Thesis Review – A Premium Blog Theme For WordPress
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A couple of weeks ago I introduced and reviewed the Affiliate Theme, which I called the perfect WordPress blog theme for marketing.
In the comments to that review, some people mentioned they were using the Thesis Theme, which is also a very powerful theme for WordPress created by Chris Pearson and Brian Clark, two very respected bloggers.
Custom themes for WordPress like Thesis and Affiliate Theme make it MUCH easier to maintain a professional blog, especially if you don’t know how to manipulate code like HTML and CSS. You can use these themes to easily change the design and look of your blog, they are very well optimized for search engines and give you a lot more power of your blog than the default WordPress set-up.
Which Theme is Better? Thesis or Affiliate Theme?
In response to feedback on my Affiliate Theme review, it was clear people wanted to compare it to the Thesis theme.
Joel Williams (BlogTechGuy.com), who is the technology mentor in my private forum for paying students, is a regular user of Thesis, so I invited him to write a review of it and then do a cross comparison between Thesis and Affiliate Theme.
If you’re looking for a robust and powerful theme for your WordPress blog, have a read of what Joel has to say below, read my review of the Affiliate Theme and then decide which one to go with.
Thesis Blog Theme Review
A lot of blog owners are looking for a middle ground between a free, but generic blog theme and a unique, but expensive custom theme. This gap has been filled with the “premium” theme, a paid for theme that is not unique, but comes with admin options and customer support. There are a wide variety of premium themes out there, but Thesis is perhaps one of the most well-known and used.
What is Thesis?
Simply, it’s a Wordpress theme, but it is much more than that. It is often described as a “theme framework” due to the fact that many different styles and types of theme can be created from Thesis.
Created by Chris Pearson, and expertly supported by Rick Beckman, the theme has been through a major series of regular updates, continually adding new and user requested features from the 3,000+ users.
It allows the user a huge amount of control through two control panel menus. One is based on configuration options that I won’t go into detail but include options such as what pages to include in navigation, what information you want to show about each post, some display options, Feedburner feed URL and any header or footer scripts that you wish to include.
The other menu, Thesis Design Options (pictured) really give the theme massive flexibility. In the current version (1.5) some of the options include:
- Being able to select how many columns you want
- Where you want these columns displayed
- The exact width of each of these columns
- Whether you want a standard homepage, or “Features and teasers”
- What type, and size, of font you want in all the different sections of the theme.
“Features and teasers” is a new option that allows you to have a front page that is more of a magazine-style theme, showing featured posts and a short excerpt of other posts. Previously you would have to choose between a theme with a traditional blog homepage or a magazine-style theme. Thesis gives you the option to choose either version within one overall theme.
The theme also adds a large number of options to the Write screen, including the ability to add custom images to each post and add media to the multimedia box. This box is a superb feature that allows custom videos, images (or even ads) to be added on a post-by-post basis. You can even have a custom style just for that post if you have set it up in your stylesheet.
Last but not least are the SEO options that allow you to control the SEO of each post when you write it, making this one of the most powerful themes for SEO control.
Customizing Thesis
As well as the in-built menu options, Thesis also allows great flexibility in customizing the theme using a custom stylesheet. Kept separate from the core theme files, the custom folder allows you to keep any custom changes even when you upgrade the theme to the latest version.
There is also a system of hooks that allow you to add your own content into various parts of theme. This can be a little advanced to go into here, but if you have Thesis take a look at the OpenHook plugin that simplifies this process and adds massive functionality without having to edit a custom functions file.
By default the theme works beautifully in all major browsers, and even with extensive customizations I have never noticed any problems with the core theme.
It also comes with some sidebar widgets that are automatically installed. The “Killer Recent Entries” widget allows you to show all recent posts or only those from a certain category, and you can add the widget as many times as you like.
The “Subscriptions” widget simplifies the insertion of Feedburner code to give your readers the option to subscribe to your site. Finally, the “Google Custom Search” widget helps you add your Google CSE code to your sidebar.
