On the Write Road

Have you heard all the buzz about the new theme called Thesis for your WordPress blog? Thesis is creating a lot of excitement because it is a theme that is totally customizable  and  offers strong search engine optimization (SEO). Why is this so cool? Well, because before Thesis, most bloggers only had the choice of getting a generic theme and making changes to it or getting a designer to create a custom theme for you.  With Thesis, you get a basic template in which you can build the theme look and layout you want using either the simple WISWIG menu or by changing the css or php pages.

Thesis Features

Here are some of the features you can select in the Thesis Design Option menu:

• layout (one, two, or three columns)
• sidebar placement
• side bar and content section size
• framework size (page or full size)
• fonts and font sizes
• feature box creation and placement
• post images and thumbnail positions

Here are some options you can customize in the Thesis Options Menu:

• site title
• archive page
• tagging
• syndication feed
• home page meta description
• post features such as author name, date, comments, categories
• RSS feed
• contents and placement of text for navigation menu
• multimedia box
• header and foot scripts

custom.css and custom_functions.php

If you want to make more changes, the designers have created dummy custom.css and custom_functions.php files for you to customize. To make changes without touching your custom/custom_functions.php, they have created a plugin called Thesis OpenHook. By unhooking or hooking layout elements you can change the layout of your blog.

Blogs Using Thesis

Many blogs are using Thesis now. Here are some blogs with beautiful designs using this theme:

Lisa Firke Wild Keys
Sarah Klass
Breadtopia
kristarella.com

Caveat

There is only one caveat to using this theme: if you are someone who is not comfortable designing and changing a blog design then this theme may not be for you. As I said early, you start with a bare theme so you will have to design and build your layout yourself. The good news is when you buy the theme, you get access to the DIY forum where you can find answers to your questions. In addition, there are plenty of other developers who have written articles on how to do certain customizations with Thesis. I am not an expert designer but I thought I did a nice job creating my new blog about horses called Riding Over the Hill.

Thesis Price

Thesis cost is relatively cheap: $87.00 for personal use (means you can only use this theme once) or developer’s option for $164.00 (means you get Unlimited use of the theme on any number of sites that you own and can remove the attribution link in the footer.)

 If you are interested in finding out more about this new theme go to http://diythemes.com/