There are a lot of good deals going on last week for the Black Friday promotions and today Cyber Monday. It is especially tempting for me to see a lot of the premium themes going on sale. I have been pondering over the past two days whether to purchase a premium theme for my blog Findmyblogway. The main reason is the benefits that comes along with the premium theme:
- Quality coding
- Great customer support
- Beautiful and unique design
- Lots of features
First of all, why did people want to purchase a unique theme? It actually depends on the goals that you want for your blog. You probably want a more unique design for your blog. Purchase a premium theme will also give people the image that you are serious with your blog and you are here to commit for long term. But i have some reserve towards this. Using a free theme doesn’t necessary mean you are not serious in creating a successful blog. I believe the most important thing is you want to create a personal brand on your blog with a design that nobody has.
What are the themes i am looking at? There are a few themes selling at a discount, mainly
Did i end up purchase any? No, i didn’t. It’s not because i don’t want to invest on a premium theme. The reason is i am a techie idiot. Even though we need to learn some HTML and CSS while blogging, i can say i only know the basics such as changing fonts and colors. I don’t have the expertise to create a beautiful and unique design. Looking at the programming language will just cause me to develop headaches.
Headway themes and Genesis themes are theme frameworks which requires to have some design sense and interested in doing coding to achieve the look you desire. I don’t think i am capable of doing that. What about Woo themes? Woo themes has lots of beautiful themes and i actually played around with the theme tester. I found Headlines theme which works fine for me but i ended up sticking to my free theme. The reason is i find Sufussion the free theme i am using now is consider a theme framework with lots of customizations and features.
Since it is able to provide me the features that i desire for, it doesn’t serves any purpose in purchasing a premium theme which can’t give anything more excepts for customers support. I will definitely go for a premium theme in future but most likely i prefer to outsource to a professional web designer without me meddling with the design. I don’t know when will that be. We ‘ll see as things go. I am just please to keep things as it is.
As you can see, i changed the outlook a bit here, making things simple and reducing the widgets. I also switch from 3 columns to a 2 columns. I have a new logo made by a freelance designer. The original is done by myself which looks amateur and unprofessional. How do you find the new logo? Leave a comment behind and tell me about it.
So have you purchased anything during Black Friday or today? Themes, plugins, online courses and web hosting, what have you bought for your upcoming or existing projects? Are you enjoying the good deal in this holiday season? Tell us more about it.
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These days having good knowledge on HTML and CSS can really give a helpful hand to a blogger. When I began with blogging I had almost no clue of what those were all about. One day I got a theme for my blog and decided to modify it so that it fits my taste. After some weeks and going through dozens of tutorials, things started clearing out a bit. Other than that in the last two or three days I certainly saw a lot of great offers on variety of products – from hosting services to e-books and software. Haven’t bought anything whatsoever and maybe I should have done it.
Daniel Sharkov recently posted..7 Blogging Mistakes You Should Avoid by All Means
Twitter: Findmyblogway
Hi Daniel,
If you are looking for something you need, this really is a good time to get it. That’s the reason why i have been scanning through the themes. I dropped the idea because this theme that i am using is able to give me the features i want.
Regarding HTML and CSS, i have been using firebug on Firefox to help me on changing colors and fonts. Too complicated stuff is definitely out of way for me.
Thanks for the comments.
Lye
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Giving yourself permission to learn techie things – it can really help make the difference for you regarding your blog! There are a lot of baby steps you can take that will really enhance the look/feel of a site – definitely consider making that a goal for 2011.
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach recently posted..My Personally Awesome Cyber Monday Goodness For YOU final cost 0!
Twitter: Findmyblogway
Hi Barbara,
Thanks for the advice. I will put in more effort on that in 2011. It is far more satisfying if we can change how our site will looks as we like. As you have mentioned, i can focus on the baby steps initially.
Once again thanks. Appreciated your advice.
Lye
Hi Lye,
I didn’t buy anything on black friday or cyber monday either. However, if you are looking into new themes, I might suggest hybrid themes which is free, but is very full featured and I think competitive with the other premium themes.
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Hi Richard,
Hybrid and Thematic themes are two free themes that i like. But i am quite happy with Sufussion themes which has lots of features.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Lye
I have had a few bad experiences with trying to get premium themes to work. Not wanting to name any names but I have had themes that did some very odd things with images etc., and unless you are a PHP expert it is not easy to see how to put them right.
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Hi Barry,
That’s the reason why i never consider framework theme. If one don’t know how to make good use or understand how it works, it will be a waste of money.
Thanks for the comments.
Lye
I couldn’t make any purchases as all the ones I was interested in like Hostgator hosting, was offered to new clients only.
Udegbunam Chukwudi recently posted..Free Guide To Making Money Online In Nigeria
Twitter: Findmyblogway
Hi Udegbunam,
I understand they were offering great discount on their hosting over the past few days but i do not know that apply to new customers only. They are great web host and i am one of their happy customers.
Thanks for dropping by to comment.
Lye
Hi Lye,
I completely relate to this post as I use Suffusion theme for my own blog as well. I think it’s actually one of the better free themes out there and even though I am capable of figuring out some of the CSS by going into edit theme option, I’m a visual person so it’s alot easier (and faster) when I can see what it is I’m making changes to. By the way, I’m new to your blog so I don’t know what your old logo looked like, but the one you have up now looks great.
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Hi Hermie,
I agree. Though it’s free but Sufussion is feature pack and lots of possibilities to mould the design we need. Glad you like the logo.
Thanks for dropping by and the comments.
Lye
Great investment you’ve made there. I only bought a domain name, i wanted to do some SEO testing on it and see how it goes. Since the domain was around $2 at godaddy, i believe it was worth it.
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