2

Thesis WordPress Themes Review

Thesis by DIYThemes is actually only a single theme, but in terms of overall value it is one of the better subscription packages we’ve found. This theme is designed to be a foundation for any type of website in any niche, and already has more than 50,000 subscribers. The theme is popular for many reasons including SEO value, flexible design, and fast load times. The theme comes with helpful user interface applications like options panels which help you to customize your site without knowing code, which makes it an accessible option for developers at all levels of experience.

Thesis DIYThemes Company Information

DIYThemes, the company behind Thesis, has been around since 2008, so they’ve been providing their services for quite some time. Since they only have a single product, Thesis, that means they’ve spent all this time focusing on supporting that product and improving it instead of spreading themselves thin with many different products. The expert support staff is run by a nine-year software support veteran named Shelley. So you do benefit from all that time and effort put into that single product. The company’s Google PR is 6 – which is pretty high, and a lot of traffic moves through every day. This is a very well known US-based company; Thesis is one of the most popular WordPress framework systems for SEO.

Licensing Terms

There are two different ways you can license the Thesis theme – one is the less expensive Personal Option, which costs $87.00 and the developer’s option costs $164.00. These are both one-time startup costs, and there are no recurring fees associated with your account, which is a huge plus. You get lifetime Thesis upgrades as part of both packages. If you choose the Personal Option, you’ll be able to use the Thesis theme for one live website and one localized development server. Along with lifetime upgrades, you get access to the Answers and Forums support services as well as the opportunity to upgrade to the Developer’s Option for just $77.40.

The Developer’s Option gives you unlimited use of the Thesis theme for as many sites as you want, along with access to beta versions of Thesis prior to upgrade releases. Client Site Options allows you to create Thesis sites for your clients, and you also get access to the Answers and Forums sections. Both licensing options come with a 30-day money back guarantee, which means that you risk nothing if you are not fully satisfied within a one month period.

Theme Quality

Thesis is one of the highest quality themes that are out there right now in a number of areas. It’s great for search engine optimization (SEO), and features fast load times so that your visitors don’t give up before your page loads. Readability is another key feature of Thesis; the template is designed to capture and hold your visitor’s attention using high quality, precise typography. You may not be fully consciously aware of how precise typography is or how important it is, but you can bet that it has a major subconscious impact on your site visitors and whether your site appeals to them. You’re given full control over the design elements and fonts using easy, intuitive controls.

Theme Options

A customizations gallery on the company’s website allows you to have a look at what other developers have done using the many theme options which are available. You’ll see personal blogs, company websites, and websites for eBooks and other projects. All these diverse websites are eye catching and feature simple, clear design layouts and features. Some pages are designed to look like blogs while others look more like company and eCommerce websites (many developers are surprised to discover WordPress can be used to create websites that don’t even look like blogs).

The Thesis options panel gives you control over theme options and customizations, allowing you to make changes to your site without knowing code. You can create unique designs using the user layout generator and pinpoint font controls. Sharp, clear typography is one of the focuses of the Thesis theme – this is one of the key elements in getting visitors on your page to pay attention. It is sometimes the simplest things that are the most important.

Overall Value

All in all, we were pretty impressed with what you get for the price. It may seem like a lot of money to pay for just one theme, but the idea is that the theme is so customizable that you really won’t need more than one. With that theme as a foundation you should be able to create many different websites which bear no resemblance to one another but all are infused with the same high level of quality. This company is very popular with developers, which is a testament to the efficacy of the platform. The support team seems to do a great job handling customer inquiries and solving problems, and is run by people who clearly know what they’re doing.

The major disadvantage of this package is of course that there is only one default theme. You need to use the WordPress dashboard in order to make customizations, and if you need to make tweaks which you can’t make with the dashboard, you may need to bring in outside help in the form of a CSS developer (only if you don’t know CSS yourself). For some website designers this could represent an extra expense and inconvenience. On the other hand, if you know CSS, this shouldn’t be a problem.