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WordPress is quite remarkable software. Accepted by many as the best blogging platform, it has become much more than that. A WordPress installation today can match any other website for features and functionality. One of the early decisions that you face when adopting WordPress is the general appearance – or “wordpress theme” as it’s called.

WordPress is also remarkably easy to set up and use. If you wanted to achieve the same results with Dreamweaver or other high-end web design software you would probably spend days – if not weeks – learning the program before you ever got a finished page on the internet.

If you use WordPress for a blog you can be adding valuable content within hours of starting. Even if you want an all singing and dancing CMS your learning curve is surprisingly short. The software allows you to make a logical progression from one step to the next and doesn’t require any code knowledge. It’s true that a little html can be useful if you like to tinker and personalize things, but it’s not necessary to make things work.

One of the early decisions that you face when adopting WordPress is the general appearance – or “theme” as it’s called. This is effectively a template which controls not only the look of your website but how some of the functions perform. Some themes will give you navigation along the top, some at the right or left-hand side – or even both. Themes can make your website look like a blog, a business site, an art gallery, a magazine, even an online store. There is a mind-boggling choice, literally thousands, and further adjustment can be made via stylesheets to make yours completely unique.

Many of these themes are free of charge. WordPress own site lists over twelve hundred. So why would anyone pay for a premium theme?

There are a number of reasons. For a start, as we all know there is seldom such a thing as a free lunch. The “free” themes almost invariably contain a web link somewhere near the bottom (in what is called the “footer”). These links are often to the designer of the theme, which would seem a fair exchange, but increasingly they advertise other websites. You might consider these as harmless if you are running a personal blog, but if you are using WordPress for business it is unlikely that it would be appropriate for you to display links to a gambling site!

You also need to think about what you expect from your theme. If it’s for personal use and your blog or website is going to remain fairly small, a free WordPress theme is fine. If yours is a commercial site then things like support become important – not something you can really expect if you didn’t pay for it. Then there’s ongoing development. Many free themes are created by people who have other jobs. They design for what WordPress can do now but without much consideration for the future.

A prime example is e-commerce. As recently this was an area where WordPress lagged behind many of the alternatives. The core platform was there but nobody had created themes to take advantage of its full potential. Today there are many premium themes specifically designed to be your online store front. With no more than the ability to type in descriptions, prices and upload images by clicking a mouse, you can have a fully functional online presence selling your goods or services anywhere in the world.

How much would you pay a traditional website designer for that? A couple of thousand dollars? More?

To do it effectively with WordPress does mean you need to invest in a premium theme rather than a free one but the prices will probably surprise you. Premium WordPress themes for e-commerce start at as little as $50.