So you’re starting a new WordPress web project and you’re thinking, “Should I use a custom or premium WordPress theme?” It’s a good questions and It really depends on your skill and abilities. With the thousands of WordPress themes, both premium and free, it makes it easy to get up and running with a nicely designed site without the hassle of writing any code.

One of the many benefits of using a theme, especially a premium one, is that it should include a responsive design, important for mobile devices, as well as a well thought out layout for usability. These are both very important aspects for making sure that you’re site ranks well on Google.

If you’re going to create a custom theme then it’s important to take these aspects of a well thought out theme into consideration.

The disadvantages to a premium theme is that they’re generally built in a “broad” way so that they can be useful to as many people as possible. This means that there is a lot of extras that you’ll never use that may end up slowing down your workflow or even making your site slower then it needs to be.

Creating a custom theme can be a lot of fun because you can build it from the ground up in exactly they way you/your client wants it. But I wouldn’t recommend this as a starting place. WordPress, and web design in general, is a complex system that will take some time to get used to.

In order to help you succeed in the long run It can be a good idea to eliminate as many variables as possible for your first few projects and, as you begin to get more comfortable with WordPress, and the other realities involved with creating websites for clients, you can start to branch out and try new ways of doing things.