Blogging is awesome and these days there are so many people I need to visit that I literally need to put it on a schedule. That is not including all the return comments I need to do.
I started using WordPress a long time ago because I saw a lot of potential. Before a lot of you were blogging or even had a website, I was in web competitions and already making my first freelance web design transactions.
However, today, after the wonderful social media and branding and all that goodness…why oh why are people jumping on board with Thesis?
I know the default Kubrick theme for WordPress was not that pretty and if I remember correctly, it was introduced in 2005. The TwentyTen default theme introduced in WordPress 3.0 is actually a real gem for newbie bloggers. However, there are hundreds of free and premium themes out there- why do I keep seeing Thesis?
I have designed and used it based on request by a few clients, I am not really much for it. I am not even keen on giving it out to new people to the blogging community. I do not care what marketing ploy there is to get someone to blog, there are better and cheaper options than Thesis.
“I use Thesis for SEO.”
Alright, go ahead, but you can do it with plugins and WordPress all the same. You are the one that controls your SEO because you are writing the articles. If you are needing your site to be optimized, there are a lot of great search engine optimization articles out there… that are FREE! Google it. 😉
If you want to brand yourself with Thesis, you need to get away from that cookie cutter look. There are people out there who have, but as few as I have seen, there are many more who have the same look.
I have said this before in my presentation at WordCamp Chicago 2010 on Rocking Out Your Site With WordPress and will again – Think outside the box!
In thinking outside the box, you will create a site that is worthy of your brand and something you can be proud to share with others.
When you are putting a site up and it is a business and a blog, will you be able to turn that site into a business site, or a blog that is a business.
While you could customize Thesis, you might want to answer a few questions:
- 1. What do you want your site to do?
- 2. What is your budget?
- 3. Can you find a better method?
People already have enough going on with learning WordPress. I receive dozen of Thesis questions from the same crowd daily and frankly, it is kind of sad and frustrating to see that their site is barely different from the next.
If you have a Thesis theme and cannot customize it, have someone do it for you! I do it all the time and frankly it is better knowing someone wanted to be different from the next hundred in their niche sporting Thesis for their WordPress theme. I am not totally ruling out Thesis, I just want to see people use it better. It is hard to believe social media consultants who specialize in branding if they have nothing to back it up with their own branding.
If you use Thesis, how are you thinking outside the box in terms of branding your site?
I'm quite happy with the theme I use on my blog and the plugins for SEO etc are all performing well and doing their jobs, so I'm not intending to pay my hard earned cash on the Thesis theme 😉
My recent post What Corporate Businesses Need to Remember About Blogs and Blogging!
It is all a matter of preference and I am glad to see people who are doing something they like with their site. Hopefully others jump aboard as you have.
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I think there is no need for a paid theme too. there are so many good free themes out there , which mostly cost only a backlink. I never had a problem with one of them and so i dont see a reason for buying thesis or similiar.
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I agree with you and yes, the success is not solely depends on the theme! It's not like you can give a 100% guarantee for success by just using Thesis.
I don't know about other bloggers/webmasters but I love Thesis as I can learn a lot of things while working on it and I believe it must be useful if a Thesis user could learn things and enhance creativity by optimizing the use of Thesis.
My point is – you must have a reason to do something and never depend on single ultimate reason for doing something.
I couldn't agree with you more, Nile! Thesis is not necessarily the end-all and be-all of the blogging world. I use a child theme based on Thematic from themeshaper.com, it's called Powerblog. It's free and I absolutely love it. It's very pain right out of the box, but I'm a tinkerer and have personalized it to suite my needs.
You are also right about the fact that plugins are available that do an excellent job of maximizing your WordPress blog SEO.
Think outside the box? There's a box? I'm suppose to be in it? Oh, well, I guess it's not a problem for me, since I've always lived on the outside! LOL
I know… and why bother with something a bit bulky on files. DIY is a nice thing, but not everyone has coding talent. Glad to know there are others that think outside the box.
I know… why is there even a box and who put it there in the first place.
My recent post 6 Nifty Social Bookmarking Plugins For Your WordPress Site
http://www.aquoid.com/news/themes/suffusion/ I love this theme! has loads of functions and customisations..
