Most people find themselves debating back and forth when it comes to deciding between using free or paid Wordpress layouts for their Wordpress site. Since information on the pros and cons of both options is relatively scarce, it should come as no surprise that people have difficulty choosing one over the other. While many have touted the benefits of using one of the many free templates available online, it turns out that paid Wordpress layouts may be the better option for those with limited experience in site programming and design. This article will outline the benefits of paid Wordpress layouts and elaborate on why those benefits are especially advantageous for beginners.
Most that start out with Wordpress have a very limited knowledge of programming. This can be disastrous when combined with the utilization of free themes. Some scrupulous sites who distribute free Wordpress layouts often embed malicious code within their themes. This code can be used for a number of questionable activities, among them hacking your installation to serve others' ads on your site, or using your site as a link farm. Those new to WP will have a very difficult time finding and deleting such codes from their Wordpress layouts. Since at many times these lines of code are encrypted, it can be difficult to tell exactly what they do. Thus, they can be hard for even veteran programmers to spot.
Pre-made Wordpress templates rarely contain such malicious code. Since typically only the creator sells these templates, there is not third-party to inject malevolent code into the theme.
Free Wordpress layouts are good or not?
Some free Wordpress layouts are often riddled with various programming mistakes that can make a beginners experience with WP hellish, in regards to configuring their site. While most of these errors can indeed be corrected, they require the expertise of someone who has a rather good grasp in programming with XHTML and PHP. Unfortunately, those beginning with WP rarely possess such skills. Since those behind pre-made Wordpress layouts have a potential financial gain in distributing their layouts, they will often go to great lengths to ensure that their theme's code is void of any serious, if not all errors. This essentially guarantees that a WP user making use of such templates won't face any problems configuring his/her site as a result of the lackluster coding.
Finally, customizing your site with pre-made Wordpress layouts is far simpler than it would be with freely available layouts. Re-visiting the idea from above, pre-made theme designers have much to gain by ensuring the end-user is satisfied with their theme. Since they know that some of their buyers might not have the needed knowledge to change simple things on their site (such as header images, various text snippets, etc.) they will often extend a hand to help users which such issues.
Numerous pre-made template creators offer 1 on 1 support, wherein they make the needed changes for you. If they don't have the resources to provide such services, they often accompany their themes with detailed instructions on how to change site-specific characteristics such as title names, graphics, etc. This type of support is non-existent with free themes. Nobody will take you by the hand to show you what needs to be done to change something.
Free template users are left to their own devices to learn a bit of programming so they can enable themselves to modify their templates. For someone who has no intentions of building additional sites, or tweaking their theme to a further extent (other than making some fundamental changes to the site), this can prove to be a wasteful use of time.
Invest in pre-made Wordpress layouts
New as well as existing Wordpress users have much to gain by using pre-made Wordpress layouts in customizing their site. The hassles one can potentially face by utilizing free templates agreeably constitute the added cost of pre-made templates. Although it's understandable that some may be wary to invest in pre-made Wordpress layouts, for beginners it is an investment well worth making. If you find you have severe time straints, you are making your situation only worse by choosing to go with free templates.
Few of us have the needed time available to get a sufficient grasp of the programming languages need to tweak free templates, in regards to removing malicious code as well as errors in the code. Many of us don't even have the programming expertise to make fundamental changes to our particular template (changes such as modifying headers or replacing certain graphical elements). Paid Wordpress layouts eliminate all of these problems while providing us with a large variety of different styles to choose from. In the end, the choice is yours, however, it's extremely apparent that paid templates far excel free ones in a good number respects.
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