Posted by Tammy in 
If you’ve been following along lately, you know that Scott and I are working on establishing our own internet businesses. We’ll both be starting new blogs as part of the business model, and this week we’ve been spending a lot of time looking for that perfect WordPress theme. In this post, we’ll show you our “short list” of themes we’re considering for our business blogs – and we’d love to hear opinions from any of you who have used any of these themes. We’re probably going to be making our final decision this week.
Determining Your Needs When Choosing a Blog Theme
Before shopping around for a Wordpress theme, you should have a general idea of how you want your blog to look and function. Some themes have a two-column layout, while others are arranged with three columns. Do you want your sidebar to appear on the left or right? Is the theme you’re looking at “widget-ready?” You should also have an idea of your own ability to customize and tweak your Wordpress theme. In our case, we can handle the basics but neither of us have the time or interest to become Wordpress gurus. We are looking for something easy. Also realize that your blog doesn’t have to be perfect on launch day. You will be improving your business – including your blog – for years to come.
With that in mind, we were looking for a blog theme that’s easy to manage, has room to grow, and will allow us to get a business blog up and running quickly with as little headache as possible. There are plenty of flashy, shiny, eye-catching blogs out there. But for our needs, we’ve narrowed them down to [drumroll, please] Our Top 4 Picks for Wordpress Themes:
…and yes, I’m saving the best for last.
Thesis Theme
If you haven’t heard of Thesis by now, you may want to come out of your cave for a minute and have a look around. Thesis comes from DIY Themes, and was recently upgraded to version 1.6. You can see a demo of Thesis and its new bells and whistles in this video. The big selling point of Thesis seems to be SEO optimization. From the DIY site:
Thesis boasts the strongest SEO of any theme on the market today thanks to its expertly-coded HTML
+CSS+PHP framework. Not only that, Thesis also contains additional options that will allow you to fine-tune each and every page of your site. The days of worrying about your in-site SEO are over—with Thesis, your strategy is “just add killer content.”
After viewing the demos, Thesis looks like it’s pretty easy to manage from the control panel. The only thing we’re not too crazy about is that you can typically spot a Thesis-themed blog 2 miles away.
COST: You have two purchase options for Thesis. The “Personal Use” option will cost you $87.00 and for that price you can use the theme on one site, and you are required to leave the footer attribution link intact. For $164, you can choose the Developer’s Option, which gives you the ability to install Thesis on as many sites as you want, and you can remove the links in the footer.
Frugal Theme
Frugal Theme is the creation of Eric Hamm, and in our opinion Eric is doing a great job giving Thesis some serious competition! Frugal is a nice, clean-looking theme that also seems to be fairly easy to tweak. Eric provides a nice library of video tutorials to help you get started using the theme. What makes Frugal unique? Here’s what Eric says:
In its stock form, the frugal Wordpress Theme is about as simple and clean as it gets, while still maintaining a sleek style that perfectly presents you precious content. Right out of the box the frugal theme does nothing more than put ALL the focus on your words, images, videos or whatever you choose to display to your readers. Almost invisible with its super simple framework, the frugal theme does nothing to distract from your pages and posts.
What attracts us most about Frugal is the design. It’s very simple, clean, and sleek. We also like the option of making a “static” homepage. Eric’s blog, Motivate Thyself, is a good example of Frugal set up to look more like a full-fledged content management system.
Frugal comes in two yummy flavors: Premium and Professional. You can see a comparison video HERE. You also have a choice of 3 licenses; Single-Use ($79), Multi-Use ($149), and Developer ($199). Check out the Frugal Store for details of all the options. For a limited time, you can get a “Combo” deal which includes the Premium and Professional themes for one price.
