If your going to build an online business there are three important things that are really worth taking into consideration.

1.Investing in your business

2. Future proofing

3. Functionality

1. Investing in your business

Most people come to the online business with a mindset that everything should be free because it is digital and are loathed to invest any money in their online business which leads to the mindset that there is an easy button.

If you invest in paid theme you are investing in your business which means you are investing in your own future, this changes your mindset and you start to see it more like a business than just a make money online opportunity.

There are no business that succeed without investment, don't fall into the trap that because it is online its not like other business, an online business is no different than any other business, for it to succeed requires time and investment -Period

2. Future proofing

The big downside of free themes is that one day they will stop being updated and what you don't want is your business to be held back by an outdated theme, if you pay for a themeit is guaranteed to be constantly updated and don't forget that paid themes are usually mobile optimized as you may be aware google is now bringing in mobile optimized sites as a ranking factor. The Genesis them is automatically mobile optimized so no need for a plugin that's what I mean by future proofing

Functionality

Over time you will want to add things to your site and this will probably mean adding scripts in other words code to your theme or site and most people find this very daunting but with genesis this is easy as can be seen by the pictures below

Enable auto updates and choose the colour style of the site without code just select the colour from a drop down menu

Enable feed-burner easily if you wish select up to 6 different page layouts for every page you create. Create landing pages at a click of a button no codding.

Enable breadcrumbs at the click of a button which create better navigation no need to add code just check a box to enable

Allow comments, trackbacks and create archives easily

Create a blog template

Add scripts and code without having to go into your WP editor so less chance of getting it wrong

Next page - Widgets, sidebars and footers