This is the first in a series of posts about using pre-made themes for a WordPress theme modification project.
Why Theme Modification?
Occasionally I get clients who want to use an off the shelf or pre-built WordPress theme and modify it in order to save money on their web project.
Custom design and development can get expensive and while I’d love for everyone to have the most beautifully built site, sometimes clients just need a site or they are a DIYer and just need a push in the right direction with some of the heavier lifting. A lot of developers might not like this type of client, but I’ve found that these clients usually understand limitations the best because they are in there trying to adjust the theme just as well as you are.
More often than not a WordPress theme modification does save money, but there are occasions where its a time suck usually due to the following reasons:
- Poor code quality make it difficult to change and modify the theme
- Theme is overbuilt with features making it difficult to know which direction to go or what features to use
- Client wants to do something its not capable of, or would be expensive to build in
When To Not Do a Theme Modification
Even if a client has a tight budget there are times when it’s just not worth building a site at all!
Sure as a developer I’m passing on potential income but it’s worth entertaining the idea that a client just isn’t ready for a website.
Especially if at some point there may be custom integrations, membership only areas (paywalls) or an ecommerce component to the site.
I’ll cover ecommerce and theme modifications in a future post and why they can be an awful experience for everyone.
Don’t get discouraged by hearing this, it can also be really seamless but you have to be very careful about theme selection if you’re future roadmap shows a lot of growth for your WordPress site.
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