I am currently using Thesis 1.8.5 along with Thesis Skin blogskin from Thesisawesome. I have written in the past why thesis is best for developers and “not so good” for bloggers with no coding skills or those who don’t intend to spend much time on this.
Thesis 2.0 has been here for sometime now and it is a complete mess for those who don’t know HTML and prefer to spend time on blogging rather than customizing their blog’s design. In fact, even for those bloggers who know html, it will take some time to learn thesis 2.0 and “How to use it?”
Now having said that, I must say Thesis 2.0 is a powerful theme for theme developers because they can use it to create custom skins of any kind.
Premium wordpress themes are not going to skyrocket your Google rankings and whatever can be achieved through themes, thesis 2.0 does satisfy those requirements.
I want to reiterate myself; Thesis 2.0 is damn good for wordpress theme developers & designers and damn “not so good” for bloggers who don’t understand html or don’t have time to learn that.
There is not much documentation available for thesis 2.0 and for every change, you will have to Google and look out for information. Thesis 2.0 require you to put whole lot of work and time if you want to customize it.
In fact, why a blogger should spend more time on learning customizing theme when this is not primary forte of their blog? If you are running a marketing blog, then you don’t need to learn theme customization.
Premium WordPress Themes – But Why?
You just need a clean design for your blog with all the functionality which you need.
If you are a blogger then you need to focus on wordpress website templates. There are many personal and free business wordpress themes. You will also get quotes like “Free Premium WordPress Theme”, but there isn’t.
I have been using Thesis 1.8.5 for some time now and now i do feel to move on.
Therefore, I have been contemplating to switch to some other theme which provide me options so that i can customize my theme easily and quickly without compromising on other aspects of a premium wordpress themes. I have selected Studiopress Themes.
Ok, first see the benefits of premium wordpress themes or why do we need a premium theme for your blog?
- Unique design for your blog. If your blog look’s similar to other blogs then there is no selling preposition for you even if your content is good. Premium themes offer better level of customization whereas free themes struggle to provide that kind of flexibility.
- Your need to present your content in a specific manner and you need flexibility in doing that like font size, color, family and menu appearance in your blog.
- Fast page loading speed. Most of the free themes are known to adversely impact page load speed due to poor coding. Page speed has become a very important factor in SEO.
- Poor support – in case you want to add some functionality in your blog at a later stage and you need some information, support is going to help you. In fact, wordpress is upgraded regularly and if your theme is not supported it may result in compatibility issue.
- Mobile responsiveness—as number of mobile devices are going up across globe, it is imperative to have a theme which is mobile responsive so that your visitors don’t shy away from visiting your blog on mobile devices like iPhone, tablets etc. There are not many themes which are designed for that except studiopress themes.
Studiopress Themes
I have been looking out for thesis 2.0 alternatives. I have known Genesis Framework and Genesis theme for a while now and I have been recommending that to others in place of thesis.
Genesis framework is a wonderful framework which is good “not only” for blog designers but also for bloggers who are just looking for great themes with awesome framework for their blogs.
Why Studiopress Themes?
- Studiopress themes are based on powerful Genesis wordpress framework.
- Studiopress themes come with genesis framework and a child theme which can be used instantly to create powerful blogs.
- Studiorpress themes come with easy to use control panel which can be used to customize every bit of your blog without touching the code.
- Studiopress themes are designed keeping mobile devices in mind and they are mobile responsive. So there is absolutely no problem in accessing your blog on mobile devices.
- Studiopress themes are supported by a very good support team where your questions are answered quickly.
- You have access to a detailed documentation so that you don’t even need support for most of your queries.
- Studiopress themes are developed by copyblogger media which is involved in producing other products also. So you have a full fledged business house which can support your variety of needs.
- You can easily use shortcodes to beautify your posts in studiopress themes.
I have shortlisted few studiopress themes for my blog and they are;
- Lifestyle Theme
- Eleven 40 theme
- Focus theme
- Generate theme
- Magazine theme
- Metro Theme
- News Theme
- Streamline Theme
At the moment, i am more tilted towards Elevan 40 Theme and Generate Theme. Please have a look on it.
These themes are backed with variety of features like;
- Custom header
- Custom background
- Custom menu
- Multiple layouts
- All the SEO Features which a theme can support
- Variety of colors to choose from
- Mobile responsiveness
- Readymade widgets to quickly change things in your blog like home page, header and footer.
Please share your opinion on them; it will help me finalizing my final theme.
As mentioned earlier, i don’t want to say that Thesis 2.0 is not good. I only mean that Studiopress is best for all, wp bloggers and designers, as well.
There are other premium wordpress themes also like Elegant Themes and affilotheme but i am going to pick from studiopress themes.
Do you use any premium wordpress theme?
Do you use any premium theme which you think could help me.
As mentioned earlier, please share your views about studiopress themes mentioned here. Also, please share this post on social networking sites so that more & more people can share their opinions which will be extremely helpful for me.
Update — I have settled with Elevan40 Themes from Studiopress. It is a perfect theme for bloggers and small businesses. I am completely awed by its features and SEO compatibility.
A perfect article that is much needed. . Your article is truly relevant to my study at this moment, and I am really happy I discovered your website. However, I would like to see more details about this topic. I’m going to keep coming back here.
Anyone know if Studiopress NEWS theme could be in any way used in Catalyst Framework as a Dynamik child theme?
As I know there is no such theme as Studiopress NEWS to be bought on Catalyst….
i am not aware of this, please share any information you get on this. Catalyst is a different platform. I will suggest you to shoot a mail to studiopress sales to know more about it.
genesis is the one of the best theme framework which supports hundreds of child theme.., I am also using a free child theme of studiopress named copyblogger and it seems good and need no customization. and the most important thing is.. it is a very light theme.. just 85Kb in size.., if anybody know some HTML and CSS they can make the theme look even better according to their needs.
one other aspect to choose the studiopress theme is that ” the are very SEO friendly”
by the way very informative and justified article.. 🙂 nice post 🙂
Thanks Rohit for your kind words.