What is a Premium Wordpress Theme?
A premium Wordpress theme is a wordpress theme that is built by web developers for the sole purpose of being sold online. The theme is normally licensed for 1 yr of updates & offers limited support.
A premium theme is never built for a specific type of business, there are the odd exceptions. Premium themes are normally developed so that they appeal to a wide variety of business types. Unfortunately, just like tradesman, there are good and bad Wordpress Premium Themes. There are no fixed standards or certification that designates a theme as being premium. Anyone can build a WordPress theme, brand it as premium, and offer it for sale.
It is always best to purchase a Wordpress theme from a reputable, premium theme seller with a proven track record!
We recommend the following Premium Wordpress Theme suppliers:
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WooThemes offers a wide variety of well coded and easily manage Wordpress themes. A yearly license will be required to gain access to updates and support. All WooThemes themes support the top eCommerce platform, WooCommerce!
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ThemeForest also offers a wide variety of Wordpress themes & they sell themes for other frameworks. In our opinion the standard of code required to be allow to list your theme is not as high as WooThemes. ThemeForest does offer more affordable Premium Wordpress Themes. Always read the comments below the theme info to get a good idea of how well the theme author supports his/ her theme. The comments will give you a good idea of issues that users have encountered.
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Elegant Themes offers a variety of premium Wordpress themes. Elegant Themes works on a membership system where you have access to all of their themes!
What can you expect from a reputable Premium Wordpress Theme seller?
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Quality: If you choose a reputable premium theme seller you should get a product of superior quality than if you used a free theme! When you use a reputable theme seller you can expect coding the meets the compliance standards and responsive design.
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Functionality: Most free Wordpress themes will not have the functionality or support that you may require! A premium theme will be more likely to have the functionality that you are looking for. If a theme does not have the functionality that you are looking for you can find another theme the has it. Alternatively, you can use the services of a qualified web developer to add the services for you. Note: adding additional functionality to free and premium theme can be very costly!
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Security: The code of the premium theme will not have malicious code in it unlike many free Wordpress themes. You can read more about the security risks of using a free Wordpress theme!
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Updates: Premium Wordpress Themes are normally updated on a regular basis. However, if the theme is not popular, the theme developer may retire the theme and no longer update it! Often you will find that free themes are not update at all!
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Support: If you use a free Wordpress theme you will have to go to the Wordpress forums and ask for help and hope that someone replies. Free theme developers are under no obligation to help! When you buy a Premium Wordpress Theme you can rely on timely support from knowledgable theme developers. The support will be limited to helping you with your issue but they will not work on your website for you! They will only help to figure out your issue and will advise you how to rectify the issue!
When should you use a premium theme?
The answer to this question will vary depending on whom you speak too. We believe that premium Wordpress themes should be used for small websites, testing of entreprenurial ideas, when you have a small tight budget or if your company is only starting up! We will explain why we feel this way.
We have a fortunate insight into what is required for a website to stand the best chance of Google love. It is a balance of good code, speed, on-page SEO , great content and many people interacting with your content. There is more too it but these are the basic requirements.
We must always remember that a premium theme has been designed and developed so that it will appeal to all business and website types. This is wonderful for the theme developer but not always great for the user that installs the premium theme. What this means is that often the premium theme that you are using is loading a lot of scripts and additional functionality that you are not using and do not need. This can affect the speed of your website
A well coded custom Wordpress theme will always be the best if you have the budget because it will be focused on only suplying the functionality that your business requires and will be optimised for your businesses specific needs!
The benefits of using a premium theme!
Premium Wordpress Themes have numerous advantages, we will only list the main advantages:
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Very quick installation and trun around time from now website to a live working website
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Updated regularly.
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Timely, knowledgable support
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Most premium themes will support mobiles and tablets
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Drag and drop page builders (Note: Also listed under disadvantages)
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More affordable than building a 100% custom Wordpress theme!
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Very good for testing out ideas and responses to different layouts and potential business opportunities!
The disadvantages of using a premium theme!
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Too many features – In order to sell more themes, theme developers can add too many unnecessary features into their themes. You will probably never use all those features, but they are still there making your website slow.
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Poor Code – Some times you may end up buying a premium theme that looks pretty but has poor coding standards which could make it incompatible with some plugins. Mainly because these themes don’t have to go through a strict review process.
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Crossing over into Plugins domain – Sometimes WordPress themes can cross over into plugins domain, offering functionality that they are not supposed to offer. For example, creating custom post types, shortcodes, and other things that would disappear as soon as you switch theme
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Theme developer can decide at any stage to discontinue updates and support for a theme. Some themes have a lifespan of +/- 5 yrs!
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Premium themes are often installed by people that do not have adequate knowledge in HTML, CSS and PHP which leaves the website vulnerable to hacking!
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Use page builders! Having the option of a page builder is a wonderful tool in the write hands but can be damaging to the performance of the website when use by a novice that does not understand correct on-page SEO factors. Some page builders also add horrible code that slows and undermines the good code on the page!
Choosing a premium Wordpress theme!
Some things to consider before chooisng a premium Wordpress theme:
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Do you really need all or most of features, custom theme admin options, sliders, and other goodies for your website?
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Can you troubleshoot WordPress issues on your own or you need help with them?
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Do you want a professional looking theme that’s not very common or you are fine with a basic layout?
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Do you need additional functionality that the theme does not cover? This could be very costly!
How can we help you!
We are always here to help you with your install or adding additional functionality to your premium theme.
If you need our professional team to install your premium theme please make use of our quotation estimator. If you are requiring additional functionality please use the button below, please give us as much detail of the functionality that you require!
Instant estimation for your website