So maybe one of your New Year’s Resolutions is to build a new website (or straight up create a website) for your small business. But you don’t quite have the resources for a fancy custom WordPress theme for your business.
What can you do?
Well, if a custom theme is out of the question, then the next logical step is to get a pre-built theme. I know there might be a certain stigma about using a pre-built theme for your business’ website, especially with popular ones.
But if you get a theme from StudioPress or a highly-rated one from ThemeForest and change the colors and branding, it really can be the best option for you on a budget.
Relatively quick and easy set up
The biggest selling point for using a pre-built WordPress theme for a website is how much faster it is than building a custom one.
If you were wanting a custom theme built for your website, we’d have to go through a lengthy discovery process to figure out what you wanted, what you wanted the homepage to look like, what the inner pages would look like, whether you wanted a blog and what it would look like if you did. And that’s before I even start to create the designs for you to look at. That takes time, and time is money.
But using a prebuilt theme shrinks the time by over half. Instead of meticulously going through everything to figure out what you want and then design to that, I can look through a list of trusted themes (mainly StudioPress) and come up with a selection for you to choose from and go from there.
At that point, it’s all about getting it installed and changing the colors and branding to match your small business. If everyone’s on point, it could really just take two weeks to have it all up and running.
Tell the Story of Your Small Business With a Website
Every small business has a story. And every small business needs a website to help tell it. A website allows people to find you online, serves as a home base for any marketing effort and can help you tell the story of your business. So if you’re ready to give your business its first website or are ready to take your site to the next level, let’s get started on making that happen.
Let’s Get Started on Telling Your Story With a WebsiteLowers the cost of the website
And because that time of building the website is cut by so much, the cost of the website drops a lot as well.
Just as sort of a guideline, I budget about 60 hours give or take for a complete custom WordPress website. But if you select a pre-built theme, the budgeted time goes down to under 30 hours. And when rates for good developers are over $50 an hour, that’s a lot of money you’re saving.
And that money you’re saving can be reinvested into your business and website. You can spend it on ads to direct people to your website and business or maybe hire someone to help out.
And it makes it the perfect solution for businesses that are just starting out or are struggling to bring in business. You can still get a very professional looking website for a relatively inexpensive cost. It’s a win-win.
Something you can build on
Now, I know that it might not seem like the most appetizing route to use a prebuilt theme. After all, if you like it, someone else has liked it and is using it for their website too.
But you can still make it unique. We can change colors, maybe some of the fonts and the content will definitely be different from someone else’s (or at least it should be). People will still know it’s your website and your business when they visit the site.
But it’s also something that you can build on. If you don’t have a website already (or just have a Facebook page), this is a great way to get you started. You now have a website to call your own. And you can start showing up in Google searches.
And if you ended up growing enough to build a custom theme, WordPress makes it really easy to do just that.
So if you’re looking for a new website for your small business in 2019 and maybe don’t have all the resources for a custom one, think about getting a developer to use a pre-built theme. It’ll save you time and money, and, most importantly, you’ll actually have a nice looking website.
