A few days ago, I did a post regarding which theme to pick for your blog between Free and Premium, obviously, it’s not the toughest choice a blogger has to make.
If he has money, he chooses a Premium theme but if he hasn’t got the money, he picks up the Free theme.
However, when you are in a rather little comfortable position of spending some money for the design of your blog, you have to make a choice between getting a Premium theme or hiring a developer for a custom design of your blog.
If you have joined the blogging world just a few years ago, I would like to educate you that going for a custom designed WordPress theme was the thing to do, I am talking about the last decade, 2007, 2008 and 2009.
It was the time when there were very few options in the Premium themes category to choose from, WordPress was still evolving as a platform and the Premium theme developers brought themes with limited design options.
Even I opted for a custom design for Asiogroup in 2010, but I started using a premium theme in 2011 and was able to replicate the design of my custom theme with the flexibility of having a themes option area from where adding and removing the elements in my blog was a breeze.
Fast forward to today, 2019, there are so many options in the Premium themes category to choose from. You can get stunning designed themes from Theme Forest or My Themes Shop for a fraction of what you will be paying for a custom design.
While the premium themes can cost you around $30-$70, a Custom designed WP theme can cost you somewhere close to $1000 or above, (depending on the developer you hire for the work). A Friend has spent over $2500 on the design of their blog.
Something I could easily do using the Newspaper Theme, which costs around $69, which is 40 times lesser the price.
Why NewsPaper Theme is the Best WordPress Theme for Bloggers
And, to be honest, all the blogs look the same on the Mobile phones. Just like the Instant Articles on Facebook, where you have things like Fonts, Colour Scheme and Logo to make your website look different, something every premium theme offers.
So, the best thing is, to go to the Theme Forest website and choose the best theme for your blog, Choose according to whatever criteria you have, and then make changes in the Color Scheme, Fonts, use a Custom Logo and you have a unique design for your blog.
I’ve been using the Newspaper theme on Asiogroup as well as a couple of other blogs, this beautiful Theme has got thousands of customers who have chosen the theme for their blog. Each of the websites looks different because of the different logos, fonts and colour schemes.
Apart from the Money, there is another thing required for a custom design, that is, Time.
First, you need to find the developers who can do what you are looking for. Sometimes, you will get them via Referral, or other times, you will have to sit on your desk and hunt for them on different Freelancing websites.
After you find your guy, there is still a long road to follow. You will have to explain in every detail about the things you want for your blog, there is a lot of to and pro in the process which could take weeks if not months.
You don’t get the most powerful theme options in Custom Themes
When I had the custom design for Asiogroup, I did not have the Widgets options in the sidebar, I had to manually add stuff to the sidebar.php file from the Themes Editor under Appearance.
Nowadays, you can get theme functions, even the options to upload a custom logo and favicon, but if you are looking for a detailed themes options in your custom theme design, then you might have to spend a couple of hundred dollars extra for that functionality.
After reading all this, I am sure you will find it easy to spend an hour or two looking for that perfect Premium theme for your blog, and another 2 or 3 hours for setting it up, you can roll out the new design in just a single day rather than waiting for weeks if not months.
I would recommend taking a look at these stunning visually appealing themes for your blog.