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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Download a free copy of Thematic and an accompanying “themelet”.
- 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.
- 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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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
The way I worked with my design was to download a very basic free theme and make the centre of the theme, my custom header. Whilst, the nuts and bolts of the theme aren’t that original, I believe my header image makes it stand out and the design seems like my own.
Benjamin Solah´s last blog ..Writing Update: Outlining Zombie Novella
I like what you’ve done with your theme. It fits very well with the topics you write about.
I tinkered with many of the free themes, but could never quite achieve the result that I wanted. What bugged me the most about the free themes was that the code was always different, which forced me to hunt for specific items in order to modify the theme. I should have sat myself down and taught myself CSS and HTML years ago. Too busy writing, though.
Thanks. Designing and modifying my new theme was certainly more difficult as the code was really different to my old free theme. I kind of taught myself CSS and HTML as I went along so I had to relearn a lot of stuff with this one.
Benjamin Solah´s last blog ..Writing Update: Outlining Zombie Novella
Excellent post, Deborah. I must admit that I was thinking of buying Thesis myself, but when I did a bit of research I found that all the sites look very much alike, which put me off. But…having said that, no matter what theme you install, there will be plenty of blogs on the internet that look similar to it (mine is a prime example).
I couldn’t find proof that I could customise Thesis completely without having to go into the code and if I have to do that then why buy it as I’m already doing that?! That’s the reason I didn’t buy it.
Now, going back to my first paragraph, all the sites I saw was so alike, yet then I come across you site and it’s different to all of them…and it does look “clean” (which I love).
I’ll be reading your posts with interest.
Karen Lee Field´s last blog ..Cut…It…Out! But What If…?
Ben: If there is one thing that I could redo over the last four years it would have been to learn CSS and HTML the right way.
Karen: Glad you enjoyed my article and my blog’s new look!
Now that I have the design customized the way I want it, my next project involves tackling my About page and updating my old content. I’ve decided to tackle it little by little each day so that I don’t get overwhelmed.
Thanks a lot for quoting me! I am glad you found it worthy enough to have a discussion around it. I agree to most of the things you have written over here. I like Thesis for the plug-n-play hooks they provide, but they aren’t as easy as they project them to be. SEO, as you have rightly mentioned is over hyped. I have achieved better results with other themes as well. Typography is good, but again, its way too common. What you have done with your header is really nice, but then the body still looks like million other sites running thesis
Raju´s last blog ..10 Ways to Watch The Vampire Diaries Online for Free!
You’re welcome, Raju.
Yeah, I can now spot a Thesis theme a mile away, along with WordPress and Blogger designs. Thanks for the constructive feedback on my design. I haven’t quite figured out how to customize the sidebar yet. That’s definitely going to be a trial and error project.
Thanks for stopping by!