Blogging today has taken many businesses to great new heights, and the effective marketing strategy associated with it has reaped great profits for both large and small business owners.
Creating a WordPress blog is extremely easy and one need not know extensive computer knowledge to get the job done. What's more? You get a lot of free WordPress themes that can be put on your blog and customize it to get just right for your online venture.
It does not matter whether you have started your blogging venture for an affiliate program, an Adsense site, a personal blog, a an eCommerce shopping site or more, but the free themes that come along with them and tons of information makes it extremely easy for you to get your job done.
So Why Would Anybody Invest In A Premium WordPress Theme?
This is one of the most common questions buzzing in numerous minds and many believe that the free ones are mostly good enough and there is no use investing in a premium WordPress theme. One must remember that if free WordPress themes were as effective as it is thought to be, why would premium WordPress themes ever exist? Yes! Premium WordPress themes do have their own set of advantages and for those who have invested in one, you definitely know how much better they feel now.
What Are The Advantages Of Investing In A Premium WordPress Theme?
#1. Premium Themes Make You Look Like a Pro
The first and foremost advantage of a premium WordPress theme is the transformation of your website look. The look and feel of your whole website gets changed and the premium one looks more professional and works just perfectly. If you want to create an authority website it is best to get hold of a premium theme, make your blog look swish, and get on with the job of creating an empire.
#2. Free Themes Are Tweaking Hell
A major disadvantage of free themes is that they need to be tweaked and sometimes need some serious coding to get them working the way you want. On the other hand, premium themes are more professional and let you alter it according to the way you want and gives you a lot of options to get your blog functioning just the way you want it to be. Also to sell a premium theme, the code needs to be precise and everything must work. Free Themes are not guaranteed to do this!
#3. SEO Is Not Home
Yet another great disadvantage of free themes is that you possibly need a lot of plug-ins and features to get your blog optimized for SEO. With so many meta-tags, plug-ins and features running on your blog, it might make it extremely slow. However, a premium theme has all these features built right in it, which makes it easy for you. You do not have to install any other plug-in and will also help your site’s overall performance.
For Example both Thesis and Elegant themes come with SEO options included and make your job that much easier!
#4. Where is Help When You Need IT?
The ultimate advantage when it comes to considering a premium theme is its customer support. When you download or install a free theme it is up to you to sort it out in case of any problems. Although, you might possibly find information for this online, it requires you to dedicate a lot of time in searching for solutions. Nevertheless, premium WordPress themes give you great customer support in case you have any compatibility issues or you would want any help to get your site running perfectly. Customer support is everything when you have a business that is losing money after a theme conflict or error.
#5. Premium Themes Convert
I have been there and done that! Yes I went through all the great free themes only to end up with a toolbox of Premium themes that I love. I would never go back as the free themes just did not make sales or look even the slightest bit impressive. Every time I changed a website to a premium theme I saw an increase in sales and so much so, that I would never use a free theme again.
Free WordPress themes may work for a while, but once you encounter a problem you are on your own and it's a big headache to get it back in the swing. However, choosing a premium theme will not only allow you great SEO benefits but also help you focus more on your business. Take this blog as an outstanding example. It looks amazing thanks to Genesis and Showcase child theme. So as you can see, buying a premium WordPress theme really does have many advantages.
I completely agree,Mitz,
if you want to play “hard” with blogging or just be “serious” about it,
you will need a premium wordpress theme.
I have switched recently from WooThemes to Genesis Generate Child Theme,
for my main site.
For my niche one I kept WooThemes.
I like how Genesis looks clean and professional. I love the SEO response and the speed of my site now.
Thanks for sharing your points, Mitz.
I love Genesis and Thesis.. There are a few others too…So many to choose from and they all have their uses! 🙂
I don’t buy shoes, I buy themes.
Hi Mitz,
I do like how much flexabilty you gain with thesis, have not tried genesis yet. I had a look at it and looks just as nice. Still have not mastered the use of child themes, but doesn’t seem to difficult.
Freedom to edit, plus paid themes look a milion times better.
Hi Mitz,
If you want to be a premium blogger, your theme also has to be premium. Novice bloggers think the premium they are paying for a premium theme is simply a wastage.