Affiliate Theme
This one caught my eye a while back, and although we won’t be using it for the blogs we’re developing right now, I will probably re-visit Affiliate Theme in the future, when I turn my attention back to affiliate marketing. This theme is designed with one thing in mind. You guessed it, Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate Theme is offered by Unique Blog Designs, and claims to be “the easiest way to set up and customize new affiliate websites using Wordpress.” If you are promoting a lot of products and want a quick and easy way to get your landing/sales pages designed and published, I think Affiliate Theme is definitely worth a look. There are several purchasing options for Affiliate theme, ranging in price from $97 to $297. You can find details of those options HERE. But before you purchase, make sure you sign up for the newsletter on the home page. When you do, you’ll get a promo code that’ll save you 15%.
Headway Theme – The Future of Wordpress Themes
I said I was saving the best for last, and here it is. Headway is so impressive and innovative that we’ve both watched the video numerous times just to be impressed all over again. Seriously. As far as I know, Headway is one-of-a-kind in that it offers drag-and-drop blog customization. I’m a drag-and-drop kind of person. It just doesn’t get much easier than this. You can get details about Headway’s features HERE. But what’s really exciting is that version 1.5 will be released soon and it looks amazing! Even if you’re not in the market for a Wordpress theme, you should go watch this video. It’s just that cool.
Headway is a collaborative effort between Grant Griffiths and Michael Martine (Remarkablogger.com). If you want to be able to really customize your blog but you don’t know anything about code, you’ll be amazed at what you’ll be able to do with this theme. The simplicity and flexibility of the drag-and-drop layout editor put this one on our radar, and we have yet to find anything else like it. These guys are definitely onto something, and we think that something is the future of Wordpress blog themes.
COST: The Personal option costs $87, and gives you the ability to install Headway on 2 sites. The Developer option costs $164, and allows you unlimited installations. With the developer option, you can also remove the footer attribution link. Very reasonable and competitive pricing for what this theme offers!
Right now we are definitely leaning towards Headway as the theme for our business blogs. We plan to make a final decision by the end of the week. And, once we get a behind-the-scenes peek, we’ll post a more thorough review.
We’d Love to Have Your Input!
Have you used any of these themes? If so, we’d love to hear about it! What would you like to change about the theme you’re currently using? What other theme(s) should we consider before making our final decision?
Thanks for the kind words about Headway! Glad you like it. There is no hard evidence to back this up, but I had a person who switched to Headway from one of the other themes mentioned in your post and experienced much better search traffic and improvement in rankings. That’s just one person’s personal experience, but I think it’s worth mentioning, because in addition to the visual editing capabilities, Headway 1.5 will have the most complete SEO options of any theme on the planet.
There is one more person who should be mentioned besides Grant and myself, because neither of us actually developed or designed Headway itself—we just manage the business and marketing side of things. The developer/designer of Headway is Clay Griffiths. Clay is the real genius in this team. Grant and I are just “support personnel.”
Michael Martine´s last blog ..Headway 1.5 Changes the Game… Again – Meet Your New Visual WordPress Theme Editor
Michael,
Thanks for the info. And pass our compliments on to Clay for the great work! Headway will help level the blogging playing field for Wordpress rookies like me! We’ll be looking forward to the release of 1.5
Hey there Tammy,
That was one of the reasons I switched from Thesis – the “spot from two miles away” feeling. It’s definitely a great theme but needs work to stand out.
I used Headway from the v1.0 version (and I’ve used a few themes in my time!) and I fell in love immediately. I’m like you – I don’t want to have to spend hours, days and sometimes weeks getting a site just so – I’d rather get on with the content.
Step up Headway.And now that 1.5 (beta) is currently running my blog, I can attest how crazy easy and powerful it is.
Great comparisons!
Danny Brown´s last blog ..Don’t Do a Google
Danny,
Thanks for your input. It’s good to know your experience has been a positive one!
Hey Danny,
Since you’ve used both Thesis and Headway, can you give us any insight into the SEO features of the two? Headway seems to be light-years ahead of the others for customization, but is either superior to the other when it comes to SEO?
I’d say they’re both very similar, Tammy. I was always impressed with the SEO function of Thesis and I’ve had excellent results with the Headway theme.
