Is it worth it to buy a custom theme for a website?

froggyboy604

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Yes, it is worth it to pay for a quality custom template for a website since free graphic staff are very hard to find for a forum or blog.

Sometimes it is just better to buy a cheap template which is between 20-100 dollars depending on the features and quality.
 
No. You are better off making your own. I have seen many people get screwed over, simply because they hired an "artist" to make them a custom theme, that would only be for use on their site, and then turn around and said theme and .psd file to a higher bidder.

The next think you know, the original person, for whom, the theme was initially intended, ends up being sued, by the second person it was sold to. Not only did they lose, and have to remove the theme, but their reputation is affected because they are accused of ripping, AND they are out of the money that they initially spent for the theme they had created by the person they hired.

Meanwhile, the con artist, gets away with the money they were paid to make the theme, and the person who sued, gets to keep the stolen theme, and gets monetary compensation for legal expenses, and for "pain and suffering and emotional distress" endured from having their theme "stolen" by the person who originally requested it.

This can either be a con, for the "artist" and the person they sold it too, or the artist in question is an imbecile, who doesn't think that this is wrong. It could also be a little of both. Taking the time to learn how to do these things yourself will save you a lot of money, and aggravation later on. That being said, I would NOT pay for someone to make a theme for me, and it is why I will always opt to do it myself.
 
But, some Wordpress Themes which are paid like THESIS are more then a theme. It can make adding stuff and positioning sidebars a lot easier with a built-in control panel in the admin panel.

Lisa Explains it very well. In her Screencast video about the THESIS theme.


It probably takes years of experience in php codding to make a theme which is as easy to customize and use as Thesis since there is a control panel for Thesis built-in to the Wordpress Admin Panel.


http://diythemes.com/thesis/ It only cost $87 , but it is also optimize for SEO and user friendly design. I also heard the technical support was very good.
 
No. You are better off making your own. I have seen many people get screwed over, simply because they hired an "artist" to make them a custom theme, that would only be for use on their site, and then turn around and said theme and .psd file to a higher bidder.

The next think you know, the original person, for whom, the theme was initially intended, ends up being sued, by the second person it was sold to. Not only did they lose, and have to remove the theme, but their reputation is affected because they are accused of ripping, AND they are out of the money that they initially spent for the theme they had created by the person they hired.

Meanwhile, the con artist, gets away with the money they were paid to make the theme, and the person who sued, gets to keep the stolen theme, and gets monetary compensation for legal expenses, and for "pain and suffering and emotional distress" endured from having their theme "stolen" by the person who originally requested it.

This can either be a con, for the "artist" and the person they sold it too, or the artist in question is an imbecile, who doesn't think that this is wrong. It could also be a little of both. Taking the time to learn how to do these things yourself will save you a lot of money, and aggravation later on. That being said, I would NOT pay for someone to make a theme for me, and it is why I will always opt to do it myself.

You know, this makes me think it actually happened to you...
 
Well, I bought a 60$ custom theme for my forum, but members didn't seem to like it. :p Personally I think it's better to get an open-source free theme and alter it to make it the way we want. That's what I'm doing now.
 
You know, this makes me think it actually happened to you...

No, it has never happened to me, and as long as I have anything to say about it, it never will.

I have always made my own skins and graphics, and unless someone has broken into my house, and stolen my computer and back up drives containing the .psds to everything I have ever created since I started making skins, and then sold my .psds to someone else, and THEN went through everything I described, then it is unlikely that it will happen to me.

When I say that I have seen this happen, I mean exactly that. But that aside, another reason I would never pay for a theme and will always make my own, is because I want my forum or website to be original, and a result of my hard work. If I used a pre-made skin, paid or otherwise, I cannot say that. My skins and gfx may not be the best, but at the very least, they are mine, and they are original and my forum does not look like the 100 or so others out there that are using the same exact skin..
 
not really, if you spend the time looking you can find a very nice free theme. Only reason if you need to buy a custom theme if you need your site to stand out right away but the draw back on this is a skin or theme can't be made to be liked by all.
 
Sometimes custom paid themes are coded better to make website have better search engine page result rankings. This could mean be being on the front page of Google, Yahoo, and Ask instead of the Second page.

Plus, paid custom themes may load faster because the code, picture file sizes, plug-ins are not bloated because they are optimized for the web. Some paid plug-ins also come with built-in plug-ins which make your website, forum, or blog easier to use and manage.

This can save you a lot of time from optimizing your website for Search Engine Rankings, useability, and page load times. You also get better techinical support if the theme company has a good techinical support staff.

For Example, The Thesis paid theme for Wordpress.


 
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