But, a premium theme user can only tells you the premium benefits she gets from her premium blog.
Thanks for this premium article.
You can also create your own theme and that is the best way to go.
Have a look at my own theme at MoneyCTL and give your remarks.
When starting to blog, selecting the right theme was a headache and I never thought of buying one. Instead, I was happy with free themes as it was available and according to my point of view at that time, ‘I was saving money’ but little did I know the great advantages that premium themes offer ! And the best of all the advantages – the ‘support’ !
Without investment, advancing forward will be hard and buying the perfect theme with great look is one of the way to achieve success in blogging. Better the look, more the visitors you will attract 🙂
Great post Mist and I am sure newbie bloggers would find this article very helpful to get a premium theme right from the start !
You are right there.. Without investment it is hard to move forward. 🙂
I think it is really important these days that your website/blog etc is good looking. Good design is no longer something amazing I think most interest users have come to expect beautiful websites. If your site does not live up to these increasingly steep expectations then users will just leave……
I actually forgot to mention that premium themes also look great on smart phones and iPads etc…I am on my iPad now and Ileanes blog looks great!
There is no question… NO QUESTION… that if you are serious about Blogging at All you need to have a premium wordpress theme…
That’s it. No debate. No Argument or discussion. It’s that simple.
Good post.
Ryan H.
Ryan,
It’s like comparing free hosting with paid hosting.
It’s a no brainer.
I completely agree with you premium themes have got great features built-in i.e. seo and support and they got a support forums where one could get a help about their issue occuring on the theme while doing customization.
I am using studiopress and they got great support forum and I always get timely and great help from their members on time and when I used free themes don’t know from where to get the help if any error occur during customization.
Yes, Thesis support is also great and all problems are easily solved in the forum. 🙂
Using free WP Theme is good but for nubs and I think free WP theme is a good choice to them for learning all the WP environment and makes them more familiar with all function and features provided by basic function and features of most Free WP theme. Once they are familiar on using WP theme then there is no problem for them to start using a Premium WP Theme to upgrade their blog performance…
Yes your are right. Free themes are good for starters. But I wish I had got a premium theme earlier as it would have saved a lot of time.
Great post Mitz and I think most of us will definitely agree with you.
I used a free theme when I started but once I understood all the problems that were associated with them I made the big move and bought Thesis. Now I love it myself and actually tweaked my own theme.
I think actually people have their preferences with which ones they like the best but I believe that if it’s ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I can’t imagine needing to do anything more with my theme then I already do so I won’t be switching anytime soon unless Thesis does something wacko. I pray that never happens.
~Adrienne
Hello Mitz
You are right Premium WordPress Theme have great advantage over the Free themes. Soon I will purchase these some good themes for my blogs.
I have used both free theme and paid theme but at the end of the day, the best theme was the theme that we got custom developed for our website. So, you need to see whether you are going to buy a theme that looks similar to 1000s of websites or going to create all new theme .
Yes a custom theme is good. I like to customize Thesis sometimes. It is amazing what you can do.
This is the same, both of them need customization to suite our specific needs , so its better to locate a theme developer and pay him directly for your specific need.
Have bought Thesis for my blog, and can’t be more happier! 🙂
Hi Mitz, really interestng article. I always thought of getting a premium wordpress theme too, but then again I love designing websites (although I’m not too good at it, haha) so I custom designed my own blog too. I think this way I had more of a freedom to create what I really want and learn about the inner dynamics of wordpress in the process of it. 🙂
Some people have great skills to design their own themes. You are very lucky if you can do that!
My most of the conversion comes when I show people that things are working and how good they are…Same goes for theme, most of themes I have has cost me nothing as I have earned their cost by affiliate systems….but it does require some upfront investment and it is worth every penny….
Good post for anyone new entering blogging for the first time. I see some swear by Free themes, but when problems arise, they are running for cover because of the lack of support when problems arise or when there are updates. It is a waste of time and energy to invest in something free that doesn’t come with support.
I learned my lesson real quick a year ago using one, but thankfully I didn’t have to too much time invested in it. Honestly, I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t invest in a premium theme anyway, you can find many online and if it comes with support at least you are assured some payback. Good post girl!
