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Template vs Multi-Purpose Themes?

by | Themes | 0 comments

At first glance, building a website can seem extremely complex, and that’s because it is. When making such a big decision for your business, you want to make sure it’s the right decision, and there are a lot of factors that weigh into this. Your website should represent your company’s identity, target clientele and look great all at the same time.

We’ve compared WordPress template and multi-purpose themes to help you decide which type of theme approach will best meet your business objectives. For this example, we chose to look into and compare Visual Composer’s Page Builder as the Template Theme and DIVI’s Page Builder theme as the Multi-Purpose Theme.

Template Themes

Template themes are quick, simple and easy to use due to their predetermined design elements, layout and effects. If you are looking to build a website on your own without the help of an experienced designer, this may be the best option for you. With that being said; the quick, simple and easy route doesn’t always yield optimal results.

We’ve made a list of pros and cons to assist you in working out what’s best for your needs:

  • Predetermined design elements (you don’t have to work these out on your own!)
  • The theme is on a template, so building the website is quick and easy.
  • Template themes are usually cheaper and quicker to build.

Cons:

The disadvantages of a template theme can be scaled depending on the type of website, so keep in mind that these ‘cons’ may be neutral or even turn into ‘pros’ for some:

  • Boundaries: templates create boundaries for what you can individually customise.
  • There are no native import and export functions (this means you can’t make a page and then export it to use it elsewhere, or import a page into this theme).
  • Compatibility: will your chosen theme eventually stop you from making edits to your website? (consider plugin compatibility with your theme).

If you’re not looking to make many changes to your company and don’t need distinct graphic elements to distinguish your brand, your website won’t need many style changes, then this can be a serious option for you. However if you’re worried about not being able to make changes in the future, maybe a more customizable theme is best for you. The extra time and money required for a multi-purpose theme in the beginning will be in the end less costly than transferring all your content to a multi-purpose theme later on.

Multi-Purpose Theme

A multi-purpose theme makes for a much more complex building process, but allows more room for creative freedom. The possibilities are endless with a multi-purpose theme, if you have a website pictured in your mind, you can build it. We think this is exciting.

Here’s a list of some pros and cons of a Multi-Purpose, customizable theme.

Pros:

  • Everything is customizable, change anything you like. Period.
  • No need to be concerned with plugin compatibility, just make the necessary changes in the backend and you can incorporate any plugin into your website.
  • Compatible with ANY website type: e-Commerce, blogs, portfolios, the list never ends!
  • The theme becomes something you created.

Cons:

  • Confusion. If you’re new to design and development then all of this customization can be a bit overwhelming.

DIVI’s Page Builder is gaining popularity in the WordPress world for being one of the most user-friendly multi-purpose theme page builders out there. We at OPTe strongly believe in individuality and creating a strong brand for yourself, and a multi-purpose theme allows more space for that.

The result?

With all that being said, it comes down to what your business and brand identity needs are. If you’re okay with the restrictions of a template theme and need a website quickly or easily built, then a template theme may be perfect for you. If you don’t mind spending the extra bit of money and time to create a completely unique WordPress website, then a multi-purpose theme is for you!

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Jeremiah Williams

To create great content, you need to read great content. And that's exactly what I love to do. My read later lists seem to be neverending with the millions of articles published every day.

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