There are also some extra built-in text styles that you can use to add a little more pizazz to your site, as long as you know a little HTML. You can add a drop-cap, alert box, a note box, or even wrap text around adsense ads. All of these are covered in the user guide, and the styles and appearance can be customized through your custom stylesheet.
Using the configuration options you can choose what pages and categories to include in your navigation menu (no more manually changing PHP code) and even add in links to elsewhere to the menu easily.
How Good Is Thesis Support?
A great theme deserves great support. While some other premium theme support forums are lacking in responses and depth, Thesis has a wonderful support forum.
Responses to queries are quick, friendly, and for the most part the solution to your problem can be usually be found by searching. I’ve never had the need to contact support directly, but I’ve been told they’re efficient and, for lack of a better word, supportive. Free lifetime access for the purchase of the single theme is a wonderful benefit.
They recently began releasing video tips and tutorials that I think will be a massive benefit to the new Thesis user who may be wondering where to start. Currently there are only a few videos, showing how to use the Subscriptions widget (one of the first things a lot of new bloggers want to add), how to customize the footer, and how to style the comments link number. A short time ago they also released a video on using a web tool (Firebug) to simplify the task of writing custom CSS code to style your site.
Check out the full list of features at the Get-Thesis page –
http://diythemes.com/thesis/get-thesis/
Who Would Find Thesis Useful?
Paying for a theme is often the last thing a new blogger wants to do, especially when there are so many great free themes available. However, this particular theme is worth the price if you want control over your blog layout and want to be able to easily change your layout, font and display settings without having to wrangle with code.
Even those who are comfortable with code will find the theme powerful as it allows you to implement things much more easily than with other themes, yet still allows the flexibility to customize to your heart’s content.
What I love about Thesis is the constant innovation, and improvements to the theme. Even with the single-use option you receive free lifetime updates and by using the custom stylesheet you can always have the latest features available without losing your customizations.
What I Don’t Like About Thesis
All themes have problems. In Thesis, the options can be a little overwhelming to newer Wordpress users; it’s a difficult balance between adding functionality and adding too much complexity.
I would like to see a color picker for the fonts (as well as size and type already offered). Also the fact that the custom stylesheet is in a sub-folder means it cannot be edited through the Wordpress dashboard theme editor.
The multimedia box also poses a problem for some, as code has to be entered (and understood!), perhaps the addition of a media uploader would help here? The navigation menu is more difficult to style than it should be too.
The theme is also very popular, meaning that it takes some work to make it look different from all the other Thesis based themes out there. However this can be said of most free and premium themes.
It also works best with the latest version of Wordpress and PHP5. For most people this is not a problem, but for those on older servers and installations this does cause some issues.
You can find out more and download your copy of Thesis here -
http://diythemes.com/thesis/get-thesis/
What Is The Difference Between Thesis And Affiliate Theme?
Yaro recently reviewed the Affiliate Theme and it’s interesting to look at the differences between the two.
|
Feature
|
||
| Layout Chooser | Yes | Yes |
| Exact layout widths | Yes | No |
| Color Picker | No | Yes |
| Optimized for SEO | Yes | Yes |
| Simple install and go | Sort of | Yes |
| Code free header and background changes | No | Yes |
| Support | Forums, video tutorials | Forums, video tutorials |
| Single-use Cost | $87 with lifetime upgrades | $97 with no upgrades |
| Multi-use Cost | $164 | $147 |
Both themes are great choices and are setting high industry benchmarks with their excellent admin panels. The themes are not directly comparable as I believe they fulfill different needs.
For quick, easily changeable sites, then Affiliate Theme would be my choice, but for permanent brand-building blogs then Thesis is a better choice if you are prepared to do some work to customize the design and colors.
Thesis is a framework, and an excellent gateway to achieving a custom theme with a powerful admin panel. It takes some work to get there, but it’s worth it as Thesis is one of the most powerful and flexible Wordpress themes.
