WordPress Templates – Yay or Nay?

Recently I’ve trolled the local Vancouver Craigslist Gig postings to see what folks are posting. In a competitive landscape I’m sure that all the Gig posters get hammered by every John and Sally who want to offer them their services.

So it’s interesting to see the tone and approaches the posters (not to be confused with posers) have. Of course, I’d be a hypocrite to say that it’s such a bad place – because it isn’t – we actually found our very first client, who was a Gig poster.

Recently I’ve seen a common trend amongst those looking for websites – specifically WordPress websites.

You think that looks pretty standard. Read another posting and see if there is a common theme.

It’s the NON-TEMPLATE comment that gets me. There are those who think “TEMPLATE” is a swear word. It’s not. And it’s especially not for the legions of folks out there who need a web presence. The fact is there are so many great premium templates out there, and if you go with a good provider, the templates have evolved as a result of great user feedback.

In a best case scenario, out of the box you can get a great SEO-friendly, WordPress template that will continue to be supported by its premium template community. Whereas, if you go the custom route, as plugins and WP versions evolve, your custom designed website will need to evolve, also.

So when that original developer goes sideways … what do you do?

I’ve been on both sides of the fence with a highly customized e-commerce WP website, and I so, so wish I would have taken advantage of the many off the shelf resources available today. AND, just because it’s a template DOESN’T mean you can’t customize it to fit your needs!