Things to Consider Before Buying Thesis

After all my research on Thesis, I finally found one post that doesn’t glow with kudos. Raju of Technically Personal feels that Thesis is way over-hyped for what it is. He contends that you can find free themes that may suit your intended purposes equal to or better. Three weeks after my purchase, I have to say that I agree with him about the hype. I’ll explain why.

Will My Search Engine Ranking Shoot Up the Moment I Install Thesis?

I am not considering Thesis because of all the SEO hype though…because, the fact of the matter is, SEO isn’t a turn-key “feature”. You need to know “how to SEO” in order for SEO to work…if that makes sense. Basically, you need to know what keywords people are searching on (among other factors) to make your site search friendly.

This was the most intelligent comment I found in the discussion and the most important over the design issues. I think many people are led to believe that their search engine rankings will see a significant improvement once they install Thesis onto their server. That’s not always the case, especially if you have an older blog that is loaded with errors (i.e., broken links, poorly worded titles, lack of keyword density in posts, etc.). If your blog or website is ranking poorly in the search engines now, it will still rank poorly. You’ll have to wade through all of those posts to correct those mistakes. Then you’ll probably see an improvement, depending upon your keywords and your blog’s overall topic focus.

If you don’t know anything about SEO, learn it. SEO Blog is a great place to start. Also check out Search Engine Land. Once you have a solid grasp of SEO, comb through your blog and check every page for errors. Check to see if you can edit your old content to make it stronger for both your readers and the search engines. Then watch the search engines for your keywords. You should start to see an improvement within a few days.

Just How Easy is the Customization . . . Really?

My biggest issue with the theme is that it is difficult to customize so sites using Thesis all start to look the same.

I totally agree with this commenter on Raju’s blog. You can make a basic theme and customize your blog’s layout in under an hour. DIYThemes.com has good, step-by-step tutorials on how to do this. Their forum is also a great place to learn and to ask for help, if you get stuck. For many people, a simple “cookie cutter” design is fine for them. If you plan to customize your blog beyond the basics, and you have little or no web design experience, you’re in for a bumpy ride. That said, don’t rush out and buy Thesis until you:

1. Have working knowledge, at the very least, of CSS and HTML. I’m talking beyond cut and paste and the ability to change a font’s color. You’ll need to know what these codes mean and where to place them in order to get your intended design to work properly.
2. Are willing/able to take the time to learn CSS and HTML.

If you don’t have the above skills, I strongly recommend that you bookmark W3Schools and practice their tutorials. Sitepoint is also an excellent place to learn web design skills, as is nettuts+.

Knowledge of PHP and jQuery is also helpful for creating customized scripts for special functions, such as a tabbed sidebar with animation features.

What if I Decide that Thesis is Not for Me?

Thesis isn’t for everyone. Some people would rather focus on writing great content than stressing out over code, and that’s fine. You have several options.

1. Use one of the hundreds of free WordPress themes that grace the Internet. If you want a clean look with great code, check out Neoclassical.
2. Download a free copy of Thematic and an accompanying “themelet”.
3. Buy a premium theme. I saw some nice ones on ThemeForest for reasonable prices ($15 – $35). The developers are good about answering their customers’ questions. Check out their competitors, too.
4. Buy Headway, a “drag and drop” theme framework that rivals Thesis. David Risley has a good YouTube video that shows you exactly how Headway works. He also lists the pros and cons of using this framework.

Wrapping it Up

Raju and his readers made some great points about the pitfalls of the Thesis framework, as well as the marketing over-hype. No product or service is 100% perfect. I hope this post has given you well-rounded and useful information in order to help you make your decision.

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