For one who wants to build websites easily and quickly, there’s always a battle of choosing to work with developers or do it on their own. One creates a loop of hundreds of email exchanges, so another saves you from it — just you and your design ideas.
But how does one propel one’s idea to design their websites on their own with the best look possible? The highly recommended approach is to use prebuilt themes to put your work on the fast track.
If you’re looking to build a website and thinking of using a prebuilt theme, then by reading this post, you’ll find all the essential details of why you should choose it.
Let’s start with the basics.
What Are Prebuilt Themes?
A prebuilt theme is a pre-designed and pre-coded theme to provide a design base for websites of different niches. Using a prebuilt theme, one can quickly take an offline platform live without extensively working on the core part, such as coding or building templates.
They are also known as “templates,” which offer different layouts, customization options and colour/design schemes to help you come up with a unique design that best fits your brand.
Overall, these themes require fewer steps to unpack them, upload them to your servers and install them.
There’s less work needed and more to expect.
What Platforms Support Prebuilt Themes?
Different platforms, such as WordPress, WIX, Squarespace, GoDaddy and others, provide their users with prebuilt templates so they can quickly establish the platform.
You get options to either use themes provided by these platforms or go for a 3rd party prebuilt theme at your convenience. In both cases, you’ll find the design already mapped out for you, and all you need to do is add the content and start marketing the platform.
Can Anybody Use Prebuilt Themes?
Yes, anyone can use an already-created theme. However, what matters is whether your platform (the content management system) supports it or not. For example, CraftCMS, Statamic, Kirby, Pico and Perch CMS do not offer or allow users to use prebuilt themes. You can develop and design completely custom designs and templates.
Therefore, whether you can use a prebuilt theme or not completely depends on what CMS you are using.
Custom vs. Prebuilt Theme
A custom theme is a unique theme designed by web agencies, keeping the requirements in mind. For example, they have to design a website for a restaurant owner; then, they will simply develop a custom theme according to that requirement.
On the other hand, a prebuilt comes with predesigned elements, keeping all sorts of business industries in mind. The user can make changes according to their needs and keep the predesigned if found useful.
Seven Benefits of Using a Prebuilt Theme
Among the many benefits of using a prebuilt theme for your website, the following are the most preferable.
1. Cost Effectiveness
Among many reasons, the #1 reason why one should use a prebuilt theme is the cost efficiency. From popular to new themes, you can try any theme you like or suit your profession without spending much. And for a business enthusiast or professional without any big budget, it’s the golden key to making an online presence.
Hiring a website agency or going for a custom theme can cost an average of $3,500 if you’re not selling anything. However, for an ecommerce store, it can get up to an average of $13,000.
Overall, custom web development can range from $220 to $150,000. But if you choose to go with a prebuilt theme, it can be done under $100. Although you may need to pay extra for hosting and other options, by spending $1,500/year, you can have a full-fledged website for any purpose.
2. Ready to Go Live
Prebuilt themes come with all the designs and elements your profession needs. You don’t have to include anything extra if it’s not necessary. To make your website live, all you have to do is simply replace the demo content with your original one.
That’s it; that’s all you need to do with prebuilt themes, and your website is ready to go.
3. Extremely Responsive to Different Devices
You might find people saying that if you don’t opt for custom themes or hire a web developer/designer, your website won’t be responsive. Well, that’s bad marketing about prebuilt themes. The developers of those themes want to win. Hence, they take care of this phenomenon very effectively and design their themes fully responsive to different device types.
Whether your users visit your website from a mobile phone or tablet, they can see the content in the best way. Times are gone when prebuilt themes are only designed for desktop users. Now, almost every theme, whether you get it from Themeforest or your CMS library, is highly responsive and mobile-friendly.
Each element will behave the same as it does for the desktop user.
4. Little to No Use of Coding
For non-technical users, one of the headaches when it comes to building a website is the use of code. When you build a website by hiring an agency, you won’t have the extreme knowledge of what code they have used. Every time something comes up, you need to contact them. And it might cost you more.
Yet, in the case of using a prebuilt theme, there’s little to no use of code. All the design is already there, and what you need to do is simply paste your content.
Even if you want to make some changes, there’s no need to interfere with template files or coding. You can use the tools every prebuilt theme provides and bring changes to your website without any hassle.
That’s the most favourable benefit of using a prebuilt theme. You don’t have to code.
5. Comes With Extreme Customizations Possibilities
Every prebuilt theme has its own set of customization options. Some themes use the content management system’s options. So, other themes provide you with their own intuitive options. For example, if you get the Divi theme for WordPress, it comes with the Divi Builder. It’s a powerful page builder providing many easy solutions to build different kinds of web page elements.Â
So, if you go with Divi, then using its builder, you can easily create outstanding designs that might need hours of work if you go with a custom theme. For instance, using Divi Builder, you can,
- Create different kinds of web page elements using its modules.