If you want more details, visit the Thesis website –
http://diythemes.com/thesis/get-thesis/
Joel Williams
WordPress Professional
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[...] – you’ll no doubt want to check out Affiliate Theme and Thesis. I would recommend reading a review of both themes by Yaro Starak from Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, as I haven’t had an opportunity to test these themes [...]
“Also the fact that the custom stylesheet is in a sub-folder means it cannot be edited through the Wordpress dashboard theme editor.”
This is overcome by the use of Thesis OpenHook
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/thesis-openhook/
Good point Elliot, that’s another use for the great plugin.
Thank you for the reference. This is the only reason I haven’t been using thesis for a long time.
Joel, excellent article! Very well explained, easy to understand.
Besides keeping up with content, and the videos from Become a Blogger (I’m a few behind, but that’s ok! It’s the content!), the presentation of your blog is important as well. Although content is king, presentation can also be a factor in determining how long a visitor stays at your site. I’m currently, in addition to the activities above, am considering ‘upgrading’ the look of my blog, and the Thesis theme just might fit the bill. I would like for you to elaborate a little on the differences between single and multi-use cost. You mean more than one blog, right? If I only have one blog, I should be able to buy the single and get all the benefits, correct?
Yaro, yet another gem in your ‘mastermind’ community. Keep up the great work!
Hi Omar,
Thanks for your kind comments. Yes single use is for one website only, and multi-use (or often called a “Developer package”) is for use on as many sites as you want – usually as long as you own the sites. The themes don’t actually differ, you get all the features and the same theme, you’re just licensed to use it on more than one site with the multi-use package.
Very interesting. This blogging business is getting more complex all the time. There are more variations than ever before.
Very cool! I am thinking about redesigning my blog soon… It’s pretty boring now! lol…
Thanks for the post!
David
I had a look at your blog, I guess you are using the flexibility theme, right? It looks a little messed up, you should think of switching to wordpress.
What on earth for? Seems perfectly alright to me and a lot of others!
Thesis is great — customizing it with your own design can be a challenge if you don’t know your stuff, and finding someone to do it at a reasonable price is also hard.
I’m using Thesis and I found someone to customize it and I’m extremely happy with the results. Just got my new design last week!
I 100% recommend Thesis for blogs. I bought the Affiliate Theme but haven’t used it yet.
Thesis is great – I recommend it 100%. The only issue is customizing it — very hard to do if you don’t know your stuff, and also hard to find someone to help customize it for a reasonable price.
Luckily I found someone and I’m extremely happy with the results. Just got it done last week and it blew my socks off!
I bought Affiliate Theme but haven’t used it yet.
So far, Thesis is worth every penny and then some.
Excellent review. Thanks for that. I’d been wondering how the two measured up to each other but it does seem they’re both useful for different purposes. In spite of the extra complexity, Thesis looks the better bet for those who are more knowledgeable when it comes to customisation.
Every now and then I was tempted to change look of my blog but then I realised something.
It is better to concentrate on the content rather than the looks.
If you compare between functioning of free and paid themes, they are almost comparable.
Looks do give you edge but then just looks do not.
My take on content is the same it is king, but I will disagree on ignoring presentation. Content will get your seo up, but the visitor will make a choice on ease of readability and how inviting the site is at first clance.
Personally, I try to optimize both. I’ve takien a simple presentation approach with subheading and white space to achieve that. I personally down like lots of clutter, it has a tendency to drive me away from the site.
After hearing the philosophy of UFO (user freaking obvious) I realized that with the short attention spans on the net you have to keep it as easy, direct, and pleasant as possible.
I use the these theme and although I haven’t completely customized to my desired results, I got very close fairly quickly.
Functionality may be the same over all but the theme is all about the ability to present. I’m happy with These, but agree there are a few things that can be made easier for those of us that down what to code customization.
Solid review and run through. As a Thesis user, I’ve benefited most from trial and error, exploring the various options, forcing myself to learn, community support is impressive, and so on.
