Nightmare on theme street!
Well, I guess most of us know Freddy Krueger, right? One, two, Freddy's coming for you, hehehehe, just don't fall asleep. And the best antidote for not falling asleep is racking your brain out trying to find the best theme, correct? Well in my case this has been my biggest challenge, along with intermittent internet connection for the past month. Oh, how I would love to become Freddy for one night and slide my finger blades across some of those Telco's throats. Start earning your millions, boys, or otherwise don't nod off.
So if I may, I would like to give some advice to you newbies.
As you are aware, there are so many themes in WP. Some are pretty, some are plain, some are complex, etc., etc., etc., agree?
I have tried many different free themes and found one I liked. To make it more impressive, I paid about $50 to upgrade to the premium. A BAD MISTAKE. This theme had eight plugins alone, and I required an additional three. A total of 11. And for you younger ones I didn't need a calculator to come up with that total. Freddy can count.
The theme I purchased was so slow that if it fell off the Empire State Building, it would fall so slowly that it wouldn't break a bone. Not even scratch itself. The theme was costing 40% of traffic visiting my site. Because no one is going to hang around for 10 seconds or more waiting to get onto a site they do not know. They would stay for APPLE, but I am not APPLE. I'm just trying to get a piece of the APPLE.
I deleted this paid theme and bought another premium theme. Aaaahhh, I can sleep at last.This time I did my homework. And I will be using this theme for all of my projects. Furthermore, their customer service is excellent. It took me three months to finally discover THE THEME OF MY DREAMS.....
So my advice to newbies is:
- Test your website theme at pingdom.com before purchasing a premium theme
- Before moving on to a premium theme ask the developer questions about plugins and speed. How many plugins are required to function the site properly
- You will want excellent customer service, so submit a question before you upgrade and see how long it takes for a response
OH, AND BY THE WAY ARE YOU HAVING NIGHTMARES ABOUT THEMES??? You can tell Freddy in the comments box. Sweet dreams hahahahaha!!!!!!!
Recent Comments
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The theme is Freddy always comes back! https://www.bing.com/videos/search for hell theme iunder Chrome!
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Brad; I like your writing style. Up to now I do not understand the Theme. How it help my website?
Hey Dorcas,
His newbie advice nearer the bottom of his blog explains how it can help you to find a quality theme. The 3 bullet points shows how.
Hope this helps you.
Hi Dorcas,
I found the themes to be a nightmare. It took me ages to find the right theme. Some themes are that slow in loading that you will lose traffic. Check your website at pingdom.com and see how it rates. The theme I have now I am very happy with and it is by GeneratePress. I bought the premium and I can use it on multiple sites. The customer service is excellent and so is the theme.
Tom Usborne is the head designer and fantastic support also from Leo Hsiang.
Some themes are a spin-off to pay money to download other premium plugins that offer great page builders. They look nice but there is too much happening. One of the themes I had requires 8 plugins and that is without your SEO, MailChimp and whatever other plugins you need. So you are looking at probably 10 or 11 plugins minimum. Way too many!!!!
I did manage to quicken up the 8 plugin theme by just over 30% by downloading 3 lots of zip folders for 3 different codes but that is a hassle and it only got me to a score of about 35 out of 100. Initially, my site was in the bottom 5%.
5 months ago I wouldn't have known anything about this stuff but now it is starting to sink in and I am now at the stage where I should learn code.
Good luck Dorcas.
Best regards
Brad