7 Ninja Tricks to Check Before Buying a Premium WordPress Theme
As you already know, WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world and about 26% of the websites are powered by WordPress. WordPress Themes and Plugins play a vital role in designing a website. So, therefore, you should use it wisely if you are using it for long-term purpose.
Anyway, with thousands and thousands of themes available in the market today (free and premium), it is not an easy task to choose which one is best for you. Picking Free or Premium theme is another perplexing burden. The questions like design, color, layout, and many more continue to arise if you want to make the best out of your site. In most cases, a premium theme is favorable because it comes with a lot of unlimited features and support as well. That’s why we’ve come to the detailed study on some major things you should examine before buying a premium WordPress theme.
Things to Check Before Buying a Premium WordPress Theme
Free themes are amazing. You can instantly install a theme and customize according to your preference. However, free themes come with limited features and don’t have everything you want. But it takes a massive amount of time doing so. That’s why sometimes it is a must-have.
So let’s begin. Shall we?
1. Price of the Theme
First thing first, most of us check the price of the theme. There are literally tons of marketplace, that sell amazing premium themes online. And the price range varies depending upon the site. Choose the affordable price and the theme that match you.
At the very first look, some themes might have more expensive price rate than the other one, but either you are purchasing the high-quality theme or you’re getting the whole bundle of premium themes in a single bundle. Either way, take a deep note of all the themes.
2. Rating of the Theme
A good theme palace should have a rating system. The marketplaces like Envato, Creative Markets, and ThemeForest have such option. It will allow the paid users to rate the product so that other enthusiastic buyers will know about the quality of the theme. The more good ratings the theme has, the better rating it will have and people are more likely to buy it at a first glance.
It is also recommended to compare the number of votes with the rating because sometimes, the theme owners hire a few people to rate on their theme. You shouldn’t count on that.
3. Last Update
The version of the WordPress changes almost every month. Every year, WordPress releases its major updates. which results in deprecation of some old functions. Sometimes when the themes aren’t updated along with the latest WordPress version, the site will break. That’s why it is important the theme is updated otherwise, there’s a great chance that the theme has security holes.
An inexperienced user ignores the creation date and goes after its look. The truth is it doesn’t matter when the theme was created, but when the theme was updated last time. Daily updating the core file of the themes is not possible so it is ok if the theme is not updated for a few months. But if the theme is idle for more than a year, then you need to take this seriously.
4. Theme’s Review and Comments
After inspecting the rating of the theme, make sure you check the reviews and comments of the customer. This will say a lot about the theme. Most popular themes will have a numerous good comments and reviews. Since the comments are coming from the actual buyer rather than the theme author himself, this will help you choose the right theme.
5. FAQ
Generally, almost all premium theme have FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section to make things clear regarding the theme. You should check this segment because it has some important answers about the theme regarding compatibility, support, updates, framework, and many more.
6. Documentation
Before purchasing a theme, ensure that your theme has authentic documentation. Even for experienced developers, most of the time it might get pretty difficult to know what-about and how-about the theme. Their features, customization, and framework might be different. And documentation really helps you how to use a theme quickly.
7. Theme’s Features
Needless to say, at first, everyone looks for the feature of the theme before buying it. The overall looks of the theme might attract you to buy the theme, but you should look for the overall feature before purchasing it. Moreover, some premium themes come packed with premium plugins for free. Just don’t jump into it. Make sure you have everything you need.
Wrapping Up
The greatest mistake buyers/users of themes make is to buy them because of their ‘looks’. By that we mean, page, post, and archives (grids) layouts. Fonts use, colors and images. They buy them because of their so-called special functionality, but all this really is, is simply menus, effects (like rollovers), sliders, embedded videos, custom post types and custom fields. All this can be done with plugins and changed quite easily anyway