Worth noting, without the flexibility of Thesis, you lose the opportunity and potential to grow and learn as a blogger (designer) who should know some basic coding and know how to begin with.
I’ve been a user for a while now, I’ve learned a lot playing with thesis over or close to a year now if I’m not mistaken.
Thanks for sharing.
-Mig
I used Gideon’s videos to set up my Wordpress blog\website using Hostgator. I later bought multi use Thesis theme but it runs on Wordpress 2.7. I have not yet installed this as it it looks like a nightmare to a non techie like me. If I switch to Bluehost I think I can upgrade automatically. Anyone with any suggestions or offers to help ???
Awesome review of the Thesis theme! I run that theme for my blog as well.. easy to control once you get the hang of it but with that openhook plugin, everything really is a breeze..
Thanks!
Toki Tover
Hmmm..this is the third time leaving a comment — I hope this one takes..:
Thesis is 100% awesome. The only difficulty I have is finding someone who can customize it because it’s seems to be a complex and fickle theme (at least that’s how it feels to me).
I was fortunate enough to have someone who helped me fit my custom design into it, which many told me was either next to impossible or too expensive.
I just got it done last week and I couldn’t be happier. Plus I’m blown away by how it looks — it definitely lost that generic “everyone-is-using-Thesis” look.
I bought Affiliate Theme but haven’t used it yet.
Thesis = worth every penny and them some!
Oh hey there Joel — good to see you wrote this!
Everyone reading this — Joel is a wonderful blog developer. I highly recommended his services.
Thanks Charles, your version of Thesis looks great by the way.
I was interested in this comment:
Last but not least are the SEO options that allow you to control the SEO of each post when you write it, making this one of the most powerful themes for SEO control.
I currently use the All In One SEO Pack Plugin. It’s easy to use, but sometimes I find the meta description that Google displays in the search results aren’t from the plugin, but are from the page.
Does this theme fix this sort of issue and perform the role of the SEO plugin with Titles, Meta Description and Keywords for every page and post?
Thanks
Hi Luke,
Thesis has a lot of the same functions as All in One SEO built-in. There is no need for both.
Meta descriptions as a fairly old way of describing what a page is about, in my experience search engines prefer to look at the content on the page as too easily someone could try to “game” the system.
Meta keywords are even less useful, I tend to use them just to remind myself what I’m optimizing a page about more than an SEO tool.
In the end Google I think will try to display what it thinks is most useful and relevant about the page.
I am a big fan of the Thesis theme. I am by no means a coding wizard, but with the Thesis Theme, (and a little help from some great folks on the support fourms), my site looks fantastic. I couldn’t be more pleased.
Had a look at your site. Looks great but still has a scope for improvement!
That surely is a matter of opinion. I believe that this is a very good site.
I have to agree with Mark that will Thesis and Affliate Theme fix that sort of issue and perform the role of the SEO plugin with Titles, Meta Description and Keywords for every page and post ?
I have seen Google produce search results based on the page and not from the plugin.
Any insight ?
Ahhh Rosalie, who can tell what Google thinks when they put up that description. Here’s something you might try:
1. Make sure your target key phrase can be found in your title tag & your post/ page slug.
2. Keep your title tag below 66 characters including spaces & punctuation. No exceptions!
3. In your meta description, keep the whole thing less than 150 characters including spaces & punctuation.
4. Divvy your description into two sentences, with the key phrase in each. You should get 11-13 words in each sentence, while keeping it within the character limit.
5. Don’t worry about meta keywords.
If you do above, there’s a good chance the big G will use your suggested description rather than some made-up one extracted from your body text. But like I said, who can tell?
I’m a new Thesis user and am happy with it. I especially like the Multimedia box where I target ads to the specific post. I find that my most popular post is a one off post that is not related to my blog topic and having a way to monetize that traffic is great.
Thesis does not do many things that I’d like it to do out of the box, but you’ll find the support very good and so far, I’ve been able to add “hooks” to make the theme do exactly what I need to do.
