Hi everyone! To the new visitors on my blog, welcome! To the returning friends, welcome back!
You’ve probably noticed I changed my blog theme … again. For those of you that didn’t read my New Theme and Life Updates post, I changed my original Pipdig theme to something different that I wasn’t particularly satisfied with. It looked really clean, but it lacked some features I was thinking or hoping it had. Unfortunately, most themes are non-refundable so I wasn’t too happy about wasting that bit of money. Thankfully the price tag for it wasn’t much, so I didn’t regret my decision too much.
With that said, I had been looking for a new theme since then. It was only until this week when I finally saw one I truly liked and fell in love with the same way I did before with my Pipdig theme.
Since it’s still fresh in my mind, I thought I’d share with you some things you might want to consider when buying a blog theme so you don’t end up buying the wrong one!
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The Basic Necessities
It’s so important to think of and remember what your blog is about. What kind of a blog is it, and what kind of vibe do you want to give to your visitors? Your vision and what you hope to achieve with your site can affect or limit what you end up looking at, in terms of possible theme options. Decide early on what your deal-breaker items are – what you NEED to have in a theme, and what things are less important, but are maybe something you’d like to have.
Live Demo
Make sure to play around with the live demo! It’s so easy to get swept up by all the bells and whistles and how cohesive and put-together the demo is. I admit I did that a lot when looking at stuff, but there’s a lot of features that I actually wouldn’t use, in reality. My blog is not as posh or refined, so I know it’s going to look a bit different, but that’s perfectly okay.
I was so spoiled by how versatile my Pipdig theme was and I thought every other blog theme was like them. Wrong. Some sites only let you place your logo off to the side, some themes will let you display full-width banners and/or sliders. Some themes will let you easily change the fonts of your site, whereas some don’t make it as easy and you instead have to install a separate plugin just for that. These are only a few examples of what I encountered, but they’re all important things to think about!
SEO Optimized
Most if not all blogs will have this as a feature, but it doesn’t hurt to double check that it, in fact, is SEO optimized.
Framework Bundle
Is a certain framework required for that blog theme? Upon looking at various themes, I noticed quite a few will only work if you have the Genesis Framework or the Elementor Framework … and not all themes will bundle these together. This means that you have to purchase the framework separately and have it ready to go prior to buying that theme in order for it to work.
Support
No one wants to buy a theme only to find out that customer service and support is poor! You’ll be left on your own to Google things or ask Twitter for help, and that’s just a pain.
Menus
Number of Menus
I think most people have two separate menus, but some may have more. As for me, I have two menus – one for my top or main menu, consisting of “Home” and “About” and “Contact”, and a second menu for legal links. Some people choose to have a separate menu just for the Home, About, and Contact, and maybe a Woo Commerce shop or something.
Menu Placement
I don’t know about you, but I dislike seeing a bunch of links all lumped in one spot. You’d have to spend a longer time sitting there trying to find the link you want to click on because there’s an overwhelming amount of stuff to read in one section. From my Pipdig theme, I learned that I really prefer having my legal menu at the footer section.
However, not all themes built their site to have a footer menu. Some themes only have one menu section, whereas others may have three menu locations. Take note of where menus can be found in the live demo!
Footer menu and scroll up button
No scroll up button or footer menu option, only widget that displays social media
Widgets
Instagram Widgets
Most Instagram widgets look the same and can let you either place this feature as a strip on the header or footer of your blog, so it’s usually just a matter of whether you want this feature in your site or not. For my site, I found this theme had a bit of a different looking widget in that my IG strip didn’t extend from one end of the site to the other, which I found cute and unique (one of the things that made me want to get this).
Featured Posts
My old Pipdig theme had featured, or popular posts only on the sidebar. My new theme offers a separate featured widget right underneath my homepage slider, which is pretty great, immediately offering categories that a reader may be interested in looking into. Some others can let you place these boxes at the very top of your page. Do you think this would be important or something you’d really like for your blog? If not, then either having this present may just add some brownie points.
Landing Pages & Instagram Landing Pages
This is something new I had encountered when looking for a new theme, as my previous two didn’t have a landing page feature built in. Of course, you can always make your own, but the ones that were built in with mine looked cute and were uniform with the colors, links, and widgets that were featured in it. This may not be a must but maybe it makes that theme you’re looking at more attractive?
If in doubt, ASK!
I emailed Eclair Designs, the company of my new theme, like four detailed questions all at once. You probably don’t have that much, or maybe you have even more. The number of questions you have doesn’t matter! It’s much better to make sure you have all your questions answered and to communicate with the seller / company to ensure you’re going to buy something you will love. There are no such things as stupid questions, either. If they tell you that, at least you now know what kind of a company they are.
Wrap Up:
- Come up with a vision for what you want your blog to look like
- Decide on deal-breaker items and other things that aren’t so important, but you might like to have
- Look into those live demos thoroughly and take note of what features they have that you like
- Ask questions if you’re unsure
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I hope this helps you avoid the mistakes I did and find the perfect theme for your blog!
Until then ♡
Cover Photo by Caio Resende from Pexels
SEV Laser – 6 Sessions Later
My Second Semester of Graphic Design
Winter Break in PEI
Reflections After Blogging For a Month
It’s all looking lovely! I’ve never bought a theme because I’ve always found what I need in a free theme, but I can see from this that there are some advantages. Thanks for sharing. Mx
Thank you very much Marie! You’re right, free themes are great and if you’ve found that it does all you need, there’s no need to spend money. 🙂
I’ve nominated you for an award 😊
I know I just changed my theme… but I kinda want one from this site now. haha.
