There are thousands of free WordPress themes available online and each blogger or website owner has their favorite. Being a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant and experienced web developer, looking through all the inflated code each free theme brings is blinding and, quite honestly, frustrating. When a friend of mine told me his website was designed with the WordPresss Thesis theme, I not only took the opportunity to learn more about it but even try to break it.
Will it allow web designer and bloggers to be as creative as they want to be with their design? Does it kill the SEO on the website or blog? Is it a web developer’s worst nightmare with inflated code? Take a deep breath and let’s answer those questions.
Thesis Design Capability
Not only is Thesis a beautifully laid out theme but it also puts the design controls in the hands of the blogger. Out of the box, this theme gives the administrator a section in which to change design options such as site layout, post images and thumbnails, teasers, multimedia box, comments, javascript, fonts, colors and more! Just expand any of the areas you need to change and with a single click, you can change your blog from having 2 columns to 3 columns. Don’t like the look fo 3 columns? Just click again and change it to 2 columns!
The best part about the design options is that you don’t have to be a designer or web developer to change fonts, navigation menu rollovers colors, or layout display. All the tools you need to make changes exist with a click of a mouse.
SEO Friendliness
The Thesis site options area allows any user to easily update crucial search engine friendly information such as document header, title tag settings, meta tag information, feed URL, scripts, tracking, tagging, categories and more! Customization is available at your fingertips to tailor the theme to your SEO goals.
The Thesis theme also installed SEO friendly fields throughout your WordPress install. When posting a new article, SEO field become available to tailor the title and meta tags for that specific post. No more duplicate meta tags throughout your website or blog.
No Inflated Code
Web coding is not a pretty site and it is even worse when you get a free WordPress theme that looks pretty but has horrible coding. Themes with inflated unnecessary coding is a cause for disaster as you never know how well it will work with plugins, widgets or even the next release of WordPress.
Inflated web coding is also a huge problem with search engine optimization. If you print out the code for your highly rich content website and it is 6 pages long, with the content showing up on page 5, then it may not be search engine friendly (SEF). Coding should never push content to the end as search engines want to get fed right away when indexing your website or blog. Thesis decreases code inflation and brings the content higher to the top for search engines to find it.
The customizations don’t stop there in the WordPress Thesis theme. Administrators have access to the custom file editor to make more coding changes to the PHP, CSS and HTML of the website. Even if you aren’t a web developer or coder, if you know the changes you want to make, just head on over to the Thesis theme’s free support section and message boards. Another CMS developer or blogger is always willing to help out those in need.
Ultimately, the Thesis theme is the best theme currently on the market if you are looking for a WordPress CMS theme that is not only robust but user friendly. Sure, it costs $87 for a personal license and $164 for a developer’s license but it is well worth the money for the amount of functionality included. Check out the WordPress Thesis video tutorial online for yourself and try it out with their 30-day money back guarantee. There’s nothing to lose!
Do you currently use the WordPress Thesis theme? What are your thoughts?
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Shannon,
Excellent write up, but sounds awful “affiliatey.” Having said that, it does provide some nice insights into the inner workings of the theme, and it hit me at a point where I am actually in the market–looking at both Thesis and Genesis as platforms. Do you have any experience with Genesis? Any downsides to Thesis?
Yes, Brian, it does have some “affiliatey” built in. Normally I don’t do that but when I really believe a product could help my readers or clients, I cross the great divide.
Overall, Thesis is a great theme for most people and also very cost effective for startups or companies short on funds. However, as of version 1.7, it does have a couple of drawbacks in the ease of coding. For example, header image padding take more than a handful of CSS statements to remove and they have to be just right. For the intermediate or expert CSS or web developer, this will not be a problem. However, novices may find that particular area cumbersome.
It is a great starter to intermediate website builder that can help many companies and individuals get off the ground without needing to hire an expensive web developer or web designer.
As for Genesis, I have not had a chance to work with it at this time – as SKS Designs is moving from web development/designing to solely SEO consulting, strategy and teaching.
Hi Brian – you asked about Genesis and I wrote a very brief review a few comments down. Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions as you’re making your decision…if you haven’t made it yet. I’ve had Genesis for a bit but just started with Thesis, so I can give some good perspective on both. Thanks!
Shannon – This is a great, simple overview of the benefits of using the Thesis theme. I purchased the developers license recently and have been using it to create landing pages for my clients – just because the code is so clean and it is simple to get all the right SEO information in the necessary places. I still consider myself a noob with this theme but learning and having fun with it every day.
Keep up the great job spreading the word about this awesome theme!
Thanks for the feedback, Janet! Thesis is a very clean design and the coding is so much better than other paid themes online (that I have seen). My goal is to provide readers, businesses and clients with the most cost effective and efficient tools out there to help them meet their goals. This theme has been the best for both thus far.
Hi Shannon – great review of Thesis. I just happened to purchase the developer license for it last week and have been learning my way through it. The “hooks” kind of threw me for a loop, as I was expecting more of that customization to be built into the design options in the dashboard panel. But, I don’t mind learning new techniques, so I’ve enjoyed the theme so far.
Someone above asked about Genesis. I actually LOVE Genesis as a framework and have used it on several sites recently. The child themes already available really take away the need to ever mess with any PHP, and since I love tinkering with CSS I just do all of my customizations in the child theme’s style.css file. It’s also very search engine friendly with extremely clean and simple code.
Hope to run into you again soon!
Heather