Having said that, it DOES take a bit of time to tweak it to make it work the way you want when you first install it. But after that, it’s a breeze. And since I’m new, haven’t had to do an upgrade yet. Would love to see how easy that would be.
I have only been blogging for about 2 months. I have learned alot but Joel @blogtechguy has been a lifesaver. Thank you for recommending him to me Yaro. I just want to research and write my blog. I don’t want to learn code right now.
Joel is both patient and affordable. I could not have been up and running without him.
thanks, Lori @www.morewithlesstoday.com
Thanks Lori, much appreciated! Your blog is going great too.
Very helpful article Joel, thanks. Can you just clear up one small point? Do both these themes work with all the usual Wordpress plugins and widgets?
Cheers
Bob
Yeah, these are just like other themes but with extra features. All the other basic functionality remain the same.
Those extra features sets it apart from the free Premium Themes
I have purchased both the Affiliate and Thesis themes for my blog. Having no skill with hooks, css or php I found the Affiliate theme MUCH easier to “plug and play.”
I really love the look of Thesis, but just could not customize it myself and gave up on it. Affiliate theme was easy to install and get going, and although I am still playing with it and rearranging my blog, it’s been a breeze!
If you need something easy, and don’t know how to do any of the above mentioned things yourself, Thesis may frustrate you. If you have skills or know someone that can do it for you, jump on it!
I am still hoping there will be a series of customization videos for Thesis made specially for techno-challenged people like me
Yaro,
don’t take my job away from me (just kidding). This is a very good in-depth review. you didn’t leave anything out. very strong points on both sides. If it was up to me – it looks like Thesis would win. However, Affiliate shows a lot of promise.
I have a Thesis review of my own:
http://themereviewer.net/2008/09/thesis/
I definitely need to look into this theme as I’ve already heard several great things about it…
Great info. I’m checking it out even right now!
Mona
http://hypnoticvisualization.blogspot.com/
Hey Yaro,
Something’s not right! Why does the profile picture of someone else appear in my comment above? It is of a person called Telluride M.
That’s definitely not me! How did this happen?
Mona
http://twitter.com/MonalizaAmid
Good review of the affiliate theme, thanks Yaro. Anyhow, I was more interested in the SEO of this article. In fact this blog post is a damn good example of good SEO.
Catch Yaro missing out on opportunities!
Getting a premium wordpress theme is a must if we want to take blogging to serious level. Blogging income are closely related to themes in my opinion.
I love the Thesis theme. It is a good way for a newbie to present a professional blog without breaking the bank.
Nice review Yaro.
I use Thesis and I absolutely love it. With the OpenHook plugin you can make virtually any layout change without hacking any php. Highly recommended.
Yaro, I’m curious to know about your theme.. is it a Thesis or Affiliate or custom built one?
Regards,
Shah
Great review certainly. If you are already established, one should consider this definitely, but if one is starting online business, the price might be on the upside for many. However, I like innovative, professionally designed templates, and this one fits the bill.
Thesis is a great theme/framework but I have to echo what some of the other commenters have said. It’s more than a bit daunting for someone with limited coding experience.
The theme works out of the box but to utilise the power of the theme you do need to be able to get your head around the hooks used to control design and functionality.
I’ve been publishing sites for 10 years and I had to print out a large chunk of the Thesis user manual and keep it next to me when I started playing around with the theme for the first time.
Not looked at the Open Hook plugin so perhaps that will ease the pain. Given that the plugin is developed by Rick Beckman, I’m surprised it’s not prebundled with the theme.
Thanks for this review and comparison! I’ve never used either theme and I’ve been wondering how they stack up.
Both reviews leave one wanting the platform reviewed. Leaving the reader to choose, while being very diplomatic does not give a bird’s eye view of comparisons. Possible?
Hi Joel,
Great review. It seems like there is no end in sight when it comes to the ability of Wordpress users to create innovative and amazing themes. The comparison to the Affiliate Theme was very helpful. I was considering the Affiliate Theme for my next project, but now have more thinking to do!
