Theme opinion or going the custom route?

BlueR

BlueR

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Hey guys from my previous thread you'll see iv'e been attempting to build a home builder website for my day job to run paid advertisements. I made the huge newbie mistake of going with an eye candy real estate site from them forest.. The site looks decent but the speed is terrible, its really bloated. ( I hate Visual Composer)

My coding skills don't surpass Html and CSS yet. As far as functionality the only thing it would need is a good way to display the floor plans on one page and have a light box pull up with information and a way for them to hit them to be sent to the contact page for more info on that floor plan. Rather than having a page for each floor plan . I believe iv'e found a plugin for this but not sure how to code it to fit my need.

Would you guys recommend using a lighter theme and using something like beaver builder to help build the site?

Here's examples of what are main competitors are doing.
https://www.ubh.com/
http://oakcreekhomes.com/
 
Recently I really like using Divi theme for my clients, as it enables non-tech users to edit content with easy, especially using Visual Editor...you can create any layout, replicate your main competitors or ideally make it a bit better :smile:
 
Here's the thing about most themes on theme forest, they are pretty much 95% bloated shit by volume. They just mash in 8 billion worthless plugins in so they can gloat their theme washes your balls or whatever, even though you don't need it. Whenever I buy a template I find I typically strip it down to the bones, which is very time consuming and some times you have to wonder if it would be easier to simply start from scratch.

Anyways, on to your question. Should you use a lighter theme? Yes, but at the same time it sounds like you simply don't have the knowledge of how to implement what you need to, so will changing the theme solve your problem? Probably not unless the theme has said functionality built in already.

If time is an issue I'd recommend you simply hire a professional to do it, especially if you want your site to actually be fast. Outside of that start learning Javascript, PHP, and start reading Wordpress documentation and learn how the themes are constructed and do the modifications.
 
Definitely avoid any theme which uses the Visual Composer plugin, it bloats the site and locks your content into using it ( if you deactivate it, it leaves a mess of shortcodes ).
Beaver builder is probably the best Page Builder plugin.

Ive reviewed a lot of the big multi-purpose WordPress themes on WPLift and the only one I would recommend is "Total" by WPExplorer - its not bloated, uses core WP features and the sites created with it are pretty fast.
 
Rageix said:
Here's the thing about most themes on theme forest, they are pretty much 95% bloated shit by volume. They just mash in 8 billion worthless plugins in so they can gloat their theme washes your balls or whatever, even though you don't need it. Whenever I buy a template I find I typically strip it down to the bones, which is very time consuming and some times you have to wonder if it would be easier to simply start from scratch.
Click to expand...

This bears repeating.

More often than not, I've found that to be my EXACT experience with most custom WP themes, especially from Themeforest. The way I look at it, with most themes, it's like you're buying a "screenshot". Might look great in the very specific configuration of the demo site. Start deviating much from that, though, and life becomes hell.
 
Im right there with @Rageix and @turbin3

A while back I took BuSo Lightning and stripped that down (didn't take much its already to lightweight). Now I have a foundational theme that I work from. It's worth the time investment especially if you keep the theme and re-use it later.
 
Lightning is a great example, and @Ryuzaki has done a great job with it. Simple, minimalist, not multi-leveled madness with sub-folder after sub-folder of multi-dependency madness to try and decipher. Take what you want, discard what you don't, copy paste some Bootstrap to enhance design as necessary, and you're good to go.

My general recommendation usually defaults to, start with as bare and minimalist a Bootstrap-based WP theme as possible. With Bootstrap, a lot of the guesswork of things like responsive design have already been figured out for you. So you can basically find a template that has a design, layout, or features you want, copy that HTML over to your theme, maybe need to add in a bit of PHP, add a few classes here and there to your components, for them to size and react appropriately for your needs, and you are good to go.

Even for a novice, the most difficult part will usually be figuring out what PHP might need to be added in, to function properly. In many cases, it's as simple as looking at the existing component you might be trying to replace, and trying to copy your new Bootstrap HTML around it, so you're still using the same PHP functions. This may not always work, but much of the time we're talking about things like changing the layout of a post feed. Maybe instead of a linear feed you want more of a grid. That is EASY in Bootstrap. Your PHP is likely simple as well, and is probably just one set of HTML that the PHP is "for looping" over, and repeating the HTML to generate your feed. Some examples:

wordpress.org/themes/search/bootstrap/

Grab a theme, any theme.

Copy/paste some snippets from sites like this:
bootsnipp.com/

Here's another that looks promising, though I haven't tried it yet:
understrap.com/

Also, when in doubt, refer to Bootstrap's knowledgebase. There's a million things here you can copy/paste and get good use out of very quickly:
getbootstrap.com/components/
 
I would go for Divi by Elegant Theme like someone just mentioned about. The recently updated their Divi builder, which should be helpful in accomplishing what you want to do. Though the Divi builder has a learning curve, so, for a starter, you might find it not that friendly. But if you keep at it, you would love it once you get hold of its functionalities.
 
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