Hahaha! I was very tempted to get ones from Tinsel Pop! But then I saw these .. LOL
I love my pipdig theme. I spent a long time searching through different themes before finally deciding on one. I originally used a theme from Etsy but eventually moved on to pipdig. The live demo function is a necessity!
I love your new blog design girl!
I really loved my Pipdig theme one too, it seriously has so many cool features! Thanks so much Cleia! <3
This is such a helpful post! I will be looking to buy a theme in the future but i really had no idea how to go about it or how to make the right choice. I will definitely make sure the things i want are prioritised before checking to see what else is there. Thanks for sharing!x
I am so glad you found it helpful! Looking for themes can literally take months but definitely don’t rush it, you wanna find the right one for you! I hope you find a great one Chloe <3
I’m so grateful for live demos! It makes spending money on a theme a lot less scary haha
http://www.myclusterofthoughts.com/
For sure!! I would not be able to make a proper decision without them!
This is such a helpful post- I recently changed mine from pipdig too and was so OVERWHELMED to start with. I sure wish I’d had this post though, it really would have helped!
Soph – https://sophhearts.com x
It’s so overwhelming, I totally agree! Haha I’m glad you found it helpful!! xx
These are great considerations to purchase a new blog post. I know if it is non-refundable, there might be something sketch going on behind. Have you heard of the Pipdig drama recently??? People couldn’t get refunds because of that policy. I know I like the live demo. It makes me think about how I want to layout my blog. It is so important that you can contact the supplier if there are issues with getting the theme to work. I found related posts widget being super helpful! I am still trying to get that coded, hehe. Glad the theme provider has been great to you!
Nancy ♥ exquisitely.me
I have heard of it, and when I was looking into other themes, they say because of the nature of the product, they don’t accept returns or refunds! It’s so important to make sure you ask all your questions cause most of them may give you a hard time about refunds! Thanks for reading Nancy! xx
Your new theme is so cute, Geraldine! I had a difficult time transitioning from a pipdig layout to something new as well but I ended up using a theme I had bought way before pipdig so it worked out just fine. Thanks for the helpful tips!
☼ cabin twenty-four
Aww thanks Eena! What a relief! I knew I wanted to get a new one as soon as I heard about the news. Good for you girl!
I’m currently not in the market for a new website theme, but coming from someone woh recently changed their theme I 100% agree that these are all important when deciding how you want your blog to look. Because in the end your blog’s theme plays a major role in a reader’s first impression of you as a curator.
I totally agree! It’s a major contributor to first impressions and it needs to look somewhat presentable to help readers want to come back for more.
I love your new theme ger! I also found it difficult to find a theme when i went self-hosted, but found a free theme that i really liked, and it wasn’t too different from my original theme which was one that i paid for, but it is nice to switch it up sometimes. Thanks for all the tips though, this will come in handy whenever i’m looking at getting a new theme <3
Chloe xx
http://Www.chloechats.com
Thank you soo much Chloe! It really is great when you found a free theme and it works great! I’m glad you found it helpful!
Love the new theme! It’s always so hard to pick a theme that you like and fits your needs
http://www.sundaydahlias.com
Thanks so much! I know right? It took me months!
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT AND I REALIZED THIS AFTER BUYING a TEMPLATE and having to pay to update or configure some things.
new post
https://www.melodyjacob.com/2019/05/how-to-find-reliable-freelance-writers.html
Absolutely, it’s so important to consider all of these things. Thanks for reading!
WHAT A GREAT AND SUPER HELPFUL POST Geraldine! ANOTHER THING I’D LIKE TO ADD TO THIS LIST IS “MAKE SURE THAT IT IS RESPONSIVE”. MOST TEMPLATES ARE BUT I THINK NOT ALL AND THATS A BIG ISSUE IF YOUR TEMPLATE IS ONLY FOR DESKTOP BUT NOT MOBILE DEVICES 🙂
lots of love, Miri
http://www.meetmiri.com
Yes! That’s another great thing to add. Every blog theme nowadays say they’re responsive (like maybe 98% haha) but you are right, you can’t ever overlook anything!
This is such a helpful post, Geraldine! I made the mistake of rushing to buy a new theme off Etsy a few weeks ago, before taking anything into consideration. It was such a nightmare to install and customise, I gave up with it. I’ve been reluctant about purchasing another one but this post has given me so much reassurance and helpful tips. Your theme is so stylish, I love it! Thanks for giving me the confidence to take another look at some new themes, fab post lovely! <3 xx
Bexa | http://www.hellobexa.com
I’m glad you enjoyed it! That is so unfortunate when something like that happens – it’s quite frustrating! I hope you will have better luck next time you look! Thank you so much Bexa xx
I never thought about purchasing theme I am still using the free one with which I started blogging. But I will at some point would love to buy some interesting theme later. This is such a helpful post Geraldine. :-).
Via | http://glossnglitters.com
Yes sometimes free ones are awesome and if it does what you need, all the better!! 😍
Such a helpful post. I’m going to be buying a new theme next year, and although it’s early, I have a few tapped. I’ll need to go back and check them!
Thanks Nyxie, I’m glad you found it helpful!! Hope you find the one you really like 🙂
Ooh this is super helpful! I was thinking of updating my theme maybe later when i get at least 500 followers? Like i was thinking this year but it’s gonna be such a pain to update it again.
I wasn’t so sure about seo optimized themes, wow not even the framework? Super helpful, im gonna have to save this post to my pinterest hehe TYSM for sharing!
It really is a pain to change themes but that’s a good idea! I’m glad you found it helpful 🙌😄