One of my favorite blog designers, Chris Pearson has teamed up with one of my favorite bloggers, Brian Clark from CopyBlogger to put together a fantastic Premium WordPress theme called Thesis.
Thesis Theme for WordPress
Thesis is a beautifully laid out theme. It’s very modern, simple, and has just the right balance of white space. What makes it really cool is that you can change the number of columns (1 column, 2 column, or 3 column layout) as well as their widths in the Design Options panel with just a few clicks (no programming skills is necessary) – and each configuration still retains that professional look.
You can also change the fonts and their sizes just as easily (for the body, headlines, sidebars, etc.)
It’s the most flexible WordPress theme I’ve ever come across in that regard. In just a few minutes you can create your own combination of column sizes and text styles to personalize the theme specifically to your liking.
After you download the theme, you also get a background starter kit to let you change the main background easily – for even more customization.
I built the Thesis Theme because I wanted a framework that had it all—killer typography, a dynamically resizable layout, intelligent code, airtight optimization, and tons of flexibility.
Key Features of Thesis Theme:
- SEO: the degree to which your code and content are organized and optimized for both search engines and people
- Accessibility: your ability to reach different audiences—those with special needs, people using alternative Web browsers, mobile users, etc.
- Usability: how effectively your users are able to navigate and interact with your site
- Flexibility: how easy is it to get the look you want by providing rich markup for styling and customizations via a control panel
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
One of the biggest selling points of Thesis is that it’s developed with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. WordPress by default is one of the most search engine friendly blogging platforms out there. However, it’s still not perfect and how your theme is laid out affects how search engines see your site.
I’ve seen themes out there with crazy code bloat, doing things that are terrible for search engines. Thesis is very clean and presents your content well, it uses nofollow to funnel your link juice well, etc. Overall Thesis is one of the better themes for SEO just out of the box.
Unique Options Features
One of the best features in Thesis is the Multimedia box, which lets you put rotating pictures or a videos in your posts. There’s a default option for all pages, but Thesis uses WordPress’s built in custom fields function to post specific photos or videos for any page or post you wish. This is great for YouTube videos, photos, and even page-specific advertising.
Thesis Options
- You can replace your default feed with your feedburner link
- You can specify which pages appear in your navigation menu. This part is really flexible – you can even use a specific category’s posts or add a custom blogroll to it.
- Specify how your Title tag is laid out (if you’re not going to use aforementioned the plugin).
- Add Mint or Google Analytics tracking code without messing with your files.
Support
This one is probably one of the biggest advantages of the Thesis WordPress theme over any others. After you buy the theme, you get really impressive support. Future upgrades are free and if you have any questions about the theme, Chris and the Thesis community is really good at helping you out.
Thesis isn’t Free
Thesis comes with two license options. The personal license is $87 and the developer’s license is $164. The main difference is that the dev license allows you unlimited use of the theme across as many sites as you like.
My Conclusion
If I were starting out today with a new blog and didn’t have the budget to get a custom design or the ability to design my own – Thesis would be something I’d serious look at investing in.
