WordPress Turbo - Powered by Thesis

WordPress, along with other personal publishing platforms like MovableType and Blogger, have given everyone the ability to publish their thoughts and experiences online for the world to see. Each of these different content management systems offer different solutions including hosted and self-hosted answers. I started blogging through a hosted Blogger site for two and a half years and then moved to the self-hosted WordPress option that has suited me very well for almost two years. The reason for moving from blogger was to gain the versatility that WordPress offered.

WordPress has been a great option that quenched my thirst and gave me the versatility to build my dream, but it was still difficult to feel ownership of my site. However, it’s versatility had left me with something to be desired, as in, I have limited experience with css and web development, but I really want to deliver a quality product with my blog. This led me to a few different themes for my blog over the short time I have published on the WordPress backbone:

SEOpittfall v1.0
I really liked the feel of this theme and loved the color and the three column format, which took some doing, because it started as a two column theme.

I retired the theme because it left the user (me) with more to be desired. A quality theme, don’t get me wrong, to think of all of the time that I spent tweaking it was probably the hardest part of letting this one go. I guess you do get what you paid for… this one was “free.”

SEOpittfall v2.0
Yet another “it looks solid… but I think that I can…” situation. Another two column theme that I really liked. I think the dark tones and they were done tastefully so color really pops!

It took some effort to adjust the theme to something I could live with, however, it was quickly trumped by WordPress Version 2.6 as it didn’t support new functionality and really didn’t have the potential to grow with me. Mostly due to the fact that the original designer sold back in March and little has been done to update existing templates or develop at the same level as the previous owner. Another “free” theme, but I am sure I would have ponied up some cash or bartered my time, pretty much anything to keep it….

I expanded my professional role, picked up my family and moved to snow country (don’t get me wrong, I like snow however, I have never lived in it before) and this has left me with less time to invest here. So, when minor tweaks are required, it takes me away from exploring the industry to maintain the theme.

Enter Thesis… I noticed this new theme that was “SEO Friendly” and thought, I’ve heard this before! (If you haven’t noticed, I tend to be skeptical in many things).

A month or so later, I was hearing (well reading) others rave about the benefits and the ease of use. Then came Rae Hoffman with a review of the theme and a real vote for Thesis, she changed her theme to it. It looked cool, clean, ready to use and it did contain many of the foundations that are necessary for SEO best practices. Couple of days later, a friend of mine was asking about themes for WordPress and I told her about the theme, which in turn she bought and gave me a developer license to play with.

SEOpittfall v3.0
OK, so all of the SEO goodness isn’t quite “baked in,” but it is getting there. One of the most valuable assets of Thesis is the community that has built up around it and the responsiveness of the developer(s). If you have an idea to improve it, share and it will probably be incorporated in the next version.

I know, I suggested something to incorporate my previous title tags from another plug-in, so I didn’t have to manually adjust all of the post titles. I posted to the community support board and it was done in a few short weeks. Sub-versions have come, three since I moved over in fact, but little has changed. This is because the theme incorporates customization files (css and hooks) so you can adjust what your theme does without concerns of overwriting them with a newer version. To put it simply, IT ROCKS!

I don’t think that I will ever go to a “free” theme again! I have found that “free” is a term that is used when no cash is exchanged, however it has costs associated with it, mostly time.

If I didn’t think the theme was worth more than the $87 cash outlay, I wouldn’t share. Find out more by looking at others like SugarRae or others provided at DIYthemes.com

If you would like my personal feedback, or have specific questions about some of the functionality, feel free to drop me a line! I wouldn’t pitch it if I didn’t love it!

WordPress Turbo - Powered by Thesis

SEOpittfall

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