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The Thesis WordPress Theme

by Bob on June 7, 2011

the thesis wp theme

Why I still love The Thesis WordPress Theme

After I took the step the self-host my primary blog, the next step that greatly helped me increase earnings was choosing a highly-customizable theme. I don’t necessarily recommend doing this at the beginning, since it does cost money to get a good theme, but once you are committed to blogging and are willing to invest a few bucks, putting that money towards a good theme is a good investment.

At the time the best premium theme (that I was aware of) was Semiologic, which was a fantastic theme that gave users a lot more control. It cost me $300 for it, but I quickly made that money back because the theme allowed me optimize my ad placement in ways that no other themes did.

Enter The Thesis Theme

I remember when Thesis came out and I heard people talking about it left and right. Almost every blogger I knew was using it and I for about a year I made the foolish assumption that because I paid $300 for me theme it must have been better. Truth be told, even though Thesis was less than a 1/3 of the price as what I was paying it was a better theme that allowed me to do even more with my blog – and had much better support as well.

So I have now been using it for just about 2 years and I consider it to be the best $87 I ever spent on my blog. It isn’t the prettiest theme around – there are some gorgeous ones out there that I have tried, but ended up scrapping because they were so complex and confusing on the backend. But what it lacks in visual pizazz it makes up in other areas.

SEO

It is pretty well SEO-optimized right out of the box. SEO is interwoven into the theme and it eliminates the need for the All-In-One SEO plugin.

Support

The support forums for Thesis have been a lifesaver for me. The WordPress Thesis Theme has a huge community of users and some very helpful folks in the forums who have answered many questions that I have had over the last couple years. This is why I still love Thesis theme.

Price

You can get a single use license for $87 or a unlimited use license for $164. With either you get lifetime updates for FREE.

For those trying it out

Now if you are really sharp with PHP, CSS, and HTML the Thesis Theme may not be as beneficial to you since you can make all these changes yourself. But for someone like me who is mediocre at best with HTML and CSS (and who knows nothing about PHP) having a theme that gives me the ability to make tons of customizations without knowing code is pretty amazing.

If you decide to go the Thesis route, take my advice and make sure you get the OpenHook Plugin. Especially if a little bit of coding scares you.  This plugin makes Thesis dead simple to use and to make endless customizations with ease.

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  3. 12 of the Best WordPress Plugins
  4. Create SEO-Friendly URLs with WordPress

Article by Bob

Bob has been blogging since 2007 and earning a full time living from his blogs since early 2009. He enjoys fine dark chocolate, learning, foosball, loose-leaf tea, helping people succeed, anything God created, playing guitar, taking the scenic route, Philippians, and Chick-Fil-A.

  • http://everythinghomewithcarol.blogspot.com Carol J. Alexander

    If you can’t afford it, what’s the next best thing? Anything close to comparable for free out there?

    • http://bloggingyourpassion.com Bob

      Carol, I honestly haven’t looked at free themes in a long time. I do remember a theme called K2 a couple years ago had some good flexibility, but I don’t even know if that is around still. The new default WP theme isn’t bad, I would just recommend using that or another free one you like until you earn enough to buy thesis…

  • http://www.genredujour.wordpress.com Rebecca

    Bob:

    Thanks for the video. I’m brainstorming a new blog that will eventually turn into a marketplace and forum for educators. Can this Thesis theme support this type of growth? If not, do you have any suggestions?

    Thanks!

    • http://bloggingyourpassion.com Bob

      Rebecca, Thesis is just a wordpress theme, so if WordPress can support what you are wanting to do Thesis won’t hinder that in any way…

  • http://www.biasbits.com Shannon

    Bob,
    I bought the Thesis theme and I love it! It was a great recommendation. However, it’s not as easy as I thought it would be to figure out! It does have excellent support but if you’re not familiar with the “lingo” it can be a long process. It’s a great product but there is definitely a learning curve here!

    • http://bloggingyourpassion.com Bob

      Shannon are you using the OPENHOOK plugin?

      • http://www.biasbits.com Shannon

        I tried using the OPENHOOK plugin for my ads but they didn’t show up on my site. I ended up just adding text widgets. Is there a limit to how many ads you can place on a page? I had one in the header, one in each sidebar. When I tried to place an ad after my post the ad in my sidebar wouldn’t show up.

        • http://bloggingyourpassion.com Bob

          Shannon, Adsense only allows 3 ad units per page, but they also allow 3 link units so you might want to try that as well

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