How I Went Premium
About three years ago, the light bulb above my head finally lit up and I grasped the power and the potential of using a blog as a website. Up until than, I never really got it. Couldn’t see it with a shared hosting like Blogger.com or Type Pad. The thought of trying to get a self-hosted blog going was complicated and gave me nightmares.
Not sure what really tripped it, but when it did, it was the parting of the seas and I Got It, I Really Got it. So I started to get excited and started to learn all about them.
The great thing was that almost everything was free. The software, the support, the add ons and the plugins. All of it could be had for little or no cost. This was great. Any question? Check the forums and get real answers for nothing. This was cool.
Once I caught the Blog Bug, the next mind block was “why would I pay for a theme when all these free ones are out there?” It made no sense to me. All this free stuff, why would anyone want to pay for a theme? To me, I saw the theme as a wrapper to a blog. Wasn’t it the content that was most important?
I finally got the nerve up to try and see what the hype was about premium themes. I bought a cheap package of premium themes for under $10. Thinking what could I lose?? Ten Bucks is like a night out at Micky D’s!
Immediately I saw my numbers go up. My site visitor counts almost double within a few days, maybe a week. A sudden huge jump in numbers and all I did different was change the theme?? The difference was like night and day.
So I started to question why? That’s when I came across a new guy to the scene. Brian Gardner. An interesting chap who just became a WordPress convert and developer. He released his first theme series called “Revolution Themes” A beautiful work of coded art.
Brian took the time to answer many of my questions about WordPress and premium themes, even tho I had not bought his theme. He really was (and still is) a saint by taking so much time answering me when I had yet to pay him anything. Brian explained that a free theme was designed for beauty, where as a premium theme was designed for speed and performance.
Among other things, free themes have a lot of extra code to make it look all nice and pretty. When in reality, it clogs the spiders and the search engines. Things get lost or the spiders just abandon the search. Not a good thing if you are using it for business.
I started to understand that. I really thought Brian’s themes were amazing. But so were some others for the same price range. Either way, I wasn’t ready to make the big leap and pay a real premium price for a premium theme. The $10 theme was doing fine for the time.
Yet, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking, “if a $10 theme does this, what does a $75 theme do?? Well, I soon got my chance to find out.
It’s a funny way that the cosmic world works. I am of the mind that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Apparently the student was ready because I had yet to really do a website for anyone else but me.
One day a new friend asked if I could build him a website like “this” as he showed me a website he found and really liked. I looked at the footer and saw “Revolution Theme by Brian Gardner”
I saw that as a sign… Go Premium
And I will continue next time
Mark Anthony