Yes I know how you feel.. I have learned this lesson too many times. 🙂
Luckily I do not use free themes any longer.
Excellent post Mitz!. I’m actually using free wp themes when I started doing online business but I find it hard to code and design. Premium themes are really cool and most of them are seo optimize which is really helpful for us marketers. 🙂 Thanks for sharing this wonderful post.! 🙂
I thing I like about premium theme that is Support, Professional look with best SEO settings 🙂
I am currently using Thesis Framework. Result is just perfect. I love this theme 😉
No need to convince me. I am about to update my site and will be investing ASAP. Yeah, there are so many limitations, which is so frustrating.
very useful article.this is the good information for me.but personaly iam like to blogger.thanks friend go ahead.bye,
With paid themes, you can easily custom this theme and get more support from Dev team.
Other hand, using paid themes makes you look like a pro blogger 🙂
Free WordPress themes are really great just because they are FREE!
There isn’t any other advantage of free WP theme. Free themes are good for those who want to start a personal blog, but as your blog started growing than you must go for premium ones.
In my opinion going for premium theme in first is more better. Thanks for wonderful post Mitz.
I have been thinking of moving over to a premium theme, but am still looking for the perfect one. I have a health site and so it has been hard to find the perfect theme. I kind of like WP clear. Has anyone had much experience with that one? It has a magazine style…
not everyone buys premium themes but that might be their mistakes as i have seen their results are better than free themes because they are not as professionally made as premium themes.. and not everybody has then on their blogs..!
recently i done a big mistake on my blog. I installed the pirated theme on wordpress then after one day my blog was hacked my some person. then i searched for the reason why blog was hacked and i found some interesting stuff on pirated themes there will be malicious code will be injected. if anyone use that theme their blog can be easily hack able. From on wards i m using genuine themes which i bought them recently.
I am also looking for a good premium WordPress theme for my blog. Can you tell me which theme are you using on this site?
This blog has Thesis and a thesis awesome skin.. But I am sure Ileane has added her personal touches here.
I think this is really solid advice, but I would definitely ad that just finding a premium theme isn’t enough. Make sure you purchase the theme from a reputable theme company. I’ve purchased a few themes from templatemonster that were absolutely terrible.
Great post!
Great blog post, premium themes are our ways to give back to the community and to expand our businesses. When starting, if you don’t have capital, always choose free theme first, but once you decide to go pro it’s always better to choose premium theme, as Mitz mentioned you’ll have support, you’ll be able to tweak it easier and much more.
Really good post, premium themes are the best way to go 🙂
thanks for sharing
Free theme are not secure. They have many gap hopes which can affect the security of your blog. I personally love thesis framework which can be modified according to your need. Most of the sucessfully wordpress blog a running on it and you will never get bored with this as your can customize it to new look any time.
Thanks for the post.
Yes I agree fully that Thesis absolutely rocks! I have it on at least 6 blogs and it is fantastic!
Premium theme is must have for every professional blog to increase their blog’s popularity . I like to hire any good thesis customization service to create a custom skin for my blog.
I can’t really argue with this logic, but I will say that I have only used free themes in my past. I think that you can achieve the same success by adding a few free plugins to your site/blog. I will add that many of the free themes are not very good for anything but the basics.
Hi Mitz,
I respectfully disagree with your point on search engine optimisation friendly blog themes. Premium or not it is a mixed bag from my expierence and in aggreagrate I do not see SEO benefits compared to free ones. Many premium themes (not the one in your example) end up using such a large number of features that they are not SEO friendly. Conversely, there are many free themes that are quite SEO friendly and simplistic. I do not see it mattering much if the theme selected is ‘prememium’, but I do view it as important to evealuate each one individually.
I agree a premium themes makes your blog look more rich and it is very much essential that your blogs like an authority blog….I particularly like the magazine theme for entertainment blogs…thanks for sharing these awesome points
I like wordpress premium themes, because there are many admin options to customize the theme as you want. And i think best premium themes provider is Themeforest.
Great Post
I intend Getting a Premium Theme Once i move from Blogger.
