Which WordPress approach is right for me?

Like many development agencies out there, we often recommend WordPress as a platform for a website project. It’s an extremely well used and popular framework that is perfectly suited to many of the sites we work on.

One advantage of WordPress is it’s themes feature. Themes provide a way to lay design and some extra functionality over a WordPress site without changing its core workings.

We have produced many bespoke themes for clients before (like this one), however there are also many ‘commercial themes’ (like the one we used here) that can be bought online and applied to a WordPress site. Commercial themes can also provide a good starting point for a site build. Let’s have a look at both options using our tried-and-tested moving house analogy (honestly, just stick with it.)

Bespoke theme – Designing and building your own home

We often compare using a bespoke theme to designing and building your own dream house. You’ll plan everything with your architect, builders, and interior designer, and you can dictate the layout of the rooms, the colour scheme throughout, even replace the stairs with a slide if you really want to.

There are some downsides to this approach. This will take longer than simply moving into an already-built home and will likely require a larger budget. But it’s a great long term investment and maybe the only way to meet all your requirements.

When using this approach we think that there shouldn’t be any compromises. We can build a site that is perfectly suited to you/your clients’ business requirements and have it look and function exactly as you like. Dreamy indeed.

Modifying a commercial theme – Moving house

When house hunting, you’ll always have a list of criteria your new home must have. For example, you may need four bedrooms, rather than three, and feel it must have a garden as well. It’s rare, but not impossible, to find a home on the market that perfectly meets all your criteria.

It’s more likely that you’ll get close, but need to make some modifications to the house before you can call it your home though. For example, you may not agree with previous owners taste in wallpaper – so that all has to come down. You may wish to knock down the wall between the kitchen and dining room to make one big open plan space. Adding an extension in a couple of years time is definitely an option too.

There are some modifications that won’t be possible though. Sadly the garden just isn’t big enough for that swimming pool, and converting the loft into a study would be a fire hazard.

Modifying a WordPress theme is just like this. There are loads of commercially available themes to choose from, so picking one that meets as many of your ‘must have’ requirements at the start is key. But if it doesn’t have everything you desire that’s not necessarily a dealbreaker – it might just require a bit of extra work and time to get it up to scratch.

The great news is that even if it’s not perfect, a lot of the aspects of your site will be taken care of within the theme – saving your budget for more important things. Some modifications may not be possible, but we will be able to talk you through commercial themes, explaining what is possible to change and what isn’t so you’ll know exactly what you’re getting into before committing.

Basic theme – renting

When renting a home there aren’t many modifications you’re permitted to make. Even adding a splash of paint to the walls isn’t allowed. But renting has it’s pros too! You can move in quickly and have a roof over your head in the short term while the hunt for a more permanent home continues.

The equivalent WordPress theme project would be like installing a commercial theme and not making any modifications at all. Website builders like Wix and Squarespace work like this too – they’re incredibly good tools for many website projects, and they are fast becoming the biggest players in this market.

Jambi and other web development agencies tend not to get involved in this kind of project. These tools are designed to be as easy-to-use as possible, and frankly, the fine folks at Squarespace would probably see it is a failure of their product if one of their customers felt they needed a web development agency to help them get up and running with their website.

A number of our clients have come to us with a website produced in-house on Wix or Squarespace that although is functional, is starting to strain under their company’s growing requirements and have upgraded to either a bespoke or modified theme project. If this sounds like you then do give us a shout, I’m sure we could help.

So what’s right for me?

Good question. Generally our recommended approach depends on the amount of design work involved in the project.

If the plan is to work with a designer to create full designs for the site, then a bespoke theme is really the only development option. When we work with other creative agencies we almost always go down this route.

Sometimes the project won’t encompass a full design phase, and instead the website aesthetics should just follow the company’s general branding principles. Usually these principles are documented in brand guidelines, or a style guide. If this is the case, a modified theme approach would work well.
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Thanks very much for reading. We hope this article has shed a bit of light on WordPress themes and how Jambi can utilise them for different website projects.