Regular readers of ProBlogger know that I’m a fan of Chris Pearson and his popular Thesis theme for WordPress.
I’ve been using Thesis on TwiTip since I started that blog back in November and have been very satisfied with it.
Chris has just launched version 1.5 of Thesis – a significant update upon the previous one. You can get a personal video tour of Thesis and many of the options and features that it has here.
Why I love Thesis?
I’m not a designer – I am hopeless on anything related to design.
For my two main blogs (ProBlogger and Digital Photography School) I’ve hired designers to come up with custom designs for my blogs. I intend to do this for TwiTip also at some point but while I’ve been building up the audience for that blog I wanted a clean and easy to use theme that would allow me to do a little customization.
Keep in mind I’m hopeless on design – so it had to be very easy to use. I also wanted something affordable to get me through the start up phase of the blog so that I could get it earning some money to help me pay for a custom design.
Thesis hit the mark for me. It’s easy to use, it’s a clean design in its default form and it has loads of customization options (see the video linked to above to see some of them). The other bonus of Thesis is that it’s well coded for SEO. TwiTip already ranks very well in Google, some of the credit for that is the coding of Thesis.
The other bonus with Thesis is the community of bloggers that has sprung up around it. They have a forum where there’s heaps of good information on how to use and customize Thesis.
Thesis costs $87 for a personal license or $164 for a developers license (where you can use it on as many blogs as you like).
If you’re in the market for a theme for your WordPress blog Thesis is a theme that you’ll want to consider.
For free themes, inove by mg12 is the best! IMAO…
It has a lot of functions pre-installed and very stylish looking. And it’s also highly customizable. Highly recommend!
I like Thesis, too. My only fear is that so many people are using it that it’s become too common, leaving bloggers without a unique site. I think it needs even more easily customized layout features.
My 2 cents.
I really like the Thesis theme. I have been thinking about buying it for months. This latest version might finally get me to pull the trigger.
Thesis is awesome. I agree with the comment above that it is used a lot, but I find that it’s extremely easy to hide the fact you use Thesis on your blog if you know some CSS, HTML and understand the Hooks system.
1.5 was a great improvement from the previous. :)
Sold! About to start my first blog and yesterday morning had just narrowed it down to three themes, Thesis was my favorite as I have two friends who love it – but this update has confirmed my decision. Thanks.
what a lousy way to make some bucks with affiliate link, darren bitch.
This is a nice theme. I almost bought it a few months ago when working on a site. Nice to see the new updates. I do like the zine look of it, but still prefer my sites zine look better.
I had already planned to update my blogs with Thesis this weekend.
That wasn’t necessary Carl! If you can’t mind your manners, simply don’t visit.
It’s okay. There are better themes.
@ElderGuru.com: I would agree with that. Also I am not big fan of thesis theme. I like this theme though Darren. Is there any free version available? I am looking for a good design for my blog. However, I can’t efford premium themes at the moment :(
I have been using Thesis since version 1.1 and I love it. It gets better every version. Thanks to Problogger I learned about this great WordPress theme, so many thanks Darren!
I really wish you wouldn’t post ads under the guise of being serious posts. It’s not only misleading, it gets boring very quickly.
You use Thesis and you write about Thesis because you are paid to do so. Why not just say that?
ElderGuru – understand that concern. It is an issue for all free or paid themes unless you’re able to customize the theme. Thesis does allow you to individualize your theme quite a bit however the only way to get a truely unique design is to do your own or hire someone to do a custom design – not an easy or cheap option.
Carl – not sure what your issue is. This is a blog about making money from blogging…. if you’re not into affiliate links then this probably isn’t the right place for you. Sorry if that offends but it’s what I do and teach – the product is on topic to this blog, of a high quality, something that I use myself…. not quite sure what else to say.
InternetHowBlog – that’s what I’ve used Thesis for – as a stopgap for me while I saved up for a custom job. I think it’s a great option for that.
Dom – not sure what else to add to my comments to Carl. Again – I do use affiliate links here at ProBlogger (over all my posts I’d say they appear in 1 in 20 – if that). While I don’t shout it from the hill tops I don’t hide the links with cloaking links and I actively blog about the topic of affiliate links – it shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone. I personally don’t find it misleading – I choose products to promote that I think are relevant, high quality and that I (or someone I highly respect) uses or recommends. I also try to give a realistic and on hyped up view of products I promote.
