Theme Warning Signs – Part 2

 

4) You Find a Bug, and Support Gives You Crickets

Another main problem with a free theme is that they have very poor support. So if you have any problem with your theme, there is no one to help you out.

For example, if you found a problem in your theme and need someone (maybe from the support team) to check and fix the problem for you.

If you tried to approach the support team but didn’t get any response or there is no way to submit your query to the support team. The last way you are left with is to search Google for different forums, where you look for similar problems as yours and its solution. This is totally a waste of time.

How will you know that you’ll get help when you need it?

The following four questions will help you in finding the answer to the above question:

– Firstly visit the support forum before applying any theme to your blog. On the forum check the latest 5 to 10 threads posted during the last one or two months. Did the support team respond to those threads?

– If yes, did they respond quickly?

– Were they glad to answer the questions or did they seem annoyed by the questions?

– Was the issue resolved?

If there is a “no” to any of the above questions, or you’ve not found a support team to help you in resolving your problem. Then don’t mess up with the free themes anymore. Free support is not as good as paid support. Save your time and invest your money in a premium theme.

 

5) You Can’t Place Opt-Ins Where You Need Them Most

You can easily put an email opt-in box in the sidebar of the free theme, by just copying and pasting the code from the email provider in the text widget.

To place an opt-in where it is really needed can be a tough task.

The sidebar is actually not the best option to place an opt-in form. Because the sidebar is mostly used for placing advertisements and the visitors know this very well so they avoid looking at this area. They have sidebar blindness.

There are two areas other than the sidebar where you can put the subscription form:

– Above the fold is the place where visitors can see it without scrolling down the page.

– Below the posts put the form below your posts to capture the actual readers of your content.

There will be the need for additional widgets to achieve this, the section where you can add the widgets which will appear in all the posts and pages.

But the free themes don’t give the facility to do this, they only come with the standard sidebar and footer widget areas. There are many plugins though that can do this for you, giving you additional areas for widgets. But again these plugins may ruin your blog badly, as we discussed earlier.

Premium themes make it really simple for you. All you have to do is to drag and drop your required item. You can see in the image below:

 

6) Your Site Loads Like a Sloth Crossing the Road

Does your blog take time to load? If yes, it’s because of the free theme you’re using.

Free themes have a lot of JavaScript coding that makes your blog sluggish to load. This will put a negative impact on your blog and is dangerous if you want to keep your visitors.

On mobile devices, JavaScript makes the blog load slowly. Slow access can irritate visitors and damage your readership.

Of course, it is not necessary that always your free theme is the reason behind slow loading. There might be some other reasons causing this issue like server problems or un-optimized images. Following are the steps to check if your free theme or something else is causing the loading problem:

– Visit Google PageSpeed Insights.

– Type your blog’s URL in the box and click the “analyze” button next to it.

– It will then show the results containing scores for your speed on both mobile and desktop.

– Now put your blog in maintenance mode. You’ll need the WP Maintenance plugin, install and activate it. Then open its settings. Within the “Design” tab, you can change the setting of splash pages that the visitors will see while your blog is in maintenance mode. Within the “General” tab, eliminate any one of the pages from showing the splash page by typing its slug in the “Exclude” box. After it selects the “Activated” radio button. Click save settings.

– Now change your current theme and activate some other default theme of WordPress (like twenty-fifteen etc).

– Again visit Google PageSpeed Insights and analyze the URL again.

– If the score is now higher than the previous score, then it means your free theme is sabotaging your blog.

Always try to invest in a premium theme, so that it will not cost you as much as a free theme does.

 

7) You Got Hacked… Again

It is really important for the health of your blog that you update your WordPress and the theme frequently. If you don’t update the theme on a timely basis, it will cause many problems along with security issues.

AND Free themes aren’t kept updated always. Plus it is said that free themes are poorly coded and easy for spammers to hide the malicious code.

There are some signs that will help in identifying if your blog is hacked:

– Home page has changed

– Your blog redirects to some other site that doesn’t belong to you.

– Google shows a warning page

– The admin password doesn’t work anymore

– You’re seeing new and strange traffic

Besides these signs, how will you make sure that your blog is really hacked? You can use different malware software such as “Is it hacked” to check your blog.

Get rid of all these problems and get a premium theme today from trusted companies such as Themify, Elegant themes, or WooThemes.

It’s Time to Ditch Your Free WordPress Theme
Your free WordPress theme is getting you hard times. It’s time to say goodbye to your free theme and use a premium theme.

Start all over again with the new premium theme, never hesitate to spend money on it because your blog is worth it.

When you invest in your blog, your blog will surely pay you back; either in the form of revenue or more subscribers.

Choose a premium theme today, install it and stop worrying about suffocating your blog.

Don’t forget to share your experience with us…