.
- They are just simply biased and too stubborn to budge an inch.
- Or, they have found using a particular theme, in their eyes, covers all situations.
Now I’m not saying this is bad, or that the themes they recommend won’t do the job. And I don’t begrudge them for doing this. It’s just the limitations set upon the client. And although they may think that their “selected” theme is the greatest, it’s only their opinion, and doesn’t necessarily mean that they understand your needs.
So back to my question and my answer. I use and recommend a large variety of themes for my clients. The commission I get on an affilate ad, or the hype that may come from big name bloggers, don’t play into my decision. Why? Because finding a theme that will work for you is very important to me.
When searching for a theme, think of everything you want it to do, plus all those forseeable needs down the road. Talk to you developer and ask the hard questions. Ask around. See who else is using that theme and find out what they were able to do. If you find a theme that has been highly customized, be prepared to either dig in yourself or have someone do it for you. And if you don’t find a theme that will do it all for you, make sure what you settle on will still make you happy.
Remember, some of these themes that designers recommend are frameworks. Which means they can customize your site more to your specifications. The only thing you need to ask is once the site is in your hands, how easy is it for you to make changes?
A final note, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work with a designer that specializes in one theme. Just make sure it works for you.
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I have so much fun exploring/drooling over all the amazing WP themes out there, especially on ThemeForest.com but at lots of other places, too. So far haven’t had a bad experience with support anywhere. You can’t beat a highly designed and dedicated theme for something like a really cool portfolio site (which I could never replicate on my own with a framework).
Yes, theme developer are generally pretty darn good with support, especially the premium themes. Now the free one’s, that’s a different story.
And you are so right, so many of these great themes allow us to have a fantastic looking site that would be challenging and time-consuming to replicate.
Thanks for stopping by!
I think its important to customize your theme to your own style and Thesis/Kolakube offer the best support for this.On the other hand, StudioPress offer the best all round package as they also make a range of child themes.I trust these 2 theme developers and know the people behind them very well.I agree that WordPress developers have their favorites but its not for the reasons you have states.Like your site Bob but this post is a bit cynical which won’t make you more popular.
Hey Brad, appreciate your honesty and perspective.
Yes, in a perfect world, it would be great for everyone to customize their own theme. But the problem is that customization is such a broad word. For some it may simply be changing the background color and the header. For others, it could be a complete layout exactly to their specifications. Unfortunately, not everyone has the resources to get the customizations they may feel they need or want.
As far as the themes you mentioned, I agree, both of these are fantastic themes and the people behind them are just as great. Like you, I know both and have personal relationships with a few at StudioPress. But on the other side, for example, I have known users who were talked into Thesis and ended up totally frustrated.
But I do respectfully disagree with you on your last statement. I am not being cynical, but instead sharing my experience. Nor am I trying to be popular or not. Yes, not all WordPress developers who have their theme preferences are doing it for the reasons above, but there are plenty devs and designers that are doing it for those exact reasons. And I hear this from the users all the time who have hired them. Especially rampant is the one’s who do feel the theme they use can do it all and don’t budge, forcing the users to be trapped into a theme that really didn’t do the job or doesn’t work for them. It’s unfortunate, but it happens all the time.
Hi Bob – I’m on a Genesis child theme called Georgia – which was set up by my designer. I want to make changes including having a homepage. I have two questions – a) if I purchase another theme will there be any problem setting it up – since I didn’t actually buy Genesis. b) I tried to create a home page like you suggested in your previous post (the one I couldn’t comment on) but it didn’t seem to work – do you think this is a theme related issue?
Hi Corrine, first, you can see that I have switched back to the vanilla commenting system. Love Livefyre, but it’s been really buggy for me.
So when you talk about a homepage, let me clarify as I know which post you are talking about. With some of the child themes for Genesis, the homepages are set up to be unique and often done using widgets. An example of this is the theme I am using here, the Balance Theme. Now if I wanted to do a more basic page with my posts just listed or just a simple homepage with a static landing page, I could create a page, assign it as my blog, and then select it to be the landing page.
Now the Georgia theme’s homepage is pretty much the basic blog homepage, with posts listed. So your other option is to create a static page, then assign it to be the landing page. For example, using that theme this is what I did here http://bobwp.com/sandbox/
I’ve switched to the vanilla too, sadly. I hope Livefyre can fix the bugs soon – I did so love it!
Sorry for being so vague in my comment, Bob. I was referring to this post of yours: http://www.bobwp.com/why-cant-i-change-my-home-page-i-dont-want-the-blog-to-be-on-it/
When my designer set up my website, she didn’t set up a homepage. I attempted to set up a static page but that didn’t work. Hence my question as to whether it was theme related. I understand now that I might have missed some steps.
Thank you for your response here and on FB.
Corinne rodrigues recently posted..Stop Raping With Your Words!
Mmm, that’s weird because it should still work. Each theme has a unique homepage setup, whether it’s a blog format or another style. But you can always use that feature in the other post to create and assign a static homepage. The theme shouldn’t override that.
Now the other thing might be when you click the home button on your nav bar. It could still be taking you to that page. So you would need to go into your menus and create a custom home tab… does that make sense. If not, go to my contact page and shoot me an email.. we’ll get it figured out.
Bob Dunn recently posted..A Bit of Cleanup For Your Dashboard