Nearly two decades since its initial launch, WordPress (WP) continues to be the leading content management system (CMS) worldwide. WP is incredibly versatile and used for a wide range of websites from personal blogs and nonprofits to online stores. It’s the CMS of choice for globally recognized companies like Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, and Bloomberg. But what makes it so universally adored?
WP is an open-source platform that’s simple to install and manage, with a vast community backing it. It boasts thousands of pre-made plugins to support virtually any business function, alongside a plethora of themes to select from.
While a WP site’s features are crucial, a visually appealing and functional theme can significantly influence a business’s success. In this article, we’ll discuss why a custom WordPress theme is preferable to WordPress theme customization.
What exactly is a Theme? What Kinds of Themes Exist?
A WP theme is a collection of files that determine a website’s appearance and layout. These files include CSS stylesheets, templates, images, JavaScript files, PHP files, among others.
In basic terms, a theme is a container waiting to be filled with your content.
Three options are available when it comes to acquiring themes.
- You can download a free WP theme from the official site https://wordpress.org/.
- You can buy a premium theme on various platforms.
- You can employ a professional designer and developer to craft a custom theme tailored to your specifications.
Although you can customize a free or paid theme by adjusting its code, creating a theme from scratch offers more benefits for your business. Here’s why.
Benefits of Opting for a Custom WordPress Theme for Your Project
#1: A Custom WordPress Theme Will Perfectly Align With Your Company’s Goals, Vision, and Content
While there are countless attractive themes, particularly premium ones, modifying their look and layout may not reflect your business goals or vision. This delicate task is best left to seasoned WordPress development experts.
Choosing the right colors or fonts isn’t sufficient. There’s a series of questions that need answers before touching a single HTML or PHP tag, such as:
What are your website’s business objectives? Is it for representation, lead generation, or selling products/services?
- What content will your main page contain?
- Who is your target audience?
- What do you know about them?
- Why would they visit your site?
Only after thorough research, analyzing your business data, and understanding your primary business needs can a custom WordPress theme developer start coding. Customizing an existing theme to the required extent may take considerable time with no guarantee of the desired result.
#2: A Custom WordPress Theme Will Set You Apart from Your Competitors
If you use the same theme as another business, even with color and content changes, potential customers may not remember you or revisit your website.
You might believe that buying a premium theme and tweaking it to your liking will distinguish you from other businesses in your field. Unfortunately, nearly 15% of the market uses just three premium themes.
This means that even after extensive modifications to your purchased theme, its layout and features will resemble many others in the market.
In contrast, a custom WordPress theme will stand out from your competitors, as it sports a unique design that you’ve crafted. This leads to improved brand recognition, customer engagement, and ultimately, better sales.
#3: A Custom WordPress Theme Will Enhance Your Security
Security should be a top priority for any business, especially in the digital landscape, where cybercriminals constantly look for opportunities to exploit website vulnerabilities. WordPress (WP), despite its popularity, has been a frequent target for hackers, with 90% of all hacked sites a few years back being WP-powered.
Cybercriminals typically gain access to a WP site by downloading a free or premium theme and dissecting its code to identify weaknesses. Once they locate these, they search the web for sites using the same theme and infiltrate through the discovered security gaps.
However, a custom theme’s code is not accessible to hackers. While it doesn’t ensure absolute protection against cyber attacks, it certainly offers greater security than if you were using a free or premium theme.
For some valuable insights on the main reasons why WordPress websites get hacked, visit this post.
#4: Custom WordPress Themes Are SEO-Friendly
Want your website to appear on the first page of Google’s search results? Then, you need an SEO-friendly website. While most pre-made WP themes, especially premium ones, come with SEO features, you’ll still need to put substantial effort into customizing them to meet SEO standards.
Alongside keywords, a website’s structure greatly influences its search engine visibility. With a custom WordPress theme, you can design its structure from scratch, ensuring crawlers can easily index your content.
#5: A WordPress Custom Theme Ensures Optimal Performance
Many premium themes are packed with unnecessary features that can slow down your site. For a business website, loading speed is critical. If your site takes more than two seconds to load, you risk losing visitors, which can hurt your sales and SEO rankings due to increased bounce rates.
A custom theme only contains features specific to your business, making it lighter and faster, resulting in improved user experience. Plus, you can trust that your custom theme’s code has undergone thorough testing to remove any bugs, something not always guaranteed with premium or free themes.
#6: Access to Direct Support from the Theme’s Developer
Issues can arise with pre-made themes, whether free or paid. For instance, the theme might be incompatible with certain plugins, causing your site to malfunction. In such cases, you’ll need professional support.
However, if thousands or even millions of websites are using the same theme, their owners might be experiencing similar issues and also requiring technical assistance. As a result, you may have to wait for a long time to get your issue resolved.
With a custom theme, you can expect immediate, high-quality support if something goes wrong. The developer who created your theme is always available to make any necessary changes or fix bugs in your custom WP site.
#7: A Custom WordPress Theme Can Be Easily Updated
Updates are crucial for all software, including WP themes. They ensure that your theme has the latest features and security patches, offering better protection against cyber threats.
However, over time, a premium theme provider may neglect updates, putting your website at risk. With a custom WordPress theme, you simply need to notify the developer when an update is required, ensuring a stable, secure, and up-to-date website.
To Sum Up
A custom WordPress theme offers significant advantages that could greatly enhance your website’s performance, security, and overall user experience. Custom themes are created to reflect your specific business vision and objectives, setting you apart from competitors and enhancing your brand recognition.
They offer superior security as their code isn’t readily accessible for hackers to exploit. Custom themes are also SEO-friendly, contributing to improved visibility on search engine results. Importantly, they ensure optimal performance and provide direct developer support for any issues or updates needed.
In essence, investing in a custom WordPress theme is investing in the long-term success of your business online.
