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Best Wordpress Themes Thesis

Updated on January 7, 2012

Thesis Theme Update 2011

When this article was originally written I was relatively new to the Thesis Theme for Wordpress, I had enough experience to document my journey and compare it to other themes and I stand behind the information shared both in content and in presentation but I will be providing a quick update.

With over two years of experience with the Thesis Theme I still feel it is the best wordpress theme for new and experienced wordpress users.

A savvy or cynical reader may question whether a) I have used other themes b) whether my suggestion is tempered only by my participation in the affiliate program.

In response to a)

  • I personally own and manage almost 100 sites, of which approximately 60% run the Thesis theme, I also manage and design websites for other companies and individuals and can custom code a wordpress theme from the ground up. In most cases i have no reason or desire to start from scratch and will use the existing theme of my clients or another premium option. I also use the Genesis Framework, Many Woo Themes, I have an Elegant Themes developers license and also use PremiumPress themes. When I dont use Thesis its simply because the marketing/content theme of the site matches quite perfectly with the design theme offered by these designers. I prefer Thesis as it is a "blank Canvas" visually and that makes it much easier for me to visualize my design and organization to the future site. Making global changes to the design and content is much easier in Thesis than any of the other Premium Themes I mentioned and additionally I find far less plug-in conflicts with Thesis. Compared to the often script heavy nature of the other themes.
  • In response to B) All of the Premium Themes I use offer an affiliate program that is equal to the one offered by Thesis (DiyThemes) - many offer subscriptions and additional themes which would likely end up to be more profitable to me than the very occasional Thesis theme sale.

My offer: If you choose to purchase or trial Thesis theme after reviewing this article then you are welcome to contact me for any questions you have in the design of your site. Simply , tell me the date of your purchase so I can confirm that you are my referral and i will offer you either direct answers to questions or links to my 2 years worth of research into my own challenges and solutions I have been presented with.

The forums have been invaluable at DIYthemes, forum users have straight up written small snippets of code to fix my issues when I explained my problem! I also have had direct help in editing 3rd party plugins to work within Thesis, no other developer support site ever comes close to that level of assistance. Not that an average user would be confronted with the issues I did, but I try to make every client request happen and sometimes have to try out some experimental solutions that I would never consider practical or useful for my own sites.

How could any one WP Theme be the best?

Wordpress, surely its the cats pajamas we all know that. With less than a days effort just about any noob, fairly web literate person can create a professional, search engine friendly, cross browser compatible site.


One of the hardest things to decide on when setting up your Wordpress install, is what theme to use. There are literally thousands of excellent themes, plus many plug ins to utilize for your specific niche.

The one and only hazard to avoid is picking a theme that is so heavily utilized or under customizable that you ended up looking like every other newbie blogger, site owner on the web.

This is surprisingly easy to do as without graphic design and css skills most themes simply are not that unique.

Ive spent quite a bit of time researching the pros and cons of Wordpress themes and have finally decided on ONE, yes just one theme that I will be utilizing across my web properties.

Matt Cutts of Google Fame uses Thesis!

One great indicator of a theme or platforms viability is its current usage. Why spend a month researching the qualities of a theme instead of developing the site which is your actual end goal?

Great question, and one which I wish I asked myself months ago!

Thesis ( Wordpress Theme) - is one of many that are frequently referenced and promoted by leaders of the information products, online marketing and SEO world, that alone is not necessarily enough since many of these so called gurus make huge money off their promotions, BUT when I discovered Matt Cutts himself had selected thesis forhis own pages I knew the rumors must be right.

Now, it seems as if Matt has put very little effort into the aesthetics of his page and is more interested in readability and accessibility by all. Nonetheless, I am sure he is taking full advantage of the back end features of Thesis which are legion.


Thesis is the Best Wordpress theme
Thesis is the Best Wordpress theme

Can Thesis also look pretty? Is it customizable?

Yes! Thesis is highly customizable for graphical layouts. The team over at cuteoverload.com is using the exact same theme for a much larger effect. After a quick view you will see, a 3 column layout - full color image header and link bar, rss feed and site search. One would never imagine the two pages are running on the same engine!

A good thing to notice is that neither is an in your face marketing page, so just in case that is what you are looking for. We can look at a third example of Thesis in action.


Can this really be the same theme?

Check out TechnoSailor , This site which also runs on the Thesis theme is your more transparent monetized site, Thesis allows for easy serving of ads in the top header space (still great screen real estate) and in the right sidebar.

So personally, I was so impressed with the caliber of users and the massive pre programmed choices that I joined the Thesis wagon myself.


Some promotion points

I was most impressed by the users, as I have already explained, if Search engine kings use it on their own sites, it is worth a try, I am more than capable of finding any theme and changing and customizing and adding plug-ins to fit my needs, but updates and conflicts and time loss is always an issue of this process, Thesis is now my one-stop, after my first day customization i am free to focus on content and promotion which is the true root to success anyway in the online marketplace.

Some Promotion points anyway:

  • Strongest integrated SEO of any Theme!
  • Page by Page customization options, This is unheard of!
  • Amazing support community, i can attest to this from experience!
  • Lifetime updates!
  • Typographical control, that I cant even begin to explain!

If God had a WordPress theme, he’d use Thesis.

Thesis isnt free!

It took me quite a while to wrap my head around this one and lose the cheapskate attitude.

Its so easy to find free themes and products on the web, I have real trouble ever opening my wallet products. But eventually a time came where I learned to put a value on my own time, the massive amounts of energy I previously put forth customizing and debugging inferior themes easily overshadows the small cost I paid when I first decided to bite the bullet and buy a theme.

Thesis costs $87.00 USD for the personal one page lifetime use, support and updates

                                                       Try Thesis

or $164.00 for the developers package which allows use across all your pages, I was stunned when I first used Paypal to buy a theme, but I have been quickly re compensated by a massive amount of free time that was previously wasted in customization

So in short, If your serious about the Net, buy a theme - and Thesis is a great choice.

Thesis has a great affiliate program too, Its an easy program to promote as the program is amazing and has great buzz across the internet

Be a Thesis affiliate

Install locally for testing - plus view thesis

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