Free Or Paid Wordpress Themes - Any Difference

[terryd]

Just looking at setting up a blog but was wondering if there is any benefit in purchasing a themed wordpress template instead of opting for some freebie one?

Are the paid ones better SEO'd or is it purely for looks?

Cheers,
Terry

[soffell]

I buy premium theme cos' have uniqe design than other one

SEO not related with design I think CMIIW

[Swastik]

It's for the looks, and the support and ease of customization.

There are some themes that are better from SEO view, like the Thesis, and the UBT.

[montecore]

The price on the theme isn't related to it's SEO virtues.

You can get a free theme that ranks you wicked-fast or you can pay for a theme that gets you nowhere.

Always go the due diligence route and TEST the hell out of the theme/site.

[bgmacaw]

The best SEO optimized themes are going to be those that take a minimalist approach, have content before sidebars, use proper tagging and don't have a lot of junk code. Both free and paid themes do this.

Paid themes are mainly for ease of use by PHP/HTML/CSS/PhotoShop neophytes or those who have these skills but don't want to take the time to create a theme themselves.

[Darren Mothersele]

As a rule commercial themes are put together with much more attention to detail in all areas; design, layout, typography and SEO. There are of course exceptions that prove the rule, in both poor quality commercial themes, and very high quality free themes, but on the whole (as you would expect) commercial themes are much better.

SEO and web standards vary, and can be quite good even in free themes. Use the W3C validator to check for problems and, as someone mentioned above, test for SEO performance.

The most common area that commercial themes exceed is in CSS typography. The attention to detail some commercial themes place on typography makes them a pleasure to read. Just look at Thesis based themes as an example. Blogs based on Thesis really are a joy to read.

[Solidsnake]

Originally Posted by terryd

Just looking at setting up a blog but was wondering if there is any benefit in purchasing a themed wordpress template instead of opting for some freebie one?

Are the paid ones better SEO'd or is it purely for looks?

Cheers,
Terry

There's a lot of free good themes... just search google.. no need to pay..

[dsmpublishing]

I think there is some lovely free ones out there without having to shell out for a paid one. But it depends what its for

[blackscorpion]

Free ones may also give a backlink to the creator of the theme.

[absolutelee]

I've used nothing but free themes and they seem to work quite well. I use very minimalist themes. Both for SEO and for the benefit of my visitor. Minimalist works--look at Google's and eBay's home pages. The SEO friendliness of your site depends more on the coding of the blog. Also, it depends on the plugins you use. All in one SEO is a great plugin that I use, which I think benefits me.

[montecore]

Bottom line is you get what you pay for. Thesis is a GREAT theme, ranks me like mad.

For those who think free themes need to retain the backlink to the creater, not so. The footers are encrypted but super easy to decrypt.

Just chance the eval() to Print() or Echo() and view the file in a browser, then view source. Copy/paste the actual HTML over the BS eval statements and you're set. No backlinks to a jerkoff designer.

hxxp://smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/

[angela99]

Originally Posted by terryd

Just looking at setting up a blog but was wondering if there is any benefit in purchasing a themed wordpress template instead of opting for some freebie one?

Are the paid ones better SEO'd or is it purely for looks?

Cheers,
Terry

I've bought four blog themes, one with a developer's license, because I loved them, and couldn't find what they had in a free theme.

Here are the results:

* One theme built on a specific platform (not WP) was so complicated I gave it up in frustration;

* I wanted to make changes in one theme and couldn't get a response from the developer;

* One theme suddenly went open source --!

* One theme I love, and am glad I purchased, no hassles at all.

My tip: FWIW, don't buy a commercial theme unless you MUST because it does something or other that you need in a particular blog. There are lots of great WP themes which are totally free.

Prepare to be annoyed too, as a developer suddenly decides that his (expensive) theme should suddenly go open source... :-)

Cheers

Angela

[dean_holland]

Hey

Mine is free and its all good

Have contemplated getting a paid one in the new year though to have more uniqueness

Well actually Im thinking of over hauling my entire blog and getting more of a 'self brand' going on

Good luck

Dean

[Steve Crooks]

If you have a bit of skill with HTML and PHP you can always "base" a customised theme on a good free one to get it how you want it. Of course you have to pay attention to any copyright issues with this.

[Scott Chambers]

I tried a whole amount of free ones before deciding on which design to go with. Customizing the theme isn't that difficult if you have even a bit of design knowledge. Check YouTube for tutorials.

I would always say that the content was much more important than the theme. As long as it looks as if you've put some kind of effort into it and it looks professional, then you should do fine. I find that flashy, expensive looking sites tend to put your average site visitor off.

[Bob Monie]

Free and Paid themes have little to no SEO value by themselfs. SEO is improved in wordpress using SEO plugins.

Paid theme is of value due to the fact that its origional and no other blog sites are using it.