What’s really cool about 1.5 is the way you can now set up truly customized SEO for every single individual post, page, tag, category, archives and more. It’s one heck of a piece of kit and I can’t foresee me ever changing!
Danny Brown´s last blog ..Digital Storytellers and TEDx Ottawa
Thanks Danny! Now I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning! LOL…can’t wait to play with my new toy!
Tammy´s last blog ..Four Wordpress Themes You Shoudn’t Miss
I guess haven’t wrapped my head around paying for blog themes yet, but I am leaning towards Thesis for Green and Chic Blog. The more I read about it, the more I think I should go for it.
Carla´s last blog ..Green and Chic Product: Erbaorganics Baby Body Wash (discounted)
Carla, I know what you mean. There are a lot of free themes out there that look really nice, too. But I think you can really tell the difference in the extra work, development, features, and flexibility that you pay for with these themes.
Tammy´s last blog ..Four Wordpress Themes You Shoudn’t Miss
Tammy – Thanks so much for the review and mention. We are excited about the great features Headway 1.5 will bring to our users and can’t wait to get it released soon.
Grant,
Any idea when that release will be? By the way, assuming your website at blogforprofit.com is using Headway, that’s an awesome example of the theme’s possibilities. Looks great!You have a new subscriber. Geez…now I feel like a Headway groupie.
Tammy´s last blog ..Our Self-Employment Progress This Week
1.5 will be out this week.
Grant Griffiths´s last blog ..Headway 1.5 Preview – The Future is Now!
I originally purchased Thesis, but I didn’t like it because I had such a hard time customizing it and I didn’t want to hire someone nor did I want that “Thesis” look. So, I put it on a test blog just to play around with and I’ve never really used.
I purchased Headway when it first came out and immediately fell in love. I put it on that same test site so I could teach myself how to use it. I did, but I still had some issues with setting up the leafs. Mostly the time involved to set up each page and put the leaf in and save and look at my blog, blah blah blah….
When I saw 1.5…I knew they’s hit the jackpot. THAT was exactly what I wanted. I could work on it like I’m working on a desktop publishing project. I downloaded it as soon as it came out and I’ve been playing with it for 2 days now. It’s fantastic.
I’ve gotten a new theme up and running in a day (for me that’s good and I am by no means a theme whiz….far from it). My theme is not done, but it’s more of a “what do I want” issue. There are so any aspects of the theme that I can really easily customize so the designs options are endless.
Michele McGraw´s last blog ..EA Sports Active More Workouts First Impressions
Michele,
Thanks for the input. We also decided to go with Headway. Can’t wait to start “playing” with it!
Michele,
Thanks for posting your thoughts on Headway. It’s really cool to hear feedback about it and then to go to your site (which looks sweet, by the way) and know that you made it with Headway.
[I gotta admit, the video review you posted on your site for EA Sports Active Workouts makes me want to pick up a copy...
]
I especially like that you said using Headway is like doing desktop publishing. Me and desktop publishing go way back. So if Headway is anything like DP, I’m going to be like a kid in a candy store.
Cheers,
Scott
Hi,
I am a complete beginner to WordPress. I intend to build a few real estate sites (not blogs) using WordPress, and the HeadWay review caught my attention.
Is it possible to purchase a designed theme such as agentpress.com (studio press) etc and then use HeadWay to further “customize” the webpage/theme….?
Apologies if bad question, but I have no idea how this works….any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Hey, John!
It’s funny you should ask this question. I was just having a conversation about this with Corey Freeman over at http://www.headwayhacks.com.
You’re probably going to want to ask her this question for a thorough answer. I can tell you that it should be possible but that may not be your best option. If you explain to Corey exactly what you’re looking for, she can probably make some solid suggestions. Personally, I have complete faith in her.
I wish I could be more help, but I’m not really a web design guy. I know how to outsource, though!
Anyway, I hope this helps a little.
Tell Corey, Scott Quitter sent ya.
