Who are you? I mean, from a “branding” perspective? Recently, I had a conversation with a friend, “Fred,” who owns a successful company. Because of their great work, larger and larger corporations are hiring them. But it’s obvious that it’s not his website that’s generating his business. It looks dated and uninspiring, quite frankly.
Fred recently told me a story: a professional woman tracked him down to ask him out on a date. She read on one site that he was single, and looking to date. Through smart Internet use, she pieced together who he was and how to contact him. In spite of his old, boring website, she contacted him.
When Fred realized that his business site could be turning off potential women, he was more inspired to update his site for potential romance than for potential business.
Men, if you are single and want to date, consider this: get a website that reflects who you are. Women will be checking you out. Have your brand be professional and inviting. Hire a graphic artist to design an attractive site for you. Or, as a cheaper option, use a premium WordPress theme that comes predesigned.
WordPress (WP), the blogging software system, has evolved significantly over the years to become a leading CMS (content management software) system. It’s an open source, free software created by thousands of people around the world, which has become the preferred way to build blogs and websites. It allows you to create a site with state-of-the-art options. Plus, the search engines love WP.
Traditionally WP was the backend while the free themes were the frontend design (“frontend” is what the viewer sees). In the last few years, premium (paid) themes have given you more options in design and operation of your website.
All these themes allow for customization within the theme’s user-interface. In fact, most good web designers start with one of these themes as their framework to build a custom site. It makes their job easier and the client ends up with a better product.
Each premium theme has its own price structure. For one copy of the theme, they range in price from $40 to $100–a bargain! Here’s what you get:
- a theme that is proven to work and be attractive
- designed for SEO (search engine optimization)
- a template(s) for a unique look
- easy ways to customize
- free user support, which can be worth the price of admission
- free tutorials
- increased security
- free updates
- state-of-the-art coding which is guaranteed to work with any WP upgrades and all browsers
Here are the three predesigned premium themes I recommend:
More than any other, it offers you easy and multiple ways to customize your design. Their system could make designing your site fun. Headway gives you one design, not multiple theme designs to choose from. Unlike some other premium themes, how you design your look is more user friendly.
Woo gives you three themes for one price. Their large selections of themes are some of the more attractive themes out there. As with all these premium themes, you can do further customizing. They actually have a few themes that are free and well designed. More than Thesis and Genesis, the more geeky themes, you start with a design that looks more “designed”. They have a few well-designed free themes.
The least expensive theme, Elegant, like Headway, has state-of-the-art, user-friendly design and customization. So you start with a design you like, then you have the option to further customize the design. This approach offers the beginner the most out-of-the-box options. For $39 you get access to all of their designs. With the other themes, you get one or a limited number of the designs to choose from at the entry level price. Here, you can use as many as you like. Their designs are progressive and attractive.
I know all this can seem overwhelming. The great thing about these premium themes is they make creating a kickass site much like creating a document in Word. Using one of the premium themes that come with predesigned themes have you go from getting your domain name to having an attractive, fully operational site in an hour. You would have a site that would work better and look better than 99% of the sites on the Internet.
Your site could be your business site, your blog or just a personal site. Claim your internet space. You decide how others will perceive you. Good luck creating your sexy site and your brand.
