What is the code quality like? Are there any security issues? Does it use outdated components under the hood? What is their support like?
It’s not uncommon for a theme to look better on the surface than it turned out to be. Here are 5 ways your economical WordPress Theme may end up leaving money on the table. [Tweet this!]
#1: Your page loading time is slow.
Are you losing potential sales due to slow page speed? How fast your website loads directly impacts your bottom line. Visitors (and Google) like fast websites. In fact, just a few seconds difference in page speed can cause potential customers to become impatient and quickly bounce over to your competitor’s site.
Code bloat is often overlooked, but it makes a huge impact on page speed. The more complex your WordPress theme, the more likely it is to suffer code bloat. This usually happens when you install a multi-purpose theme that offers several different layouts to choose from. As your website loads, so does all of the module files for the theme – such as the CSS and JavaScript files – even though you typically use half of them or less. All of this unnecessary code-loading leads to hefty amounts of code bloat.
#2: Your website security is more easily compromised.
Before investing in that new theme you’ve been eyeing, check out how often the creator releases updates. This should be done regularly to fix any bugs or other security flaws, which hackers jump at the opportunity to expose.
With pre-made themes, you’ll want to update your theme every time a new version of WordPress is released. However, you can only do this after the theme creator has issued an update – which means you have to rely on their schedule, and there is no guarantee in consistency. Not only does this make your website more vulnerable to an attack, but should your website be compromised, the time spent on recovery and repair means less money for your business.
#3: Your minor changes are not so simple.
Want a quick change made to your website? It could be something as simple as changing the subheading font size in the blog’s sidebar, or swapping out the content marker in a bulleted list. If a web developer maintains your website, it takes a relatively short amount of time to make requested updates when your theme is custom-built. But if you want them to tweak your pre-made theme, it takes much longer because they’ll have to chase down details on how it was made.
Click to enlarge image.
#4: Your site looks similar to everyone else’s.
When you purchase a WordPress theme, what you see is what you get. There is often limited customizability, whether your theme is basic or multi-purpose, because you can only set things up and make changes based on what’s available. Changing fonts, colors and graphics can only do so much to make your DIY website look less cookie-cutter.
In many cases, you do have the option to contact the theme provider for customizations, but making changes to the theme itself can make it more difficult to run future updates. And if something goes wrong with an update, you may end up with some serious downtime.
#5: Your theme’s functionality is limited.
Using a theme on its own is not too bad, but its functionality is generally pretty limited. Incompatibilities surface when you want to combine it with other pages or plugins that to your website’s total functionality, such as ecommerce or other kinds of applications.
Over to You
Are you ready to invest in a well-designed website? Let’s talk about how Fingerprint Marketing can optimize your web presence with a website that’s tailored to your industry and niche. Schedule your free 15-minute consultation today.