You have started a blog and now its time to learn how to design your blog the way you want.
“Design is thinking made visual “quote from famous American graphic designer Saul boss. The look and the impression take your blog to the next level. I don’t insist you create a Wow! looking blog. Your design should be simple, yet standing out of the norm.
WordPress gives you a set of predefined templates called WordPress themes. Presenting a final look to your blog is as easy as you installed the blog. There are a lot of professionally designed, fully-customizable themes to choose from, so you now have got a lot of options.
What to choose? Free or Premium WordPress theme? Read the real incident before deciding.
Either you can go ahead with the free WordPress themes, or you can choose premium themes. I prefer premium themes because it has all the modern day functionalities you need.
When I first started my blog, I was not ready to invest in a theme. I thought,
When there is a free theme provided by WordPress itself, why should I buy a premium theme?
Some people still agree with this question. At the start, I really loved the free themes and then later on after reading and understanding more about ranking a blog and earning money, I came to know I love the free themes only because it was free and it doesn’t provide me with any specialities to rank my website, or it was mobile responsive. Finally, I wasted a lot of time in designing my blog. Free themes developers don’t provide enough support to me, I google every now and then to setup my blog and then after doing this I learnt that the reason behind the slowdown of website was due the free theme. Then I purchased a premium theme from themeforest and then designed my blog effectively. I got support and manuals from the theme developer and I got access to the support forum by the theme developers. They were ready to help me in the customisation. This premium theme made my work easy. I felt like I must have bought the premium theme earlier. I want you not to have the feel and waste time like I did.
Why don’t I recommend to install a free theme?
You can get the free themes for WordPress directory.
- The features and functionality are limited and is not updated to the current competitive environment.
- A lot of people use free themes, and it will not help you stand out of the norm. It is not so unique.
- There is no warranty for the free themes, and there is a limited support option from the developers, if something goes wrong, you take charge.
- Compatibility issues with the current version of WordPress
- Not SEO friendly.
- However, after a specific period, you will shift to a premium theme. The time you invested in free themes customisation is totally waste.
Why are Premium themes worth the money you pay?
- Jaw dropping features and functionalities
- Regular updates
- Support forums that quickly address your issues
- Elegant look and design make you more unique
- Premium themes are SEO optimised
Where to get the premium theme?
ThemeForest is the world’s most popular WordPress theme marketplace. Its Envato marketplace has various other features like Envato elements, Envato tutorials and much more. From a buyer perspective, theme forest provides more than 11,000 themes priced from13dollars and a bit overwhelming to choose the theme.
- Use filters to choose the theme for your need and then buy.
- Check whether your theme is
- SEO optimised
- Mobile responsive
- Woo commerce supportive and much more.
Another modern day page builder I recommend is Divi.
This page builder plugin comes with the both free and pro version. You can use the free version with the theme you purchased. Keep in mind the pro version has its own benefits.
The pro version has 54 widgets, and then you can access templates for various pages.
checkout Divi here
How to install a free or premium theme you love?
Login to your blog and you will see the dashboard like this.
Click on appearance and head over to themes, If you choose a free theme, then click on the theme name and click on activate.
In case of a premium theme, just click on add new and add the zip file of the purchased premium theme. Click on activate and activate the theme.
Okay, you learnt What a free theme and a premium theme and various directories where you can get the themes are. Finally, to install the theme through the WordPress dashboard
Finally, you have installed the theme and you can customise the blog as you want and read that here.
Next Steps:
1.The essential pages your blog needs