Thanks again.
Joel,
Thanks for the excellent review. I appreciate that you took the time to provide an apples-to-apples comparison of Thesis and Affiliate Theme.
Thanks Lee!
I have been a Thesis user from the initial beta version, what truly makes this a good experience for me has been Chris Pearson’s passion for his theme development, his commitment to giving Thesis users support and the amazing forum support community.
Whilst I still have to “play’ and modify my site from its original CSS coded version, I had no knowledge of coding prior to purchasing the theme.This barrier was overcome by the stellar support that the users & Chris provided. No hanging around for answers.
The points regarding font size/ color… I added the Wp plug-in TinyMCE Advanced .
Interesting Post
The one problem I have with Affiliate Theme is how to integrate a squeeze page, to scoop up email of my customers before I send the traffic to the sales page. I don’t want to be a one way conduit to the sales page and keep no record for all my efforts. Is this not a fair observation of the Affiliate Theme?
That’s the same thing I see in Affiliate Theme. It’s set up just for Affiliates to redirect traffic to affiliate offers. I don’t see a way to capture any user data before redirecting or and redirected landing page/response pages.
It look great for what it does, but I want to capture the contact via cformsII or some other email post submitter. Then again, I couldn’t find specific references to the same thing for Thesis either; just a handful of indirect references that somewhat indicate it’s possible.
I mean, how can any of these “premium” templates not have forms creation; processing; autoresponders and email lead submission built in… with tutorials? Without it, they are only premium in price.
I also use Thesis for my blogs. In fact I migrated from the original Revolution Themes to Thesis last summer.
The thing I like the most about Thesis is the “hooks” feature. Once you learn how to use them and learn just a tiny bit of PHP coding–which isn’t as hard as it sounds–then the sky’s the limit for easily customizing the theme.
For example, on my blog I created a “hook” that adds a box to the end of each post that invites readers to subscribe to my RSS feed or e-mail list.
Since it’s done in one file in the custom folder, it survives upgrades nicely. And I don’t have to hunt around and insert or tweak code on theme pages, only to have those changes lost when a new theme update is released (which was a major complaint of mine with the original Revolution themes I was using).
Thanks for details.
I don’t want to thank you just to review two premium blog themes and making their comparative analysis. It doesn’t matter whether one theme is great or not. It doesn’t matter whether you use free theme or paid.
I don’t know what is the blog theme Yaro used for his Entrepreneurs-Journey.com. But, he is successful. People want to copy him because he got the success that maximum bloggers just can dream of.
Do you know why is he successful? – Just because of his positive attitude to serve quality content to his readers continuously. People just like to get a space or an idea, which is essentially a dream.
Dream sells in the market. If you can show how to achieve your dream in reality then you are successful. And the secret of his success is – he is doing it continuously.
So, blog theme doesn’t matter – just showing dream to his followers matters.
For your convenience, I am telling you that I am using a free theme, which is absolutely free. But it started to fulfill my dream.
What is your opinion in this matter?
I agree that some of the most successful blogs are on default or basic themes. However choosing a theme is a massive undertaking for a lot of people and involves a lot of research and, in some way, risk because of the cost. I think it’s worth explaining the pros and cons of popular theme choices in order to help people make better informed decisions.
There are some wonderful free themes out there too.
Thanks for taking our comments into consideration and giving us a great review to compare to!
I spent hours determining the “perfect” template for my blog. I decided on Wordpress and Thesis. But make absolutley NO MISTAKE! The learning curve is high and if you want to customize your site, and you should, you better know a think or two about HTML and WP.
Because my focus was and is to spend my time on developing content, I can not split my focus to learn everything all up front to get up and running. But how do you get started then?
My solution was to contract an expert in Thesis to set the stage – design and plug in the functionality I needed from the get go. I’m still working with him and he’s been amazing. I can duplicate some of the work and the good thing is that I’m learning as I go along so I can be independent – soon. But if I had to know this all up front just to get going, I would still have a blank blog.
