When moving your business online, there comes a time when you must decide whether you want a theme based WordPress website or one that’s custom designed. While there are certainly benefits to both, it comes down to what your business wants.

Here are some benefits of both Theme Based and Custom Designed WordPress sites to help you decide.

Theme Based WordPress Sites

There are thousands of WordPress themes to choose from that perfectly fit your business. Whether it’s a restaurant, eCommerce store, blog, or travel site hundreds of themes exist that perfectly fit your model. Here are some more advantages.

• Theme Based WordPress sites are quick and easy to launch
• Have enough plugins and development support to customize
• Are a lot less expensive than custom designed themes

Usually popular themes have many well-known and experienced developers who can give you ongoing support that will prove beneficial in the long-term. Also, a lot of themes have highly adaptable frameworks – such as – Genesis, allowing you to switch themes around while keeping the overall structure the same.

But ultimately, they’re potentially more profitable than custom designed themes because they take less time to launch by cutting all the development work out.

Advantages of Custom Designed WordPress Themes

Custom designs give you your business the creative license to do and create whatever you want. Provided you know what you’re doing. Here are some advantages of custom designs.

• Starting from scratch allows you to make the site you dream of within the framework you want.
• Creating something new is always satisfying.
• You can pick and choose the needed plugins which give you the exact flexibility and control you’re aiming for.

However, custom designed themes take a lot longer to build, needs a lot more work to develop it, and is often very expensive.

Really, it’s like choosing from moving into an old house and renovating or buying a plot of land and building your house with your own hands. While the former may not give you the creative freedom you want, it certainly costs you a lot less than the latter

The Advantages of Theme Based WordPress Sites

For small businesses or entrepreneurs that want something now and want it for cheap, theme based WordPress sites are the way to go. They have all the functionality and customization the majority of businesses need. Some other added bonus include the added support that comes with many already existing themes and the updates, not to mention that most Theme based designers have a lot of experience. You can look over portfolios, read reviews, and communicate directly with the designer to ensure you’re getting the most out of your themed WordPress design.

If you ever want to make some minor changes to your theme, you can always get support from its developers. Designer support is an added value when you invest in a theme already existing. However, if you’re customizing your own theme, prepare to climb a steep learning curve in order to get your site to your standards. While customers prefer simplicity and functionality over bloated designs, don’t let the layout fool you. You need a significant amount of knowledge and time spent studying to make your site functional yet attractive to your audience. Or you can pay a designer to build the website from scratch, but this takes time and a lot of cash.

Many of the existing themes also come with updates that stay current with the latest version of WordPress. Updates are incredibly important. If you don’t update, your site loses functionality and poses itself to security threats. For those that prefer a custom design, expect to pay more to keep your site updated and secure.

Existing themes, however, have more of an incentive to keep everything updated and current. If not, the developers could loss many paying customers. Thus, there is a profitable responsibility for theme developers to periodically update and enhance their themes.

The Verdict

Ultimately, it’s your decision as to whether or not you want a custom design or already existing theme. While both have their advantages, businesses that want a cheap shortcut and get their website online as soon as possible, theme based designs are the better choice.

To ask a question or find a Theme Based WordPress site that’s perfect for your business, contact us and speak with one of our WordPress professionals.