Should I purchase a WordPress theme for “Website development” in WordPress?

By Lucid Softech IT Solutions | CMS, web design,  23 Aug 2016

Description: This is the biggest question when we are trying to create a website from scratch. And for that we can look into 2 options:

1) Purchase a theme related to your requirement.
2) Ask your developer to create a new design and integrate that.

So in this article we want to share few points that should be taken care off before choosing / purchasing any theme.

Advantage of purchased theme:
A) You can get your website done in less effort and also you can save some cost also.
B) You can setup any color theme and options from purchased theme. Themes usually have various color options to choose from.
C) If you are looking for developing a e-commerce site in WordPress using woo commerce then in some WordPress theme you will get Woocomerce integrated already so you need to only configure your store and you can start using it right away.
D) If you are a web development company, then this option will be easier to you in order to save your time and cost on the project.
E) Sometimes you can get images for free with the purchased theme from which you can save the cost of “Graphic designer”.

Disadvantage of purchased theme:
A) Your theme / design will not be unique. There is a possibility that the theme that you have purchased is currently in use by other websites also.
B) Less secure, this the most important reason. A purchased theme can be hacked easily because coding structure is sometimes not very good. These tend to use lot of external resources and script which are very vulnerable to hack and malware. So you have to be extra careful with the your website if you are using theme.
C) In theme there are lots of JS / CSS files are working for animation, sliders and effects which you may actually use it as these themes are standard and have all the common features so you will have lot of features in the theme which will not be used on the site but impact website performance. This can slow down your website which is very critical now from SEO and user experience perspective.
D) To customize a theme for a feature will be a very tough as compared to do it your custom made theme. So if you want to add lot of new feature with to your site and you foresee lot of changes that you may need in the theme then it is better to stay away from readymade theme.
E) In purchased theme you will find lot of unused plugins. This is again relates to the fact that the theme are developed keeping a general view in mind and this leaves us with lot of unused plugin in the theme. This is also a negative from performance point of view.
F) If you are using a theme you must make sure that some expert is working on it. A less experienced developer can make changes in the code files which can impact the performance and create issues especially at the time of upgrade. So on the face of it looks easy to use theme but only when it is used smartly under the guidance of expert.

Here at Lucid Softech we have expertise in WordPress theme development, customization, and any other WordPress related tasks. So if you need any help with any task related to WordPress we are here to help.
Keep checking our blog for these kind of articles.