P Stiller
New Contributor
Going back to clicking.....more I click the more I been moving slightly...after reading some of your stuff I'm a little more nervous that once this is all set up is going to become a huge headache.Ok, I blew US$2500++ on setting up a Wordpress website and plugins and webhosting previously, it was a huge mistake considering I didn't even have a product ready. But I learnt lots of things from the process.....could have spent all that $ on inventory and ads instead............so here's my thoughts:
All themes have their own issues, regardless of how good they are or how many positive reviews they got. I've tried a total of 6 paid themes including Themeforest ones, and even those that had thousands of positive reviews had some drawbacks in one way or another. There's no such thing as a perfect theme.
With pre-made themes, you've to FORCE your content to fit the layout of theme (e.g: you need to place 4 images on the top section but the pre-made theme has no layout for that, so you need to find a way around that or pay someone to customize it).
With a custom-developed theme from scratch, you can have full control over the look and content.
That's the biggest difference.
I found one or 2 on themeforest but didn't seem to be any different than the one for free.....unless those are easier to customize and I'm just not understanding that.......
What you should do now, is to get a piece of paper and pen, list down the important pages you need to have in your website (Home, Contact, Services, About, etc....)
Then, in each of these main pages, list and sketch out what content you want on it.
Just the basics I need which this has
THEN you go find the theme that can best fit your content.
If you've no time or just want to be lazy, then find a theme first and force your content around it, which is a bad choice.
Don't worry, this is normal. With setting up Wordpress sites, it's often a process of : download this theme/plugin, have questions, contact support, wait for days/figure out yourself, proceed, have questions, contact support......It's normal.
Find those theme companies that have a good track record.
On ThemeForest, for example, search for the ones with the highest reviews and downloads, and see how long they've been in business, and how frequent they respond to customers' questions. On ThemeForest, you can see all these on the theme page itself and the Comments section. Some companies reply in 1 day, some in 3 days, some in 7.....
With theme companies, if one day they go out of business, there's nothing you can do. But the good ones have been in business for many years.
What I'm worried about....haven't found ones with a lot of reviews at all.....figured onetone is from Wordpress and ranked as a top free one so.....try it
A lot of times, FREE is not always good. Personally, I believe PAID is better than FREE in most cases when it comes to web design.
Makes sense but so many people say theirs worked fine free so hoping.....
Without having any idea of what type of website you're creating, we can't give specific advice.
I'm a trainer that offers different service for self maintenance of the body.....all of which the whole world needs because nobody cares until it's to late
Do you sell products? If you're selling products, look for eCommerce Wordpress themes that have WooCommerce integrated into it. The WooCommerce part, especially if you want to customize that area, you would probably have to end up paying for custom development on it since it can get quite messy.
No selling products
If you just need a website that gives a summary of the services you provide, like those law firm websites, then it's simpler. Just get a good theme and go from there.
You can also list the themes that you're considering here, and we can provide some advice.
Trying to make onetone work since spent 2 days on it
Also noticed screenr in a video I'm keeping in mind as a backup that's free from Wordpress.....imlike the one page simple layoout
Themeforest has a basic one for $17
YourFitness — Sport Blog, Fitness Club, Gym Theme
Below is most expensive.....just seems like if I can get around a few glitches on onetone I can make it similar to it
http://sktthemesdemo.net/skt-fitness/
Note that the OneTone theme you're using is a one-page theme so all content will be on the home page only. If you're selling multiple products, this is not a good one to use.
No selling
Also, with regards to customization, there's a low limit to how customizable most themes (even paid ones) are. The most you can do is just drag a few blocks around here and there, remove or add blocks etc, but for the most part, everything is fixed. You can change the text color and very basic stuff like this but that's all.
Even with Divi Theme + Visual Composer, there's still a limit on the customization.
So far, the best combo for really customizable Wordpress sites would be GeneratePress + Elementor (YES, ELEMENTOR IS A KILLER and IT'S INSANELY POWERFUL!!!!). But you need some knowledge of web design to use that.
Plugins are same as themes. CodeCanyon has good plugins and most are very actively developed, but check the reviews and company background first. Try to reduce the no. of plugins you use cos i) they can slow down the site and ii) they will DRAG you to PLUG-IN MAINTENANCE HELL.
PLUG-IN MAINTENANCE HELL is basically, you update a plugin, and your website breaks and ceases to function.
You dunno what's wrong, so you go in and de-activate all your 23 other plugins and re-activate them and test them all one by one.
Finally you found the bug. So you remove that plugin, now you've to find someone to reproduce that functionality, either with another plugin or just forget about it.
And each time a plugin gets installed.....it may break some parts of the site again....and......
This happens even with very high quality plugins, mind you. When you've too many separate components operating in the same system, things tend to go wrong often.....
What are you using Jetpack for? Backup? If Backup only, I would suggest WPManage. It's cheaper and you can pick and choose what services you want. The backup service is only ~US$2 per month which is lovely.
I don't know it came with it....don't know if should deactivate it or what the hell I need.....skipped it for now
Or......have you consider just setting up shop on Shopify instead?
No idea
I move my website there after I got fed-up with Wordpress sites (plugin hell + slow sites even on Siteground's Geek package + optimization). Shopify seems to load a lot faster than any of the Wordpress sites I had. I had to give up a bit of customization but it's more than worth it.
With Wordpress, I find myself spending too much time keeping track and maintaining plugins and all the nitty-gritty webby stuff, and while some folks might say hosting on your own web host is cheaper, I don't agree though. With Wordpress and WooCommerce, you basically need a plugin for every single function.
Now I'm worried more
For your case, I would say:
1) go with the theme that best suits your content
2) make a list of the areas which you need to customize or change
3) find a good developer like WpKraken (they offer 100% money back guarantee) to customize those parts. Small changes like CSS and changing the look don't cost much. It's the backend eCommerce functionality that costs more.
That's what I did, and it's the most efficient way by far.
Feel free to post any more questions here, will be happy to help since I'm very free now doing action-faking while saving up $$$ for my hustle LOL
Thank you for the time put into this response.....very helpful!
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