Choosing A Premium Theme For Your Wordpress Web Site, Part 3

This is part 3 of a 3 part series on premium Wordpress themes. If you missed parts 1 and 2 of the series, you can see them at:

Choosing A Premium Theme For Your Wordpress Web Site, Part 1

Choosing A Premium Theme For Your Wordpress Web Site, Part 2

Section 3, What Do I Get For My Money?

In Section 1 we discussed finding out what your needs and wants are and setting your expectations. Section 2 looked at how to go about determining the quality of a theme. In this section we'll take a look at what you actually get when you purchase a premium theme.

What you actually get when you purchase a premium theme may vary significantly between sellers. Some theme authors are simply out to sell themes while others are trying to build a business around it and are willing and eager to provide everything you will need to get the best out of your theme.

The prices may possibly differ between the two, but not necessarily in the way you would expect. There doesn't seem to be a lot of correlation between the price of the theme and the extras you get. The extras aren't always listed, so you may need to ask what's included and what's not included.

Page templates

Page templates are technically a part of any theme and you'll get them anyway, but we're including them here because it's not always evident what kind of page templates are included.

When you write a page in WordPress you will have the option of applying a page template to it. The templates can be very minor variations on the basic theme. As an example, it might have the sidebar on the opposite side of the page, or no sidebar at all.

Where these page templates really start to do some important work for you is when they represent alternative core functionality.

Wordpress allows you to replace the default home page with a different page if you wish. If the theme author has provided page templates with different styles of home page, you can apply these to a Wordpress page of your choosing and assign it to be your home page to change the way the theme works.

If you purchase a theme that was intended to be used as a normal website instead of a blog, the default home page may not show any of your posts. If you should later decide you want a normal blog it's easy to make the change if the theme's author has provided a blog style page template.

If the theme does include page templates they may be limited to different styles of home page, or they may include more variations such as pages that have a featured post at the top, several variations on sidebar position, multiple posts in different layouts, etc.

A really neat looking feature that has just become available from one premium theme provider is flash-like fading photos on the front page. These create a really great looking effect. Take a look at the demo of Titanium Premium Wordpress Theme to see this in action.

Instructions

With a new theme you will probably have choices for new ways of putting your content together. Features such as adding an image to represent the post, changing the theme header, or using images with captions can be difficult to figure out at times without some guidance from the themes author.

The quality and quantity of the instructions you get with a premium theme can vary widely. You may only get a "read me" file in the theme itself, or you may get multiple video demos of the functionality and even tutorials in PDF format.

Although you are not necessarily paying extra for these instructions, and very often they are available free on the website as tutorials (which makes them an excellent source of information before you buy), they can absolutely make the difference between a new theme that works well and one that just causes you a lot of headaches and frustration, so it's worth considering what kind of instructions are available as part of the cost.

Photoshop files

Even if the instructions are detailed and you know how to change the header, actually changing it without the original Photoshop files can be difficult at best. You may need to find the correct dimensions, determine what typeface the original is in, duplicate all the styles involved, etc., so having a Photoshop file to work from can make it a whole lot easier.

In some cases a Photoshop file is included with the theme by default, and may not even be mentioned as a selling point. In other cases you will have to pay extra for it and you will then need to decide whether it is worth the extra cost or not.

For those simple themes where the header is a regular background image, there isn't necessarily a need for it. For more complicated themes, especially those where the header text is a key component, it can be very difficult to do without it.

Compatibility with feature upgrades?

The theme you buy should be compatible with whatever version of Wordpress you are currently using, or that you are planning on using, but what happens when Wordpress upgrades, which they do quite often?

If a feature is changed in Wordpress or a new feature is added (tagging and sidebars are good examples of relatively recent feature additions) the theme may need to be updated to match the new version of Wordpress. The important question is whether you are entitled to a free upgrade of the theme or not.

The themes themselves most likely won't remain without change either. Customer feedback and requests and new trends mean that themes will likely add new features or change their look over time.

You may possibly be entitled to get new versions that have been upgraded for compatibility free of charge, or you may be entitled to any new version that comes out, also free of charge, or you may be required to pay extra to upgrade to the next version.

Support

When you ask what a premium theme includes, the answer usually mentions support of some kind. If you pay for something, you normally expect support if it doesn't work. How much support you will actually get, and on which issues and problems, can vary, though.

Some premium theme sellers offer their customers forums to cover basic support issues. These forums normally aren't something you will have to pay for and they are a way of taking support responsibility away from the author, but they can also be very helpful for finding your answers. I have found forums to be an excellent means of quickly getting questions answered and problems solved.

If there aren't any forums provided, or they fail to answer your question, you'll need direct support from the themes author. If you're using the theme as it was intended, on a compatible version of Wordpress, and something just simply isn't working right, then basic support is normally available.

If, on the other hand, you have made any changes to the theme code or are trying to change it to make it work with an earlier version of Wordpress, it is by no means certain that you will get help from the themes author.

Providing support can be time consuming and very expensive for the theme creator. Just a few hours a day providing free support to customers can put a huge dent in their income. For that very reason, you shouldn't automatically expect a theme author to provide endless support on everything you want to do simply because you have purchased a theme from them.

To wrap it all up: As you now know, there's a whole lot of things to consider if you want to get the most out of a premium theme.

• First you have to sort out your own needs, wants, and expectations.

• Next you need to assess what a theme has to offer you, and will it match your needs.

• Finally you need to know what you're paying for.

The good news is that most premium themes are not really very expensive, all things considered. Despite being inexpensive, however, not all premium themes live up to that cost, whatever it might be.

So.....consider your needs and wants, do your research, and you will be in a position to make an intelligent and informed decision on choosing that perfect theme for your web site.