I’ve built some BIG themes and some teeny ones. And I can say with no reservation that getting a theme custom-developed is pretty much a stupid idea.
Why? Because it’s a ton of work and it’ll cost you a small fortune when you get the same thing (or very close to it) by using an existing theme and just tweaking it a bit.
Plus you end up missing out on great features that a professional, premium theme usually includes.
For example, most premium themes have some easy way to add in tracking codes. Which means you save yourself from installing yet another plugin.
And a lot of premium themes have good SEO built right in. A custom theme normally won’t have that unless you pay extra to add it in.
So what do you when you want a custom look but without starting from scratch? (And without losing bad-ass features that come with premium themes?)
You start with a good theme that does 50% to 99% of what you need and then you pay someone to customise it.
But you don’t let them edit the original theme. Nope. You get them to make a “child theme”.
A “child theme” inherits all the settings and styles of the “parent theme” that it’s created from. From there, you change what you want but you never end up destroying the original theme.
Why?
So that if the original theme gets a security update or a new feature, then your website can benefit from that without you having to hire a coder to make the changes.
You can keep updating the “parent theme” (and benefitting from the hard work of others) while still having your own branding on your site.
Best of both worlds.
Just make sure you buy a good theme from a well-known company and hire a good coder for your customisations.
For good themes, I recommend Thrive Themes and for good coders I recommend…
Me of course!
–> Contact me here to get started on your new theme.