Have you decided to host your own WordPress blog?
I hope so because that means using a WordPress theme from WordPress.com no longer restricts you.
So you moved away from a WordPress hosted blog and theme and now you have your own domain name and hosting and you just cannot wait to get started – you want to start blogging and share with the world all your knowledge
But just hold on…pull in the reigns just a little.
The set-up and design of your blog is very important and one of the crucial decisions you will have to make is do you go for a free WordPress theme or a Premium theme.
My first theme was a free theme but is was so restrictive, clunky and problematic.
I quickly decided it was worth investing in a ‘purchased theme’, especially as I was going to be offering a service of building clients blogs and websites.
I did some research and came across the FLEXX theme. It cost me something like $180 as I purchased the developers license. A bit steep but I wanted to build site for clients and that’s the license I needed.
I must admit I have been very impressed with the FLEXX theme. It’s real easy to use and the support is excellent.
Since buying the Flexx theme I have also purchased the Thesis theme, although I have yet to start really using it. The Thesis theme is also a premium theme and can be quite expensive, especially if you are just starting out blogging.
So what do you do – go with a clunky, problematic free theme or an expensive premium theme (or even more expensive, your personally designed theme!)?
There is an alternative…
It’s called Theme Forest.
Theme Forest has nearly 300 themes to choose from and they range in price from $10 to $40, which makes them excellent value.
The most popular one with almost 600 sales is Convergence and it sells for just $25.
Convergence WordPress Theme - just $25
This is a bit strange…
The only thing I did find a bit weird is that you cannot just buy the themes you want. You have to sign up, create an account, deposit funds, and then buy with the funds you have deposited.
I don’t know why they have done that but they have.
But…you can also refer the themes to someone else and make a 30% commission.
Just being up front with you…
Hence if you decide to deposit any funds with Theme Forest by using the link in this post, I’ll get 30% commission.
But I’m not advocating something I haven’t used myself. I just purchased a theme for one of my clients.
So if you want to move on from the free theme you are using and don’t want to splash the cash on a premium theme, Theme Forest is the next best thing.
I just started a blog on wordpress about a month ago and I am using a freebie. Maybe after awhile I’ll look at buying a theme.
.-= David Stillwagon´s last blog ..Meniere’s disease and computer use =-.
Hello Andrew. I recently switched all my blogs to Thesis.
So far I’ve been quite happy. It’s fairly easy to customize many things, and you don’t have to a WordPress expert to do it.
JOhn,
I know many a blogger who love Thesis and some of the sites I’ve seen that use it…look great.
How was the learning curve?
Andrew
.-= Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..Blogging Guide : How To Write An About Page (video) =-.
Andrew, the Thesis learning curve was smooth and easy. I was already using WordPress, but I’m certainly no expert.
John,
That’s good to hear – I have purchased the Thesis theme…just never got round to using it!
Andrew
.-= Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..Blogging Guide : How To Write An About Page (video) =-.
All of our blogs use Thesis. I can’t speak to the learning curve because Derek Semmler does all that fancy stuff on our blogs. We use it because it handles things like SEO and not having the images I like to use at the beginning of posts end up being in the descriptions of the search engines. Don’t ask me how it handles it – I just know it does.
Besides the clean design, the major reason we use Thesis is that we know the developers test it with popular plugins and will make sure it continues to work with new versions of WordPress. Why reinvent the wheel? Better to use a Theme that has developers who support it than have problems every time WordPress or plugins get upgraded?
Ron uses some complicated Premium affiliate marketing theme and the last WordPress update gave him all kinds of problems.
Back when I researched Themes I came across many reviews of Thesis. They are linked from another post at the very bottom of the post I’ll put in CommentLuv.
Gail,
I don’t think you can go wrong with the Thesis theme.
As you say…it is written by experts and completely tested.
Whatever theme you buy, you still have to go through the learning curve.
Andrew
Themeforests is a great place to sell and buy themes.
But i notice the facts that their themes are illegally distributed everywhere.
The weakness from themeforest theme is mostly are not updated.
Different with Thesis or Genesis theme, the creators do smart, updating all the time.
But Themeforest has more affordable price.
Kimi,
Personally I think I would pay the extra knwoing I am getting great support and upgrades.
Andrew