A major reason behind the popularity of WordPress is the easy availability of various readymade themes to help you give your website or blog a unique look. In fact, a search for “wordpress themes” on Google returns over 154,000,000 results.
However, searching for WordPress themes on Google is not the best solution, and this is where premium theme providers come into play. In this article, I shall be taking a closer look at some of the leading premium theme makers for WordPress.
Free is great, right? Who doesn’t like free stuff?
But when it comes to free WordPress themes, ‘free’ doesn’t always equal ‘great’. In fact, sometimes free sucks.
Why? Because sometimes you need more than most free themes can deliver. You need complex functionality, kick-ass design, and rock-solid support.
This is where premium themes come in to play.
There are various free and paid WordPress themes out there, each meant for a specific purpose. In this article, I shall be discussing six points that you should keep in mind when choosing a premium WordPress theme.
1. The Seller
Thesis 2, the premium WordPress framework, was launched with much anticipation, and even some controversy. But overall, Thesis users have become accustomed to its new features and have started to make skins available for download.
One such entry to the market is a responsive skin called Thesis Eleven40, from ICustomizeThesis.com.
1140 Responsive Grid
Last updated: 11:35 am Eastern Time on October 18, 2012
About this Theme Review
This is the much anticipated Round 2 of the WordPress Premium Theme Framework Comparison, which has dozens of valuable comments appreciating the WPMU DEV review, correcting errors (that I then updated in the post), telling me how I skipped that person’s favorite one, and asking for additional insights. That’s exactly what I want this one, Round 2, to be.
To be clear, my goals in comparing themes in this table format are to:
Last week, Thesis 2.0 was released as a premium WordPress Theme Framework. It was the first major update, a total theme re-conception really, in more than four years.
The result is a drag and drop website and theme creator like no other; with the ability to create custom websites in just minutes with absolutely no custom coding.
Thesis 2.0 is comprised by four featured areas; Site Options, Skins, Boxes, and Packages. Each has a distinct function, powerful in its simplicity.
Site Options
I tend to review more plugins than themes here on WPMU. After all, you can use multiple plugins on a website, but only one theme.
But every now and then, I find a theme that I can’t help but review. Something that gives me a proverbial slap around the face and demands my attention.
Today I have received such a slap, from a premium responsive portfolio theme available on ThemeForest called BigBang. If you’re in the market for a new theme, this is something you need to take a close look at.
The Homepage
When you launch a new website, you want something that looks great, is easy to set up, and doesn’t cost too much. While some free WordPress themes fit the bill, I usually recommend finding a reputable, supported premium theme. Caution: You should think twice before choosing some of the most alluring, beautiful, feature-packed themes out there. Let me show you what I mean.
Beautiful demos
Hunting for just the right WordPress theme can be very time-consuming, even if you know a dozen different places to look for themes. It involves browsing each of those sites to look at all of the themes offered. Themescroller is a new site that lets you browse WordPress themes from marketplaces like Themeforest, Woothemes, WordPress.org, Elegantthemes and more coming soon.
Last updated: 9:45 am Eastern Time on December 12, 2012
(Also see Round 2)
About this Theme Review
When looking for a theme framework, I want to make sure it can handle any project that comes my way. I want to know my chosen theme framework inside and out. I don’t want to have to pick Genesis for this, Elegant Themes for that, and PageLines when “X”. I want to know it will work with MultiSite and popular plugins. I want page loading optimized, the ability to choose responsive or not, and a solid support channel for when I need help or want to flesh out some ideas.
WordPress is awesome because it provides a great core and is infinitely extendable. Thousands of themes, plugins, add-ons, and management portals exist to make WordPress do whatever you want it to do.
Some of the most popular plugins are free, like Akismet, Contact Form 7, All in One SEO Pack, NextGEN Gallery, and Google Analytics for WordPress with a combined download count of 38,752,164.
WordPress’ free themes directory has over 1,500 themes, including a variety of colors, fixed- or flexible-widths, translation-ready, widget-ready, microformat-enabled, and HTML5 themes to choose from.
Premium WordPress Extensions
