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HELP: I need advice for website design themes for local businesses, please...

by magentawave
11 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
I am looking for a source with lots of great looking off-the-shelf responsive themes for local businesses (flooring stores, restaurants, bars, bike stores, etc., etc.).

A google search for "local business themes" didn't bring back a lot of results, but this site https://nexusthemes.com/wordpress-themes/ has lots of local business themes. They charge $75 per theme plus $55 if you want the images ($130 total).

Does anyone have any other suggestions for finding great looking and responsive local business themes that actually work? (I said "actually work" because I've tried a few free WP themes that were awful.)

Thanks
#advice #businesses #design #local #themes #website
  • Profile picture of the author anshdeb
    Well, "free" themes only work if they are from the wordpress directory. Or atleast they are the only themes that worked for me.

    For paid themes, your one stop spot should be themeforest https://themeforest.net/category/wordpress

    You can find tons of varieties of wordpress themes, html themes and a lot more. Make sure to check out their site.

    Hope this helped.
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  • Profile picture of the author mandy29
    Try Studiopress for a large assortment of responsive themes that 'work'. It's $499 for 50+ themes built on the genesis framework. Plus, if you install genesis hooks(free), you can bend these themes to make new ones. Also, get another free plugin to continue to extend functionality - genesis simple edits.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anna Gondzik
    Having worked with genesis & themeforest WP themes for nearly 6 years now, I learned some things. Mainly, stay away from very industry specific, gimmicky themes with low popularity / mediocre ratings. They are often super flimsy in the back-end. I liken it to home-staging.

    I used to buy 100 different themes for 100 different customers never reusing the same theme twice cause I wanted to be "original." What a stupid mistake. I shake my head looking back. Half those themes became obsolete in a matter of months and learning 100 different frameworks was such a waste of time (for the most part).

    It's better to learn and support 2-3 really solid, ultra flexible themes. In fact, I wrote whole blog about it to help web developers and small business owners choose the right theme for their business.
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    • Profile picture of the author magentawave
      That was a great point you made about sticking with just a few theme builders so thanks for mentioning that. (The link to your article was messed up so here's the correct link: The Definitive Guide: Choosing the Best WordPress Theme for Your Business | iTec)


      A few questions for you and anyone else reading this...

      1) Any thoughts on Themify or Divi by Elegant Themes? (Both let you build unlimited sites for unlimited clients with a one-time fee.)

      2) Since you said to stay away from industry-specific themes... if you were starting new with no portfolio of sites that you built for others, how would you deal with someone that wanted you to build them a site for their carpet cleaning business? Would you provide them links to other carpet cleaning websites just to give them a starting point?

      Thanks again.


      Originally Posted by Anna Gondzik View Post

      Having worked with genesis & themeforest WP themes for nearly 6 years now, I learned some things. Mainly, stay away from very industry specific, gimmicky themes with low popularity / mediocre ratings. They are often super flimsy in the back-end. I liken it to home-staging.

      I used to buy 100 different themes for 100 different customers never reusing the same theme twice cause I wanted to be "original." What a stupid mistake. I shake my head looking back. Half those themes became obsolete in a matter of months and learning 100 different frameworks was such a waste of time (for the most part).

      It's better to learn and support 2-3 really solid, ultra flexible themes. In fact, I wrote whole blog about it to help business owners and web developers find the right theme the first time.
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      • Profile picture of the author Anna Gondzik
        hey magenta, thanks for the fix.

        I generally like most themes by Elegant. I haven't heard of themify yet! but will check them out.

        I am a bit more comfortable with back-end stuff, so when I see the full blown drag n drop builders (I mean like when you're on the actual web page resizing things!) I get nauseous thinking about how painful the backend will be if something breaks or becomes incompatible with some plugin. And also the "heaviness" of the whole thing.

        I mean, I'm all for making life easier, and making the client's life easier with easy page builders, but you have to be really careful with which one you choose.

        I decided to put my priorities in order; do I want a million "cool features," "parallax" and special effects, or do I want a high-converting website? The truth is, super high converting websites don't use fancy sliders, parallax, accordions, weird tabs, weird layouts, weirdly laid out blogs or any of the stuff we see in 90% of these themes.

        At the same time, I'm not a "super designer" so I can't use bare-bones themes or genesis too often, and I'd rather have a lot of built-in styling elements (this is something I can get behind.) I find myself reaching for the7 and BeTheme alot. I especially like betheme because you don't even have to add a hardcore SEO plugin to it (I normally use Yoast). One huge downside though: you have to optimize the websites for SPEED, this can be a pain because there is a lot of work here (but this can always be treated a separate or add-on project).
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  • Profile picture of the author magentawave
    If you guys were starting new with no portfolio of sites that you built for others, how would you deal with someone that wanted you to build them a site for their carpet cleaning business? Would you provide them links to other carpet cleaning websites just so you could see what they like and use that as a starting point?
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  • Profile picture of the author turbojarhead1
    Look up Jack Hopman, the lead guy. You can get 200+ pre-made for about $40 or so a month, including images, forms, etc. If you are selling sites or doing lead gen, I found his sites effective.
    Local Theme Jack – Drag & Drop | Number One Local WordPress Site

    (Not an Affiliate link)
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  • Profile picture of the author magentawave
    I did a lot of research and decided on going with Themify. I build my themes from scratch using their Builder but all of their theme are very reasonably priced and their customer support forum is the best I have ever experienced. Seriously. You have a question about what code to use to do X and their staff will produce it for you. I really mean it when I say that I couldn't be happier with my decision to go with Themify.
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    • Profile picture of the author trevordd
      Banned
      Thanks for the suggestion too! I find Themify very useful for me as well. I have already found some nice things for me there. I also like creating websites using Website Builder MotoCMS. There is a lot of great templates for it too which might be very useful for you too. Check it out
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  • Profile picture of the author Fredbou
    Originally Posted by magentawave View Post

    I am looking for a source with lots of great looking off-the-shelf responsive themes for local businesses (flooring stores, restaurants, bars, bike stores, etc., etc.).

    A google search for "local business themes" didn't bring back a lot of results, but this site https://nexusthemes.com/wordpress-themes/ has lots of local business themes. They charge $75 per theme plus $55 if you want the images ($130 total).

    Does anyone have any other suggestions for finding great looking and responsive local business themes that actually work? (I said "actually work" because I've tried a few free WP themes that were awful.)

    Thanks
    Unless your client wants a CMS to do their own updates then I would stick with HTML templates compared to using WordPress. Wordpress is cumbersome, it attracts hackers and is quite complex to use for many people.

    At Themeforest.net you can buy great responsive HTML templates for $10-$17 that are easy to use and modify and are fast-loading. There are also many free responsive HTML templates available, but spending a few dollars for a site that you are being paid to build is peanuts. You don't need to know a lot of HTML/CSS and even the free ones work!

    Just my 2 cents of advice after a lot of experience.
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  • Profile picture of the author IvanJackson
    Was in exactly the same position years ago. The web development company I ended building focuses on the Divi theme. It is extremely customizable. and our clients LOVE the front end editor as it allows them to make quick updates to the site without the need to code.
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