Dom, I also find it odd that you have an issue with affiliate marketing considering your own chocolate blog (my mouth watered just reading it) uses affiliate links in quite a few of your posts…. Lastly – I don’t use Thesis because I am paid to do so – I paid for my own copy of it when I started TwiTip – I did so because (as I said in the post above) it fit my needs.
A last general comment – I have to say that I find it a little amusing that any time I write a post with an affiliate link here at ProBlogger that a small minority complain about it. It’s a little bizarre that on a blog about making money from blogs a small number of people seem to take such an issue with the practice. On the flip side on my other blogs I have readers ask me where they can buy products that earn me a commission because they want to support the site! :-) Go figure!
It is your blog and don’t listen to anyone. I never tried Thesis theme. I am not at a point to pay a lot for things. Greg Ellison
I don’t even know why Carl is so angry to see an affiliate link, Darren is a human, he has the right to make money as well, right?
Between, I did use Free thesis theme before, awesome theme! But most probably I won’t buy, because I know it’s cheap and there are tonnes of people will be buying, so the themes is not unique anymore, right? :P
Regards,
Lee
I think Thesis is a great theme to use. I’m a pro wedding photographer with 800+ unique visitors a day using Thesis. If you take a few chances with your layout, and dare to do something different, you can have phenomenal results.
The Thesis is a super theme. But I think UBDs affiliate theme is the better one for affiliate sites.
wow, darren, what a polite answer! i tought you would delete my comment. sorry about that, I was pissed off with something else and wrote that….. didnt intend to say harsh words, just ask about the affiliate links….. you can go ahead and delete it now ok
Thesis is a great theme. I have seen a lot of good looking and functional blogs developed on Thesis.
For those who do no want to invest right away on a theme, try Vigilance. Its a great theme that looks similar to Thesis. The theme is free. But in order to make use of the advanced features you have to join the Vigilance members forum to get help and support (for a fee). But if your have good coding skills you can tweak the theme by yourself.
I just switched my blog to the vigilance theme. I love it!
Carl & Darren,
this is indeed a blog over making money from blogging therefore I wouldn’t comment on someone making money from it. Darren is providing the rest of this community with wonderful content that will help us all. In the end of the day money makes the world go round. If you want to be able to continue to read quality content in the feature as well please let the man make some bucks from it! ;-)) By the way the thesis theme is awesome. I’ve designed our theme myself however it’s quite difficult to make changes.
I’d also like to know if people have experience with customizing the theme to their needs.
its fine. i prefer with free themes.
Theis is one of the best theme I have came across. Simple reason I’m not a coder and I’m very bad when it comes to coding.
Thesis theme support forum is superb and take care of every individual needs.
IMHO if you have more then 1 blogs, consider buying Thesis Developer license and your life will be easy.
Darren,
I have recently started using Thesis and really like if for it’s clean code and SEO friendliness. Since I’m new to Thesis, I’m not sure which SEO plugins to use, and which to leave behind. I’ve run into a few problems with some plug-ins on Thesis early on.
In this post you reference 9 SEO plug-ins for WordPress that are essential – 9 SEO Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Have
In your experience, are these all still good for Thesis, or do you leave some off?
Thanks for your feedback.
Chris
Very simple theme, I will try it , thanks .
Thesis quite simply rocks. I think that to get the full benefit out of your blog you need a premium theme, as you get excellent support and far more features. As for Thesis becoming too popular and making blogs look the same – I disagree. It has become popular because it is such a good theme. It is constantly updated, and I know that far more tweaks, skinning etc are in the pipeline meaning that there will be thousands of configuration option. My advise is to get Thesis now and look forward to a lifetime of excellent support, easy customisation and plenty of updates.
I’ve been looking at thesis for a while, it just offers some very nice SEO options built in and the code is very clean and easy to read. That being said I plan on buying a copy to use on a new project in the coming weeks…
I really like the Thesis theme.Thesis is awesome.
I will try it , thanks