My name is Matthew Bredel and as of March, 2007, I am a full-time, work-at-home internet marketer.
For close to 10 years, I worked for a defense company which was an OK job, but I was so uninspired in life and frankly, I needed some more money. That is when I first discovered internet marketing! Now I admit that I didn't start making thousands in my first couple of months (in fact, I lost my shirt!), but I finally saw the "internet light"...
In the process of trying to improve my Wordpress blog, increase traffic, exposure (and potentially, revenue), I have been struggling quite a bit to find my new “look”. If you have been around lately, you may have noticed a few new themes come and go and frankly, I have not been happy about any of [...]
In the process of trying to improve my Wordpress blog, increase traffic, exposure (and potentially, revenue), I have been struggling quite a bit to find my new “look”. If you have been around lately, you may have noticed a few new themes come and go and frankly, I have not been happy about any of them.
In late hours of the evening, while I try to watch American Idol in the background, I have been browsing the internet for that “perfect” theme. There are a few that I just think are cool. For example, I like Darren Rowse’s Problogger.net theme. I don’ know why, but the “busyness” of it kind of appeals to me. It seems to have plenty of other links and features that my blog lacks. Doing my research, this one appears to be a custom design (no surprise), but it gives me a few ideas!
In my searches, I have found a few sites that I thought had some cool themes:
- This is the mother of all free Wordpress Themes, but I have found it almost too overwhelming and difficult to browse
- Not a bad selection here and the navigation is OK.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
This website has a couple of pages of pretty kick-ass themes, and I also like it because I can browse them really quickly. The selection is small, but the quality is rather good.
Again, quite a few to choose from, but not easy to navigate.
I kind of liked the navigation of this one, but it seems that you need to register (and the random dynamic advertising pop-ups kind of frustrated me)
The current theme that I am using right now is a Semiologic theme, which is probably one of the most flexible ones currently available. It acts as more of a content management system than a blog. And then there are 1000s of other sites, primarily blogs, that also offer their collection of recommended themes that can be downloaded. So what do you do?
One thing that is great about Wordpress is that integrating new themes is relatively easy. Personally, I am not too concerned about using a pre-existing theme and sharing a backlink with its creator. Still, for the “image” that I have in my mind, I do not know if I will ever be satisfied with mainstream. The question that we all need to ask, though, is:
“Do I really need to pay hundreds, if not thousands for a custom Wordpress Theme if there are so many free ones to choose from?”
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Puuh! I can see your dilemma! How do you choose between all that?
Lots of very professional looking themes so I would say it is not necessary to spend big bucks on something custom made. After all, it’s the content that really matters, right? + good marketing, of course.
On the other hand, I can understand the feeling of having something that is unique to YOUR site. Especially when you have big plans for the future.
If you are never going to be 100% happy with a ready made one, maybe you should just go ahead and have your own designed instead of driving yourself crazy by looking at that humongous selection out there?
I haven’t even got a blog yet but I could see myself spending months trying to decide on a theme. I’m sure there are better ways to spend my time.
Best,
Norena
February 7th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Hi Matt,
I too, concur with Norena: with so many to choose from, how DOES one make a decision?
A few thoughts. You mentioned that there were some things that you liked about the site: identify exactly what it is about what Darren has on his site that attracts you, and then try to incorporate that yourself into a pre-existing WP theme. The other thought that I have is to contact Darren, ask him who his designer is and ask to be referred. Or,what about hiring a college student that is studying webdesign and have him design a website with smiliar characteristics/features? Costs would be reduced. Another idea is to set up a joint venture proposition where you offer advertising space on your webspace in exchange for webdesign? That could be time limited or whatever parameters you establish.
Hope that these ideas help to spark an aha! moment for you.
Cheers,
Liz
February 8th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I am really with both of you on this one. I see that I *COULD* contact Darren’s designer (since it is referenced on the bottom of his blog…hint! hint! to those who want to know where a theme was designed, there is usually a backlink at the bottom of the page!). My dilemma: Do I really need to PAY for a theme? There are just so many out there. Your advice is right, though…pick one that is good, and just make it better. That is probably the strategy that I will use, but it still won’t be perfect…at least in my eyes…
No one else will probably notice at all! cheers…matt
February 8th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Why does anyone want to be like anyone else? The most interesting sites come from people who are completely different than anyone else, with originality and interesting appeal. Let other people mimic you!!!
When I was young, in formative years, Mother taught us to be ourselves (8 girls and l boy!), that we could be anything we chose to be. From childhood, we as a family and individually were copy-catted no matter what it was, and popular where ever we lived! It has never mattered to me whether anyone liked or disliked me, I liked myself, and still do, and that has been many years (I won’t tell you how many, you wouldn’t believe it!)
Cheers, Matt, be yourself!!
February 8th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Hey Matt,
We must be in parallel universes at the moment because I’ve been shopping around as well. I’ve recently starting building a few sites and wanted a WP magazine theme. I am at a point now where I’ve changed the theme three times in two places waiting for something to grow on me and feel right. I was playing with one called Structure which I found at a friend’s blog and my selection du jour is Delectio (found at Smashing Mag) which is starting to grow on me. Looking forward to seeing the new look
February 9th, 2008 at 10:05 am
[...] those who frequent my blog may have noticed a big change! I wrote about this a few months ago in Finding the Best Wordpress Theme. At that time, I was getting discouraged about finding a free one but after a bit of searching, I [...]
March 21st, 2008 at 7:15 am
Thank you for your comment. I read your Blog nearly every day.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:02 am
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September 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
[...] Inside the Internet Marketing Mind » Finding the Best Free Wordpress Theme (February 7th, 2008 at 11:15 am ) [...]
June 4th, 2009 at 10:32 am
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July 23rd, 2009 at 6:16 am