Cost Difference Between Coding Custom Theme or Coding Child Theme
-
Assuming there is an SEO advantage to coding a Wordpress custom theme (wondering if that assumption is correct) versus modifying a child theme, is there a very significant cost difference between the two choices?
Competition in my niche (New York City commercial real estate is keen) and I am dealing with competitors such as www.wework.com, 42floors.com and squarefoot.com with optimized sites built with quality code.
In the event that we modify a child theme, I am leaning in any case towards have wireframes and illustrations provided to present to the developer. Should I expect a custom theme to be double the cost, triple assuming the design is provided?
I have read that code maintenance on a child theme is less costly as modifications get pushed to the parent theme. How substantial are maintenance costs (time to maintain) for a custom theme?
Thanks!!!
Alan -
I definitely understand.
My agency works with premium themes / child themes and find that while many are very clunky and bloated, we don't notice any issues with the code not being clean enough. When using pre-built WordPress themes, we find it's important to utilize canonical tags when necessary, always check on page speed, and to noindex unnecessary pages. We also use Yoast SEO plugin, which will cover some themes' faults.
Having said that, I'm not a developer, but I'm sure there are themes out there with invalid or unfriendly code.
Yoast has a good post on choosing WP themes: https://yoast.com/perfect-wordpress-theme/
-
Hi Brooks:
Thanks so much for the excellent answer, it really provides an idea about differing development costs between a custom theme and a child theme.
I am on the fence as to whether a real estate theme would not be sufficient. I can absorb the added cost if necessary. Big factor is whether cleaner, more efficient code of a custom site is an important SEO factor. Do you have an opinion? We are just in an insanely a competitive niche so we need everything working in our favor. But from a user interface perspective some of the commercially available themes are pretty good.
Thanks,
Alan -
It's really hard to give a general price estimate for a custom theme v.s. using a WordPress theme and utilizing child themes.
I would say you can expect the custom theme to be at least double the cost, but again, there are countless factors to consider. You will most likely be looking at more maintenance with the custom theme, but it will largely depend on how your developer codes, how many plugins they utilize, whether they build custom plugins, etc...
Here are two (again very general) pricing guides that might be somewhat helpful:
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Internally linked pages from different subdomain must be well optimised?
Hi all, We have guide/help pages from different subdomain (help.website.com). And we have linked these from 3rd hierarchy level pages of our website (website.com/folder1/topic2). But help.website sumdomain & pages are not well optimised. So, I am not sure linking these subdomain pages from our website pages hurts our rankings? Thanks,
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Multiple H1 Tags for different section on one webpage in HTML5 Website? Should I have only one?
https://www.tcs.com website has multiple H1 tag on around 40 out of 1000 pages. Webpage has different section and each section is important that's why used multiple H1 tag (one h1 for each section) **I understand, google will not penalize for multiple H1. But having multiple H1, for site like tcs, is it good or should use only one H1 tag? **Pls check https://www.tcs.com to see heading tag(6 heading tag used).
Web Design | | JayprakashSEO0 -
Custom HTML or WordPress, it's Time to Decide
Today I start the face to face interviews with website companies. So far most have pushed WordPress, few have offered either and one insisted on Joomla. Our 50+ products and services are primarily customized, so we sell -10 on our shopping cart. We rely primarily on organic Google rankings, SEO and content is critical. What do you, my fellow Mozzers, recommend for our next website platform for our mobile world and Google friendliness? TY, KJr
Web Design | | KevnJr0 -
Is switching from a very old HTML table site to HTML5 going to make a big difference
Hello, My site owner has been having calls that our old HTML site needs to switch to HTML5. Is it really worth the ubgrade from an archaic HTML site? Please explain. Bob
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Going mobile: Responsive or different mobile version?
Going mobile: Responsive or different mobile version?
Web Design | | FCRMediaLietuva
Which one should we choose? Should we do responsive design or should we have a different mobile version and go m.domain.com ? http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2253965/3-reasons-why-responsive-web-design-is-the-best-option-for-your-mobile-seo-strategy I just read this article. It seems that the responsive design is OK, but the first comment kills that opinion and says that it is pretty hard to make it OK. 🙂 So I need more opinions? What is best for people and for SEO?0 -
Content Migration & cost of moving pages
Hope you are all having a great day! I am wondering if anyone would be able to provide general feedback. I work for a medium size company in Chicago. Currently our site is static html and we are seeking to migrate to Wordpress. After speaking with a number of website companies and receiving proposals, I am trying to understand if there is an approximate going rate or range for moving content from static html to a CMS like Wordpress? i.e. a cost per page? We don't have any dynamic content. Most of our pages are text and images. The site itself, including the blog is around 220 pages. Thanks in advance for any insight or resources!
Web Design | | SEOSponge0 -
Is there a best practice for using a general iso code for the EAME region and APAC region or should you break it out by country?
I am creating a strategy for multiple regions and the US comes to market different than EAME (Europe, Africa, Middle East) and China. We were planning on using language and iso codes in subfolder's but the corporation only wants their content to be in German, English, and Queens English. Our current decision is to use /en-US/, /en/, /de/, /en-CN/, /zh-CN/. /en/ and /de/ will be what we use for EAME. This doesn't seem like the best idea as I think /en/ will get indexed as the US version and not the EAME version. Any suggestion or if clarification is needed is greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | GodfreyB2B0 -
How do I learn how to build custom wordpress websites?
Is wordpress a good platform to build websites with? If so, what are some good resources to learn how to build custom websites using wordpress?
Web Design | | Lael0