I agree with you about Thesis. It is way over promoted in the blogging world. It is a great theme, but you can accomplish everything it does with other themes that are also very popular and free as well. Why pay for Thesis when you can get all of that for free. Most of the on-page SEO stuff is taken care of with WordPress anyways. I just don't see the big draw other than the potential affiliate cash you could make by plugging the heck out of it.
My recent post Switching Theme To The Default WordPress 3 Template
You know, you are so right about the affiliate incentives…lol. That part I never thought about, but when you mentioned it, a lot of Thesis users are trying to promote it like crazy.
This is very true, I can spot a Thesis blog a mile a way and I'm not even using WordPress! Not sure exactly how much it costs to use but it seems to be a decent option for people who are clueless, probably makes them sleep better at night 🙂
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It was good to read this post – I've seen quite a lot of hype and testimonials for Thesis, enough to consider getting it for myself. Reading your thoughts, I'm thinking I should hold back and look around a bit more for something that suits my specific needs.
My recent post Tomas Tranströmer- “Kyrie”
*snicker* It's so true that most Thesis themes look alike, despite the claim of Thesis to make it easy to re-shape your theme to your own wishes. The truth is that to make Thesis look *different*, you need the kind of skills that would let you adapt any theme or framework, without having to know all the special Thesis hooks. (And then let's not even get into the whole GPL kerfuffle.) I much suspect that Thesis has better marketing than coding behind it, and while using it may make things a bit easier for those who don't know HTML, PHP, CSS, or WordPress, the same is true for other premium themes and frameworks and for many free themes with theme options panels.
I have designed for Thesis. It just really is a pain as they tried to make people believe it was not working with WordPress, but outside of it when there are few things in Thesis that are different from WordPress because they just write code in a roundabout manner to try to fool basic coders that they have something special. They do not… it works with WordPress and has very little value for SEO or anything else that you can do through other means.
I followed that hoopla for a long time and have said the same thing time and time again. I agree with you, it was good marketing.
I use Thesis on a couple of my sites (read also: not all of them.) It was the first “premium” theme I ever purchased and I like it. I’ve had clients specifically ask for it and while I’ve tried to tell them there are solutions that are as good – if not better for SEO than Thesis, once they have it in their head it’s struck there.
Click my name to see what I think is a well disguised Thesis implementation!
I do have clients that also ask for Thesis at times, but I end up having people that are more focused on having something more CMS rather than blog. Just easier to code a full site and blog template included, rather than work with a program that is written in a roundabout manner.
I'm just going to say Thesis sucks. Its extremely limited and the most it does for you is limits your blogging potential.
I agree Ash. I have designed themes for Thesis users and everytime I say I am going to stop, I keep getting reeled back in. lol.
I am going to be breaking out basic WordPress video tutorials. As for here, I will be reposting all my old HTML and PHP tutorials. People keep asking, so perhaps it is needed, especially for those who do like to dress up their posts and pages sometimes. 😀
Thanks for coming by… have not seen you around much. When are you going to write me a guest post at WPAddict.net (no pressure…lol)? 😉
I agree that most sites that use Thesis are pretty easy to spot, but there are some that aren't as obvious. I have a couple clients who specifically requested to use Thesis. I personally use it on my web design blog, for the main reason of seeing how much I could do with it. However, I have found myself using Headway on most of my clients' sites lately.
My recent post It’s All About YOU
I have found Thesis to be a “bloggers” theme, not one for CMS, especially for the roundabout way the code is written. I can write a non-bulky theme and install fewer plugins (than what others use), and my users… even clients as old at 70 can easily use and without much training, even though I am there to offer support for my work. Thesis can have some of its uses, but like some of the other premium themes out there, and as a coder myself (not a light coder – I am a code ninja to the core… I have a couple popular PHP scripts out there that have been raved about even at Mashable, and other prominent webdesign sites ), they have a lot of flaws that can be cut out.
For the blogging purpose, WordPress is the best. There are so many beautiful themes which are free as well as premium one. WordPress offers the best customization facility and it is quite easy. One can easily customized the worpress theme. There are many plug-ins of wordpress that helps to make website search engine friendly.