Why you should always consider a bespoke WordPress theme

There are numerous ‘build your own website’ tools out there such as Wix, Weebly, and SquareSpace, and if you’re just starting out in business they only require a small initial outlay, which can be appealing. But will that initial saving be worth it in the long run? The monthly fees soon add up, and it really depends on how much you value your time. Maybe you should consider a bespoke WordPress theme instead?

First things first. Site builder tools aren’t easy. Despite the claims, you still require a fair bit of technical know-how to make a halfway decent looking website. And you want to look professional don’t you? Your website is your shop window to the world, and first impressions count. If you present potential customers with a shoddily put-together, slow-loading website that acts weirdly on mobile phones you may find your customers will quickly click away assuming you take the same half-baked approach to whatever service you offer.

When you’re running a business, how you manage your time is critical. Do you want to spend hours fiddling with a site-builder tool, failing to get it to do what you want, then further hours waiting to get a response from a distant technical support team? Surely your time is better spent servicing your customers? The ones that have come to you through an easy-to-use, professional website. They go away happy, recommend you, someone else looks at your website, gets in touch, and your business flourishes.

In the evening, you can relax, rather than putting in even more hours trying to wrestle your site to meet your requirements. Wondering why the page title is squint on a certain page, or the form isn’t working, or why you can’t simply add a new customer review.

This isn’t just the downside of paid-for site builders like Wix, it can also apply to WordPress websites if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having shelled-out for a site that’s been put together using a WordPress page-builder plugin like Elementor or WP Bakery.

These are powerful tools, used by some developers and agencies to build sites very quickly as they don’t require any coding knowledge, but although you may end up with a site that you think looks great, this can quickly change when you login to your site admin and discover that, under-the-bonnet, things aren’t quite so slick.

A false economy

I’ve lost count of the amount of clients that have come to me after having a site developed cheaply. A few months down the line they realise it’s been put together using a page-builder and they find it impossible to edit, or have broken a page after clicking one too many times trying to locate the hidden option panel they need to edit a piece of text.

Maybe you hired a web developer who built you a site in Wix? With less than 4% of the global market share (source: https://www.wpzoom.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/), you’ve chosen quite a niche technology as the basis for your site (and business). Two years down the line, if you need technical changes, is that developer still going to be around?

You won’t have that problem with WordPress. With such a huge market share, you’ll always be able to find a developer. You can easily move WordPress sites between hosting packages too. You’re not tied-in to any lengthy and expensive contracts. And if, a few years down the line, you decide to rebrand – maybe new colours, a new logo, fresh photography? No worries with WordPress, it’s just a case of developing a new WordPress theme and applying it to your site. Your page content doesn’t need to be affected and your Google ranking won’t be penalised.

A bespoke WordPress theme makes your life easier

A website, built properly, should be easy to maintain. You shouldn’t have to learn anything new in order to do this. A bespoke WordPress theme makes editing your website as straightforward as possible.

You want to add a new testimonial? Just click “Testimonials” in your WordPress admin and hit “Add New”. Paste the glowing review you’ve just received via email into a box, hit Publish and that’s it. It’s automatically added to your testimonial slider, and your testimonial page, and anywhere else it may display (perhaps linked to a specific case study) and it’s styled perfectly, using the correct fonts, at the correct size, with the correct spacing. If there are graphical elements around it, these are applied automatically.

To do this in a page builder usually means clicking on multiple, meaningless blocks until you find the part you want to edit, then locating the right button to press, then finding the panel where the text is added, then making sure the text style matches all the others. Then doing all this again on the other pages you want it to appear. Do you have time for that? Wouldn’t you rather be dealing with clients and generating new business?

Another concern should be your site’s loading time. Google pays attention to this, and the “one size fits all” approach taken by page-builders means your site is loading an absolute tonne of code you definitely don’t need. This slows the site down, as the HTML generated is overly bloated, and also makes the admin side run painfully slow, as it loads in countless dependencies and libraries that a bespoke site just wouldn’t require.

Bespoke is best, preparation is key

The approach I take to any site build, big or small, starts by asking the client what they need the site to do. What’s the goal? The user journey? Once this is defined, we discuss the content requirements: What types of content? How should this be organised? What extra information should be displayed? Will the colours change? How large should the photos be? When all that’s worked out, the WordPress admin can be tailored specifically to the website’s requirements so editing the site requires absolutely no formatting or tweaking of layouts. The site styles (fonts, colours etc.) are applied around the custom elements automatically, so adding new elements takes a matter of minutes. And this is what’s involved in creating a bespoke WordPress theme.

eg. if a case study page needs multiple panels highlighting client name, project details, costs, outcomes, photo gallery, and testimonial from the client, the unique “Case Studies” section of the CMS is tailored around this. You click “Add New Case Study” and paste the relevant text into the relevant boxes, upload the images, and hit publish. There’s no need to concern yourself with layout or styles as this is all handled by the bespoke WordPress theme. Any decent web developer should be doing the same. The result, a perfectly formatted case study that matches the other case studies on your site. Try doing this in a page builder and you could be there for hours.

But isn’t a bespoke WordPress theme going to be more expensive?

Not necessarily. Most of my websites come in around the £1200 – £2500 range. You may pay slightly less if you’re getting an “off the shelf” theme installed, or using Wix, but please remember to factor in your own time too. Over the years, this can soon add up to a significant amount.

Since engaging with Craig our website has fluidity, increased functionality and speed. As a complex site with over 5000 pages Craig has worked diligently to our brief, complimenting this with his own creative input. DIGIT /// It has been great working with Craig. The website he has provided us with has been exactly what we were expecting, and it is great to finally have a theme that doesn’t limit us. I would highly recommend Craig to anyone looking to give their website a refresh. SNAPDRAGON /// We have been working with Craig for over ten years and he always provides a fantastic level of service and delivers an end product that is exactly what we want. He not only builds our websites for us but also provides peace of mind with his technical support each year. ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH /// From start to finish Craig was a pleasure to deal with. Incredibly knowledgeable and skilled, and unphased by my requests and questions. The finished website (which was delivered incredibly fast, ahead of schedule!) is professional, attractive and easy to navigate. I would absolutely recommend Craig to anyone looking for a new website. LOTHIAN SEXUAL HEALTH /// Our site needed help in two areas – the design and the technical backend. Craig was enormously helpful on both fronts. We found him to be patient, full of good ideas, and just what we needed. I would highly recommend his services. MILBURN LEWIS /// Craig has developed a modern looking website for us which is a lot easier to navigate and has the added functions we were looking for. Delighted with the outcome and would recommend Craig to anyone who is wishing to develop their website. NHS SMART CENTRE /// Work with Craig was a terrific experience as he was intuitive and thoughtful about how my website would work. The design was great, but also the layout made an immediate difference to my SEO and site useage. The bounce rate almost immediately went from over 60% to just 2% and the page hits rose from 1-2 per visit to over 8. His input on the format for the site was invaluable in achieving this. GLUTEN FREE EDINBURGH

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