Forums are a terrific way to share and get information. However, if you need to know how to get that link to work now, time is not a luxury.
Lucky you if you are tech savy. But if you are not, be prepared to learn more about the platform than you ever thought you would need to know.
Setting the right expectations will help keep your enthusism. Just do you homework!
The blog template is critical to your success and I wish all of you the best in finding what works for you to achieve your blogging goals.
Susan Kirschling
Yaro and others, I have been investigating the new Flexx Theme by iThemes. The URL is http://www.iThemes.com . What do you think of the Flexx Theme.
I currently just a standard wp plugin theme but I am always on the lookout for something better. I will check both of these out!
I don’t know. I think if you’re going to pay for the theme why not get it custom made from scratch. I mean you’re paying anyway so why would you want to get something other people already use.
The difference is in cost and flexibility. A multi-use version will cost say $155, while a custom design $1000+ depending on the designers. Plus the custom design can only really be used on your one site. Most custom designs have limited or no admin menu options while premium themes can have many.
Don’t get me wrong, I feel custom designs are a wonderful thing and for many should be what they use, but for those who can’t afford it or don’t see the need for custom, and want the flexibility and control that these premium themes have – then they are a great choice.
I think the Affiliate themes colour picker, simplicity and code free header and background changes does it for me. I am currently struggling with getting a custom theme to work and am not really enjoying the experience. What can I say?
I really like it at the end when you put the two side by side and compared them. It seems that affiliate is just a little better but the price for thesis is better with a lifetime upgrade added onto that is well worth taking a look at. Besides with the ability to update those few tweaks that needed to be done should be eventually an update.
@ Yaro, Joel and others,
I really appreciate if any one of you let me know the themes which are free and good for those who know some coding (like me
) and highly optimized like paid ones…
I’m glad to hear more from you, Thank you
Just Google up : Widget Ready WordPress Free Themes. You will find lots themes to try. Once you see the one you like, just download it and go from there. Try this site, it’s free. http://topwpthemes.com/
Just try all the links on Google until you are comfortable with one theme or themes. If you need additional help, post your question(s) here and surely someone will help you
I saw the thesis theme a while back and immediately fell in love with the clean lines and uncluttered look. I knew I had to use it for my latest project and I found it easy to work with and customize.
I appreciate the side by side review of thesis and affiliate theme though because while Thesis was perfect for this particular project I’m not sure I would want to use it on all my affiliate sites!
I really like the looks of Affiliate Theme and seriously considering purchasing it. My big question revolves around the fact that I also like using WordPress_MU. I just haven’t found ‘general mini-site’ looking themes that I like well enough to begin creating them with MU. Any comments or insights regarding the use of Affiliate Themes with MU and Adsense would be greatly appreciated.
I am starting to see a lot of blogs using Thesis themes. They look very nice and clean. Makes me want to switch from Blogger over to Wordpress myself.
Affiliate WordPress theme is designed specifically for online marketers. It comes with 6 very different layouts to help you test out your landing page to figure out which layout gives you the best chance to make more money online.
Read quite alot of reviews about this Thesis theme but some of my friends have met problem with this thesis and it isn’t as flexible as expected.
This is really great. I had been considering purchasing Thesis for quite some time. I really like the product reviews that you do as well.
While I am currently not into affiliate marketing, all this information is quite useful.
Great info, thanks Joel. If you’re a non techie (like me) I think when it comes to blog themes of any sort but especially the free themes, it’s worth getting someone who is technical to look over it before going ahead with it (wish I’d done that).
Whilst I’m really pleased with the look and feel of my site, I had to get a lot of the work done by someone else as the code needed work and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do through the dashboard to make the changes I wanted and to improve the SEO. I’m stoked with the end result but given I’m code challenged, I had to pay for it.
Thanks Sami. I think most bloggers are in your situation and you blog certainly looks good.
I like Thesis a lot. In my opinion it’s much better than Affiliate Theme. Although I didn’t use AT at all but I’m using Thesis for two of my sites. It’s so great when you can customize theme in admin panel.
