Many times however, clients do not have the budget–or the real need for custom WordPress templates and designs. Enter the affordable WordPress themes. Buying a premade WordPress theme offers a number of advantages for clients looking to save cash.

Advantages of pre-designed WordPress Themes

• Turnaround time is much faster, as a custom-designed theme can take several weeks. Most purchased themes are ready to roll within minutes of purchasing it online.
• Pre-designed themes have (usually) been tested, tweaked, and have most of the kinks worked out.
• Pre-made WordPress Themes are a much cheaper alternative to custom design.
• Themes can be viewed before purchasing, allowing you to find a theme very specific for your needs.
• WordPress themes are editable; in most cases you can change color schemes to match your existing branding, add your own logo and other design elements
• Pre-existing WordPress themes can still be manipulated, enhanced and updated by professional web designers and developers.
• Allows you to get into a good web platform that can be expanded upon for years to come.
• Did we mention they can save you tons of money?

While there are numerous advantages to purchasing WordPress Themes, there are also downsides that need to be considered and weighed in your decision.

Disadvantages of pre-made WordPress Themes

• Design styles are often limited, and may require additional tweaking and customization (increases your cost).
• Your web content must conform to the constraints of the theme.
• Creativity and versatility can suffer compared to a custom-designed theme.
• Some themes don’t always work perfectly out of the box.
• The old adage of ‘you get what you pay for’ often applies to pre-designed WordPress themes… stick with reputable WordPress theme designers!

It’s important to keep these things in mind when weighing the pros and cons of purchasing an existing theme vs. developing a fully-custom theme. With all that said and out of the way, here’s a number of themes that we think look great, work nicely, and can get you into an attractive, effective website. Enjoy!

#1 – Impulse WordPress Theme

The Impulse WordPress theme is a clean slick, and attractive theme perfect for portfolios, showcases, galleries, photoblogs, personal sites, and more.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

#2 – Graphix WordPress Theme

A stylistic, colorful WordPress theme.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 3 – Photoblog WordPress Theme

A very clean WordPress theme for photographers.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 4 – Technologic WordPress Theme

A versatile and clean WordPress theme. Quite a lot could be done with this simple and elegant theme.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 5 – Polaris WordPress Theme

Very clean WordPress theme with a nice splash region, centered logo, and good content regions below. This is a modern theme that could be used across a myriad of industries.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 6 – Telegraph WordPress Theme

This would make a great theme for websites with lots of content. Billed as a magazine-style theme, this one would would be a good choice for websites that blog lots of articles, offer consumer reports or product reviews, or other websites that just push a lot of text.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 7 – Tribune WordPress Theme

Like the Telegraph Theme above, this one would also make a good theme for sites pushing lots of articles and text content. All navigation elements on this theme are “where they’re supposed to be”.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 8 – Photoland WordPress Theme

Bold splash region would be great for clothing retailers or websites pushing products with vivid, beautiful photography.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 9 – Vimes WordPress Theme

Uber slick, very clean, professional theme. This theme could be used for a number of websites and industries, very versatile.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 10 – Edupress WordPress Theme

Plentiful regions for calls to action and a top-aligned left sidebar makes this a good theme for medium-content websites.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 11 – Sky WordPress Theme

A bright and airy theme. Very clean, with a clear and up front calls to actions and main descriptions.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 12 – Nova WordPress Theme

A highly tekkie feel to this theme. Very clean, modern, and good for technology-heavy websites.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 13 – 13Floor WordPress Theme

This theme is dark, mysterious, contrasting, and has lots of depth. Pretty nice theme.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 14 – The Corporation WordPress Theme

This is a modern-yet traditionally corporate WordPress theme. As billed, its great for big-box corporations looking to save loot on a WordPress design. Could be used for numerous web industries.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 15 – eStore WordPress Theme

A pretty snazzy web store theme. This theme presents store categories first and foremost, includes a nice secondary navigation, search options, and great visibility for featured products. Would make a great low-budget ecommerce front end.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 16 – Elegant Estate WordPress Theme

Decent looking theme for independent realtors and real estate agents. Very clean, confident and a worthwhile theme to check out.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 17 – Evolution WordPress Theme

Quick loading, light weight graphics.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 18 – Deviant WordPress Theme

This is a very artsy blog theme that has a very unique look and feel. Excellent sidebar and prominent blog post graphics. Great blogging theme!

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 19 – Webly WordPress Theme

This is a nice, unique WordPress Theme, check it out!

Theme Details | Theme Demo

# 20 – My Cuisine WordPress Theme

Food service websites and restaurants would be a great fit for this food-based theme. Makes me hungry just looking at it. Nice calls to action on the homepage splash.

Theme Details | Theme Demo

Much thanks to Designmodo! They totally understand how important a good website footer is to complimenting your entire website. Be sure to check out some of the seriously bad ass footers in this collection, they are amazing.

I dismissed the seriousness of these guys immediately. Whatever that website was, I’m sure it stank like dogpile and would never be successful.

The makeup of a static website

On my way home, I tapped the brakes while the old lady took a sip of coffee just to get under her skin. She went into her typical response of telling me what a crappy driver I am and how I need to retake drivers ed. It was right then that I got to thinking a little deeper into the two guys at Starbucks conversation. Maybe there’s a lot of people out there that just don’t understand what the differences are between a ‘dynamic’ and ‘static’ websites.

In the old days of websites, most websites were ‘static’ in that they didn’t really do anything other than present a set amount of information to the web user. Static websites were generally built page-by-page, with links to other pages containing static content. These websites were essentially “brochure websites” in that they read just like reading a brochure. Fold One says something, Fold Two has more information, and Fold Three had a bunch of text telling you to contact them. This is no different than early websites.

