Getting A Theme
This post is part of the “Theming Your Blog” series. This series is part of the celebration for Zero and Up’s new theme!
One of the most important steps to creating a blog is setting up a theme. You want your blog to stand out… and using the default theme shared by millions of blogs is not helpful for getting your blog to stand out. What’s next? Well, that depends on if you are planning on shelling out any cash or not.
Picking A Good Free Theme
There are thousands of really great WordPress themes on the internet that you can use for absolutely free. However, you can’t trust every free theme website out there. Many sites that offer free themes try and sneak in links to spammy sites that could hurt the reputation of your blog. What’s your best bet? For free themes, I’d recommend themes.wordpress.net. Not only are all sponsorship links easy to see, you can also view how many times a specific theme has been downloaded. If you ever have trouble narrowing down your choices, choose the one that has been downloaded the least amount of times. This will almost guarantee that less people will be using the same theme as you - and that’s a good thing. 
Buying A Theme
If you only get one thing out of this post, I hope that it’s this: Don’t pay much money for a theme that you’ll be sharing. If you’re going to shell out cash for a theme, you might as well get one that will be unique to your website! I’ve seen some sites that sell “premium” themes for $80 each, yet those themes are sold over and over again. Trust me. You aren’t going to be happy if you shell out big bucks for a theme only to discover a more popular blog is already using that exact design; it could make you look like nothing more than a wannabe.
So, you’re looking to buy a custom theme. How much should you expect to pay?
Don’t Go For Anything Above $500
Did you know that some well known design sites try to charge well over $1500 for a custom theme? It’s up to them to choose their prices, but it’s also up to you to choose where you get your theme from. There’s probably some of you thinking that even $500 sounds absurd, but don’t worry. If you do enough digging you can find much better deals. In fact, this blog’s custom design cost well under $200!
Many sites don’t list their prices, as they vary from project to project. The best thing you can do is ask for a free quote. You won’t be obligated to buy anything, but you’ll be much more informed about the pricing.
Be Involved In The Design Process
It’s very important that you choose a designer who will listen to your ideas. Before making any purchases, make sure that you’ll be allowed to be involved in the design of your website. Will they email you regularly with updates on how your theme is going? Will they listen to your opinions and ideas about your theme? These are all very important answers to have before making the purchase.
During the design of your site, don’t be afraid to ask questions or make suggestions. It is your theme, and you are paying for it. The more involved you are in the design of your theme, the happier you’ll likely be with the outcome.
So, now you’ve got a theme! Tomorrow, I’ll go into details about how to make the most from your new theme.
Katy Said:
Excellent points! The most important thing you mentioned though is being involved in the process. You’d be surprised how many people turn over their ideas and don’t expect anything else until the designer says “OK, done… have a look, it’s yours.” Ultimately they end up with something they’re not thrilled with. It’s the client that’ll be looking at the site all the time, not the designer.
Free themes are the standard for beginning bloggers. It’s also quite easy to customize a lot of these themes. Typically if you find a theme that is under a GPL license, you can have the ability to replace images and structure a theme to fit your own needs. Ensuring of course that credit remains for the coding of the theme you’re using.
The same thing can really apply to “premium themes.” While many of these are used right out of the box, they typically come with the license to modify and structure. However, even doing that won’t make your site feel unique.
To purchase a custom design, it’s easy to go over $500. The determining factor is usually what you’re getting in terms of images. A lot of the themes that reach this price point typically come with mascot designs in multiple positions for the ultimate in branding. A lot of bloggers want to go this route though I’m not sure it’s actually required to build your brand. Personally, I haven’t done it and the majority of my clients are more interested in simplistic branding rather than elaborate mascot designs and extravagant headers.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Alan Said:
Katy - I could see why the majority of them would be interested in the less elaborate mascots. To me, a simplistic icon (take the Target logo for instance) is just as if not more memorable than an intricate character or logo design.
Of course, some people do prefer those type of designs so in those cases I guess it would be feasible to spend more than normal.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:25 pm