I actually don’t like thesis. I bought it for my site, and I didn’t have a clue how to use it. Coming from blogger, which was so easy its silly, I found myself wasting so much time trying to figure things out.
Its not intuitive at all, and there are a ton of free wordpress themes that have a better look and feel.
I’d save yourself the $87.
Wow great and sleek looking theme, I tried going for the same look by modifing several themes together into one @ dopecool.com
Wow, I really like the amount of variables and customizations you can make to it. I’ll have to check into a bit more.
Thanks for sharing!
I will say that I love both themes. They have their own pros and cons. Thesis is by far more SEO Friendly than affiliate themes. But affiliate themes are for affiliate marketers who want to throw the theme on a site quickly and get some quick bucks…
Affiliate theme in my opinion is a no match for Thesis in SEO. Just speaking because I saw the framework of both.
Thesis: I love it – I hate it.
I’ve been blogging for about three years. I’ve built website and blogs. I’m not newbie when it comes to the behind the scenes mechanics of WordPress.
That said, I’ve been more frustrated than pleased with the Thesis Theme. IMHO, and somewhat contrary to the marketing behind it, it’s not built with ‘ease of set-up’ as it’s main attraction. If you’re a coder, you’re probably fine with Thesis. But it you’re a casual WP mechanic, it can be challenging. Even the Thesis forum, while well-intentioned, is somewhat vague in its assistance efforts.
Here’s a very helpful resource for those who wish to tough it out on the Thesis front. Marko Saric’s blog: ‘HowToMakeMyBlog.’ http://howtomakemyblog.com is the link.
He’s got some great tutorials with visuals that make it pretty easy to get the same results he’s getting in terms of design.
If I weren’t as far along the road using a different theme for BlogAsReligion as I am, I’d do a regroup. However, for the rest of you it’s really worth the time to read Marko’s slant on Thesis.
It just might make it easier…and isn’t that what we all want?
This theme is very nice. I probably will buy it. thanks for sharing your thoughts about it with us.
Great review and timely as I was already thinking of getting Affiliate Theme. Helpful to see the comparison chart for These and Affiliate.
Great review, which I read last week and decided to buy the theme for a site I am helping build at http://www.the-marsta.co.uk/
What I’ve found great is that all changes go into the custom files, and I’ve already made some changes. I just copy the normal CSS code for what I want to change to the custom file and then play with it there. I’ve already done some customisation to make it look a little less standard but want to try and replace the top menu system next with some that has some better formatting and nice dropdowns, but I love the fact that when I upgrade the template files I won’t have to worry about re-integrating all my hacking around with the CSS.
Regards, Mark.
The reviews by both Yaro originally with Affiliate and Joel with the comparison have been so helpful.
But what has really made me decide are the above comments from everyone.
Initially, I thought I’d go for Affilliate. Then reading some of the Thesis reviews on the Thesis site and seeing what it could do – I decided that thesis seems so much more flexible.
But the above comments have really done it for me. Whilst I definitely think that Thesis seems more flexible, comprehensive, and has a lot more features.
I’m not a real techie person and I want speed and ease. And so it is definitely Affiliate.
Thanks Guys for all of your comments.
Kashonia
http://www.TheLearningLovingandLaughingProject.com
Looks like its the perfect blend of simple but customizable. I can’t believe each of those examples are actually based on the same theme!
I’ve not tried Affiliate, but I do use Thesis on one of my blogs. I was hoping it was all that was said of it so that I could buy the developers license to use it on all my blogs, but I found it sorely lacking. I still use it on my Load Of BS site, but I found what I believe to be a lot better and after buying the developers license to the new theme I now run it on my other 7 blogs.
I’ve been using the Flexx theme and I’m really pleased with it. Need to look at this theme as an alternative.
Andrew
This is one theme I would seriously recommend anyone. The admin features are really well done and the support is incredible. For a non-techie this theme is a boon.