This was the time when the guy in his pajamas working from his basement could build a website that was on par (and exceeding) the quality and performance of large companies. It didn’t take many resources to create a static, brochure website. You build a design in a graphics program, you recreate it using HTML, you get a web hosting account for $4.95 a month, and you are rolling. The world wouldn’t know any difference.

Enter the dynamic website

It didn’t take too long for all that to change. When the whole ‘Web 2.0′ thing broke loose on the world, websites would never be the same. Businesses realized that the web could be much better utilized than simply serving up digital pages of static information. They wanted people to order stuff and pay for it online… they wanted to people to see that they sold tshirts in blue, red, and purple, and even more insane–wanted people to be able to see the differences on the fly. Websites needed to ‘adapt’ to what the user was looking for and provide various forms of information on the fly.

Suddenly, the guy in his pajamas was outgunned by larger companies which had the funds to hire programmers and web developers who understood how to give users options, and how to allow a website to ‘dynamically’ display different pieces of information when the user chose to. If someone wanted to order 10 dohickeys at $9.99 each, their shopping cart would automatically show them the new price, automatically calculate the shipping, and send them an email after they placed their order. The days of the static website were kind of doomed.

Dynamic websites are simply web pages that allow a user to interact with a website, and change the information of the page in response to a request they made. You want to see the shirt in blue, you click the blue swatch and the main image changes to a blue shirt. Your looking at a map, and want to see where the road goes but its out of the ‘frame’, you click and drag the map to move it.

Comparison between static and dynamic website content

With this example, its easy to see how the static Google Map is forever fixed… its just an image of the map on the page. We can’t mess with it, we can’t ‘drive’ around the map, we can’t do shit. The dynamic Google map allows us all sorts of options–we can interact with the map by zooming in and out, moving it around, and even get driving directions. Way more fun, way more informative, and much more effective.

The map example is just one instance of dynamic vs. static web content. I’m sure that as you’ve viewed umpteen billion websites over the past few years, you’ve encountered countless examples of dynamic content. Some have probably been implemented seamlessly–where you never even considered the notion of “hey, this dynamic website is seamless and truly allows me to interact with this content.” Dynamic content is everywhere, and usually for good reason.

Now, thats not to say that every website needs to be dynamic. Not everyone needs a shopping cart, and not everyone needs complex website interaction. Static websites can still be remarkably informative, beautiful in design, and highly functional. However there are times when your visitors will require even a basic need to interact with the website in a way that a 3-fold brochure simply can’t offer.

We always encourage our potential clients to really dig down and discover exactly what information they want to present to their users, and find the balance between whats doable, whats affordable, and what the user requires.

As they mention in their article, high-quality web footers can be an important element in a website design and can dramatically enhance the user experience on a website. We totally agree. Even though footers are at the bottom of the page, the old adage of ‘website users never scroll all the way down’ is a thing of the past.  All websites should include a great footer as a way to quickly present important and relevant info for your visitors. When building your website, make darn sure to include an awesome footer!

Thanks Jameel for the mention!

They make a few fabulous points regarding footers. Here’s a list of points as taken directly from the Template Monster blog article:

Tips and tricks for creating a fascinating footer (from the Template Monster blog)

• make it a powerful navigation tool which will improve your website’s usability;
• add a contact information or even a contact form to make it more informative;
• don’t forget to add the social media section – it is a nice way to receive a feedback and engage your visitors;
• fill it with interesting and original content and don’t forget about the updates;
• you may want to put a creative advertisement there to entertain the visitors;
• recap the main highlights of your website by placing them to the footer;
• use footer as an alternative to a sidebar;
• big-size footer with vivid boundaries will grab your clients’ attention ten times faster than the small piece of text drowned on the bottom of your website page;
• use contrast to stand out against a background of other UI elements;
• creative illustrations in the footer may be another trump to convince your visitors to stay;
• use “back to top” button as a small navigation tip for the visitors;

Following these guidelines, you can increase the usability of your website, add richness and depth to your website, and enhance the overall awesomeness of your website. Great website footers compliment your website and add a polished, well-rounded overall feel to your design. Whether your website is using an existing template, such as one from Template Monster or StudioPress, or you’ve created a completely custom website design, bad ass footers can really make a website.

You Google something, you click on the first link, and it takes you to a real crummy website that starts loading some long winded Flash animation with lines and boxes frollicking all over your screen. Buzzwords zoom in from the left and disolve and fade to the right. Pictures woosh across the screen and a stupid ass ‘loading 43%’ never seems to make it to 44%. If your lucky, whoever constructed this waste of your 20 seconds of time offers you a link to “SKIP INTRO” and move on to the stuff you actually wanted to see.

I hate these useless intro movies, and usually click the back button instead of clicking on the stupid ‘skip intro’.  And, I’m not alone.

These days, the average users’ patience lasts about .000000002343 nanoseconds. Any longer wait than that, they are pissed, and off to the next website on the list. There’s simply too many websites and too much competition to waste your visitors time.  Oh yeah, back in 1997 it might have looked groundbreaking and cool, but these are the 200o’s and nobody has the time.

If you want to offer your visitors a movie/slideshow/powerpoint of your offerings–thats wonderful. But give them the option to do so afterwords, not when they FIRST ARRIVE at your website. Show me someone who goes to the movies ONLY to watch the previews, and I’ll show you someone who does not reflect 99% of the web using population. Skip Intros more often than not DO NOTHING to help your bottom line, do nothing to help decrease your bounce rate, and do nothing but tick off your users.

If you’ve got a website that currently employs a skip intro, perhaps its time to talk to a web developer that understands when and where to employ these, if at all. Professional web designers can help you determine if your scaring your visitors away rather than welcoming to your website.

Do your website a favor, and skip your skip intros.

Thanks Footerama!