Cheers,
Scott
Hi John, welcome to the blog! If I understand your question correctly, my answer would be this: You would use either the Headway Theme or the Agent Press theme, but not both. After you install Wordpress, you choose which theme you want to apply. If you like the looks of Agent Press, but want to customize it further, you could either A)buy Agent Press & then spend an ungodly amount of time learning how to customize the theme yourself. B)Buy the theme and then hire someone to customize it for you.
OR–
You may want to use Headway instead of Agent Press. Then, you can make your site look however you want (Headway customization is drag & drop). So you could “copy” the parts of Agent Press you like, and change whatever you don’t like, etc. Hope that makes sense.
Tammy´s last blog ..Contest: Win a Free Copy of Headway 1.5!
Technically speaking, no, you cannot use two separate wordpress themes, as Headway IS a theme in and of itself. That being said, for what you want to do, I see no reason why you shouldn’t use AgentPress. I love Headway and the possibilities are endless, but because you’re a beginner with a very specific goal, you should go for the theme that meets the most needs.
If you want total flexibility and you’re not afraid of hiring someone and/or learning a few tricks, Headway is a great theme for skill building. The technology is new, and some bugs are verified, but I seriously believe that -anything- can be built on this theme and I personally spend a great deal of time proving it.
My basic thought is this: if you want to get these sites built and done, use AgentPress.
If you want to have more flexibility and you have some time to work with a theme/someone, use Headway.
And if you have any questions, drop me a line. =)
Corey Freeman´s last blog ..Get Headway 30% Off! First 50 People Only!
Hi to all and many thanks for all replies. That was quick !!!
I hope all designers would answer as quickly…
Since you all seem very much on the ball, I will ask one more question. No obligation to reply, and once again, apologies if using your knowledge.
I do like the agentpress.com theme as it does pretty much exactly what I want it to do. I just want to “edit” it slightly. Here is a good example where one company has used the foundation, but then edited it: oceanhomemag.com . Main feature missing (properties )but graphically it looks much better.
I was in contact with the company that seem to be doing the “customizations”, but I was given a quote of 2500-3000 US$. Not exactly what I had in mind, hence my interest in Headway as I though that maybe with it I could “edit” the webpage myself…..
Since I have no knowhow in WordPress, I have no idea of that price is normal. Sounds too much in y eyes, as the template is around 70-100 US$ and only for making it slightly more “appealing” should not costs thousands of $……right? Or I am wrong….?
Maybe you do know a designer that could help or guide me in the right direction ?
Many thanks once again,
John
Hi John,
$3000 is very expensive for customizing a theme. Since you’re very new to Wordpress, you may want to check out a service offered by a friend, Nate Damm, at http://freewordpressinstall.com He will install Wordpress, install the theme of your choice, and install the basic plugins. All for free. You can see the details here:
http://www.freewordpressinstall.com/my-free-wordpress-installation-service/
If you need to hire someone to customize your theme, you may want to try one of these:
http://www.elance.com/
http://www.getacoder.com/
Tammy´s last blog ..Contest: Win a Free Copy of Headway 1.5!
Tammy,
One more question for you…..In your second chapter you say that I could “copy the parts of Agent Press that I like, and then edit it afterwards”………
Since I don’t know how WordPress works, it kind of sounds like I would copy the “code” of the other template, and then use that as the foundation in Headway……something like that….?
Thanks for your previous reply,
John
John,
What I meant was that if you were to use Headway, you could “copy” how the Agent Press theme looks – the layout, features, etc. I didn’t mean actually copying the code. Sorry I didn’t make that clear. If Agent Press is really close to what you want, you would probably do best to use that theme and pay someone to make the minor adjustments you want. You can always change things later on, after you get more familiar with Wordpress.
Feel free to ask questions here. We’ll gladly help in whatever way we can!
Tammy´s last blog ..Contest: Win a Free Copy of Headway 1.5!
Hi Tammy,
You’ve been very helpful.
All the best,
John