While a premium theme no where compares to having a custom or branded theme of your own, it still a heck of a lot better than having a free theme. Most free themes, if they are good, are already over used or at least filled with a bunch of limitations when it comes to what you can do with them.
I’m very satisfied with the premium theme on my blog and the support that the author offers to me is way better than having to search through a theme myself just to fix a couple of lines of code.
But be wary, that some premium themes can be as crappy as free themes.
Mitz – I am with you on all these points and I am ALL FOR using a premium theme. When I started out my blog, i used a free theme and had a tough time to customize and tweak it to suit my needs. It was hell and if i change something, some other thing would break and i would spend hours just to make the look and feel better.
When i switched over, it is just awesome, everything is taken care of and I dont have to worry about html or css coding anymore.
Great post.
Yes I did the same thing..I wasted time with free themes and when i did get premium ones I could not be happier!
I think that the #4 point is the most important one. If you have some technical knowledge you can do those other point youself without very much pain, but the support, yeah, you can’t have it even if you are very smart 🙂 Thanks for the article, great insight!
I even use the support myself because I would rather ask someone that know than work it out myself.. I could work it out but that is a waste of time. 🙂
I use Genesis quite a lot and I love it. I have not used Thesis so I can’t really compare, but I will tell you that Genesis is super easy to use and configure. All the CSS is open to you so you can customize to your heart’s content. it’s not cheap but if you buy their full package you get all the child themes so if you’re building multiple sites it pays for itself. Plus you do get a much more professional and search-friendly result than with free themes.
I’ve also found some great ones at Theme Forest. I will say that the only down side is that many of those are really built to just WORK – so if you love the theme and want to do a little tweaking, they are fantastic. Not so easy to dig deep and customize though so don’t count on making them look completely different unless you want to mess with a bunch of files.
But they do look great and they are very professional. And at that level they have a lot of tools and SEO stuff built it.
Even though I’m proficient with HTML5 and modified a very basic theme, every little nuance needs to be tweaked to perfection. Even now I can’t use every micropost type because I haven’t properly tweaked it to fit the rest of the look of the page. It’s nice to have it look just the way I want but it’s a bummer when I need to add a new feature or element to the page.
Thank you for an awesome list. The tweakability of the premium sites alone are worth every penny. Glad you pointed that out.
Agreed, premium themes are the way to go. A blogger using a premium themes makes you stand out of the crowd. Makes you look professional, people take you more seriously when you spend a little money to get a premium theme. Dishing out a little extra to get a premium theme makes a lot of difference. Secondly some premium themes are SEO optimised, makes life so much easier otherwise you have to get plugins for the work that a premium theme can do with interference.
I love all of these although I prefer a dark and stylish look, the more colorful ones are also pretty awesome.
I am making the switch from blogger to wordpress and I purchased a premium theme! I like that it gives the blog a more professional look.
I am using twenty eleven, and it’s all good. But needless to say that premium themes will make your website really cool.
I completely agree. I have used a few premium themes over the past 2 years and they have the best layout, smooth design, and as somewhat of a newbie to the internet world, support forums have become my second home.
Is it possible that TOO many SEO related plugins will negatively affect SEO marketing goals.
Thanks for this great post. Premium word press themes do offer great advantages to the users. It offers a professional look to the blog. It help makes blogging experience a better one.
They are all great reasons, and for me the support aspect is the most important. The company I buy themes from have an excellent support forum which has enabled me to make some significant customizations without any previous knowledge of WordPress or php. Premium themes also look much more professional which really helps if you are a small business.
Premium theme also comes with the great support. The theme also updated based on the continuous update from wordpress, php or web hosting itself. But the cost of premium theme sometimes too expensive which will lead user to download them for “free”.
Thanks for the tip. I’m a newbie and i have been using free themes for the last month or so and struggling with them. Thanks to this blog, and your well meaning advice, I am now inspired to make the change to a premium theme.
Premium themes are best for the website. They are made with perfection and they are bought by only some people which makes it different.
I used to use free themes and it was a pain. Whenever there was something wrong, I had to fix it myself or figure out the problem myself. If it wasn’t fixable then I would try out a different theme. Really important to buy premium themes because of the support.