- View live every change you make.
- Customize elements using Dynamic values.
- Apply sticky, scroll, animation and more effects.
- Use custom header and footer areas.
Hence, it is a powerful choice when it comes to building websites of different kinds.
6. Search Engine Optimized
A website not ready for SEO isn’t ready for anything. No matter what you do, if you haven’t developed the site keeping search engines not in mind, it won’t bring results.
When you choose to go with a custom theme, you can have SEO capabilities. However, search engines go with regular changes, which means you need to contact your developer or designer with every change. Moreover, it’s impossible for your custom-built website to cover all SEO aspects. Hence, you’ll miss out on subtle yet crucial possibilities to rank better.
In the case of prebuilt themes, SEO is extremely valued. The theme developers take special care of this factor and build their themes in a way that performs well in search results. For example, the prebuilt themes are,
- Lightweight and fast.
- Uses proper HTML tags.
- Supports SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO that cover all the factors of SEO.
- Custom 404-error page templates.
In addition, prebuilt themes offer a more flexible approach to adding your content that effortlessly gets seen in the search. Therefore, choosing a prebuilt theme would cause less effort than a custom one.
7. Regular Updates, Support and Documentation
To make your website always ready for changes, theme developers release updates regularly. It means if something has changed in the algorithm of the search engines, your website is adaptable to it. And for that, you don’t even have to contact the developers.
2nd, you always are their priority customers. Theme developers have customer service open 24/7, unlike agencies that take off on weekends. Regular updates, and dedicated support always works right.
Another great thing about a prebuilt theme is that it always has easy-to-read documentation.
If you want to do it independently, reading the guides available in the documentation can assist you immensely. Whereas in a custom theme, you need to contact your developer repeatedly, which is kind of spending crucial time that can be utilized to build something good.
Some of the Best Prebuilt WordPress Themes
If you haven’t selected your prebuilt theme and are looking for some recommendations, the following are gems in the WordPress world. These themes are easy to use and provide all the options to take your business online.
Have a look at them and decide for yourself!
Divi
One of the powerful and popular themes for WordPress is Divi. It’s the complete package of endless possibilities to design a highly professional website. This theme and its options are so flexible and intuitive that you won’t regret a single day of using it. It provides you with,
- Ultimate page builder.
- Hundreds of free templates.
- Divi AI tools to streamline your content process.
- Marketing tool.
- Money-back guarantee and much more.
What’s impressive about Divi is its marketplace, which is full of amazing add-ons. Here, you can get outstanding themes covering different industries, plugins and layouts. One of the amazing plugins you can have on your website is Divi Plus.
A complete solution to build out-of-the-box Divi websites. This single plugin enhances how you use Divi by providing,
- 50+ advanced modules to create fantastic web page elements.
- Free prebuilt themes covering different industries.
- Free starter templates.
- Different Divi resources to inspire your design.
- And free design sections to also speed up the process of designing a tiny web page element.
Overall, Divi and Divi Plus make a great combination and let you do incredible things with your website.
Astra
Astra makes it super easy to build websites of any kind without investing in anything. You can avail of this theme for free. However, that would only provide you with limited options. And if you want more, you need to purchase its premium version.
It effectively supports the Elementor page builder that speeds up the creative process. You can also integrate other tools like LearnDash, Beaver Builder and Brizy, unlike Divi, which has its own page builder.
It’s a lightweight theme that only requires 50kb to store resources. Hence, no extra use of your server. In addition, you get tons of prebuilt websites, making web development super-fast. But that’s not all. More than 1.6m users use it; it includes no jQuery and launches the site in 0.5 seconds, which is more than impressive.
If you go with Astra, you won’t need any other theme; however, you must use page builders separately if you don’t want to work on the WordPress Gutenberg Editor.
WIX Templates
If you plan to build your website on Wix, it’s another excellent choice. Wix drives the website market after WordPress. There are a total of users of Wix compared to WordPress’
So, if you’re looking for a prebuilt theme for Wix, you should check out this resource, 30+ Wix templates. Here, you’ll find some of the best themes that cover almost every business domain.
These themes are creatively crafted, keeping the latest trends in mind, and offer one of the best looks for your online platform.
The Bottom Line
Considering the above points, you’d develop a solid and effective online platform by choosing a prebuilt theme. However, when you decide to select a prebuilt theme, consider the following points as well,
- Does it provide elements related to your business?
- Does it follow the latest guidelines?
- Is it used by many users?
- How people have responded to it.
- Will you be able to use it effectively on your own?
If anything above doesn’t meet your criteria, simply don’t get it by considering value or popularity. Consider everything, and you’ll have an excellent platform.
If you decide to go with Divi, don’t miss out on Divi Plus because it increases how you use this amazing WordPress theme.
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