Does custom theme = being taken seriously as a blogger?
I started this blog in September of 2006 in the fashion I recommend to my clients, which is to grow a blog, not build one. I had a lot of ideas about how I wanted it to look and how to structure the content, but I also wanted to wait and see what content I was really going to develop regularly. Well, I’ve been maintaining this blog for a few months now and I’m about to release a custom theme. I’m really excited about it because I think a blogger needs a customized theme if he/she wants to be taken seriously. My current theme is a slightly modified version of K2.
My question is how important is custom blog design to being taken seriously? I’d say that the importance of a custom design depends on the topics covered by the blog, but what do you think?
Comments
I think that having a custom theme is very important to being taken seriously. I am also now writing on a very specific topic, so that keeps return visitors and subscribers.
You want the design of the site to impress people (while not turning them off) and show that you took the effort to build a custom site.
*I* also think a custom design is important, but I’m the type that looks out for it. I’m not sure the regular reader cares that much. Like you say, it probably depends on the audience. One made up of people who can recognize the most common designs probably should have, if not a custom template, a lesser-known theme.
If it’s folks like y’all that leave the comments and you consider a custom design important, then it looks like it’s time to bust out a custom theme…;)
hahaha
A custom theme is nice to have, however I wouldn’t say it’s the most important thing to growing a blog. Having a pleasing, easy to navigate layout is the most important thing visually, however having regularly updated content and well put together content is the most important thing one can do.
i told my girlfriend that i wanted her to have themes she didn’t go for it. i think about how cool it would be if i could click presentation and turn her into a teenage karate-kit™.
fight!
I really think that custom themes or at least themes that have been modified way beyond what they originally were (like mine) are important and does tell people that you should be taken seriously…particularly if you’re a personal blog.
After all, non niche or themed personal blogs really do abide by the “30 seconds to give the best impression” rule. Without it, it’ll just usually be thought to be one of the crowd, which normally happens.
Custom is always best! The one main problem with me though, is finding the time to customize it the way I want, so most of my blogs end up being only being semi-custom!
I think having a custom theme, in some capacity, is very important, but I am biased. As someone familiar with wordpress and its default themes we know immediately if it is a template, if it has or has not been customized, and personally I immediately (not necessarily on purpose) downgrade the content of a site if I see it using kubrick or something of the like. But, does the average consumer, visitor care? I don’t know.
Customizing a theme, especially for a web-savvy audience is important. It differentiates you from the masses, helping to brand your image, your thoughts, your ideas.
I feel that! I’ve had a detailed sketch for my new design for this blog for over a month now, but it’s hard to find the time to implement it. I think that’s part of why we value blogs that have custom designs. We give them more credit because we know it’s not an easy thing to have the time or talent to make a custom theme.
At the same time, Edrei’s point about the “30 seconds to give the best impression” is also true. Maybe the best impression criteria is whether or not you are successful enough with your blog to have the time to work on a custom theme for it. Like you blog must be financially rewarding enough from it’s success to warrant spending time on it’s design.
Custom is nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills so to speak.
If you have a great design, that’s fantastic. However, looking at a design will take me at most 5 minutes. If you don’t have anything interesting to say, I’ll be gone in 6.
i’m all about content as king
as long as the content is what people need, they’ll come and find it if it’s good, no matter the format it’s presented in
of course, making it as easily accesible is important
so for me, it’s all about simplicity
clean clean clean
and to be honest, i wouldn’t even know if a page is an exisiting template or customed anyways…coming up to speed on this now
clear labels, easy navigation, easy to understand headers are important
I think having a custom template is very important so your site looks original. I sometimes go on blog searches when I’m bored to read about someone else’s interest and I often find hundreds of blogs with the same theme. This literally turns me off because I really be wanting to see something original. Premade templates are definantly over used and it’s so easy to recognize them.