WordPress Theme Design

These days every site must have a content management system (CMS), or else it will very soon be outdated. Try selling a site to a client and then telling them they can’t actually update any of the content or photos themselves, somehow I don’t think they will be very happy.

Now in searching for a CMS to use you will come across everything from free, outdated systems such as Joomla, to some very expensive (think $50,000) corporate solutions that offer less functionality. In addition to that entire range a lot of development companies have created their own proprietary CMS. Having taken over clients from many of these development companies I can say that they usually produce nightmarish code, and have no documentation.

In a look search for the perfect CMS we finally settled on WordPress, no it’s not perfect, but here are the reasons we love it:

1. Easy Template System. WordPress will integrate very quickly into an HTML and CSS template using some simple PHP tags. Once you get the hang of how it works, then you can convert a template over to a basic WordPress theme in minutes.
2. Clean Code. WordPress outputs clean, semantic code. There are no outdated, table-based layouts, or anything else that gets in the way of web standards. Also the text editor will only let the user style text in a semantic way (such as using H1s for headers) that follows the CSS for the site (meaning the designer can set the style, and the site owner has to stay consistent with it).
3. Robust Backend. Since the WordPress backend has been recently redesigned, it offers greater functionality. Some of the best web designers in the world worked on it, and it includes hours of usability studies. Know that your clients are using the best interface around.
4. Regular Updates (including security). WordPress is updated regularly, which means that as soon as a security flaw is discovered, an update is sent out for it. Also you can rest assured that your client won’t be left years down the road with a system that is out of date. It will move with the times, and everything will just keep getting better.
5. Excellent documentation. Some people say you should buy from them because they can offer something nobody else can. I say don’t, because if they aren’t around to fix it, then nobody else can and you will be stuck. With an open source system like WordPress you have excellent documentation and resources available including a huge support community. So if your web designer falls of the face of the earth it won’t be that hard to find someone else who can work with your system.

There are many more reasons, but those are the five that are most important to me and my clients. Do you have any more to add, or better yet, reasons you don’t like WordPress as a CMS?

Recently there have been a lot of changes in the WordPress theme scene. A little over a year ago it was hard to find quality themes anywhere, so that is what started the Premium Theme market. Brian Gardner started this trend with his very popular Revolution Theme.

Why did they become popular?

It was very hard to find high quality themes as there was no longer a central theme directory. What was available had no standards for quality, and also themes often included hidden links, or backdoors into your WordPress blog. All things to be avoided.

With premium themes people no longer had to worry about the quality, and the $30-80 people would usually pay was a small price for the level of code they were receiving.

Are they here to stay?

After talking with Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp Utah a few weeks ago, I think they will die out. With the new theme directory we have standards that themes have to meet, and a blog designer can now go to one central location and know that every theme they are looking at is high quality. This takes the hassle out of it since someone else (who is usually more qualified) has already proofed the code, so now you don’t have to. And you are getting this quality for free.

Are free themes sustainable for developers?

The big question is how will these developers who were/are selling premium themes going to still make their money? It will definitely take some more innovation, but I believe it is possible. Take a look at WordPress, it is distributed for free, but is also quite profitable. There is plenty of money to be made off of blog ads, theme customization, and support.

Another example of giving themes away for free is Small Potato’s site WP Designer. He gave away a lot of great themes, and in turn it increased his site traffic (which he turned around and sold for a lot of money).

There are many ways to give themes away and still make money off of them. Maybe you are always being asked to customize certain themes, you can charge for this and make quite a lot. It all depends on what your specific community is looking for.

Recent changes.

The largest news in the premium theme world is that Brian Gardner (the founder of premium themes) is now switching all of this themes to open source. He obviously found a way to make this new business model profitable, so it shouldn’t be too hard for others to follow him.

You can read more about Brian’s changes on his website, as well as an interview with The Blog Herald.

Final thoughts.

For the last couple of weeks I have been trying to decide whether to release several themes open source or as premium themes. Last week after talking to Matt I decided on open source, but was still writing this post (Brian, I have been working on this post since before you made your big announcement!) so I hadn’t announced anything yet. In the next week or so look for several new theme releases including a never before created knowledgebase theme.

My thoughts on the entire premium vs. open source is summed up here:

Everything changes very quickly on the web. You always have to be ready to adapt the new markets and the desires of your community.

Will other premium theme providers follow?