WordPress Gurus: StudioPress or Thesis?

I would use (I do use!) Atahualpa. It's free and totally customisable.

If you're interested, PM me and I'll show you some sites that use it.

I heard good things about HEADWAY - just purchased my own personal
edition to use on my main blog.

It's at Headway Premium WordPress Theme

(or if you want my aff link, PM me )

All success
Dr.Mani

I've licensed Thesis. It is very powerful, but, can be confusing to use if you are not technically savvy. So, the flexibility is not really a benefit if you can't figure it out. Or, like me, took days to do some very simple things.

There are a load of free themes out there which do everything thesis does from what I have seen and used, so I can't advocate paying for a theme.

I have the developer license of Thesis and have been happy with it. If you are truly going to use it on a lot of sites, the version 1.7 release (due out soon) is supposed to allow you to export and import Thesis option settings, which will be a big time-saver when setting up sites.

I've also heard good things about Headway and Hybrid and hope to do a comparison of them when I get some spare time.

I don't agree that there are a ton of free themes that do what Thesis does, but I'm willing to be educated. I've seen Atahualpa mentioned a few times and may have to give it a try some time.

I use StudioPress, especially the Agent theme for Realtors, RE Investors, anyone selling or renting property.

I used StudioPress but just signed up with Elegant Themes - you can't sell the sites on but if you're building to keep then you get access to about 30+ for $20 a year. They are so easy to modify for non tech folks and if you know what you're doing you can easily develop them too. Check out my site for an idea of what you can get - I'm using the on the go theme at Seven Somewhere | Making Money Online | Article Marketing

I really like Thesis but it can get a little bit techie. They seem to make it look it is really easy to do all the customizations but it can get a little tricky. Especially for someone like me who doesn't know a lot about development. Having said all that, I would recommend the product.

If you can handle some web tech, then Thesis is a great theme. Headway seems to be little more than a Thesis copycat... but I haven't checked it out in fine detail so I could be wrong about that.

If you are not so technically savvy then I would opt for the Flexx Professional theme. The backend makes it so simple to do virtually anything you want with the layout. A good alternative to this theme for free is the Flexibility theme.

Elegant themes are very nice. I love most of his themes, but some tend to be more on the cartoon design side. Just depends on what your individual needs are. I opt more for professional looking themes.

StudioBlue, BusinessCard, ePhoto, eVid, eGallery, etc. are all very elegant and professional. The remainder are more on the cartoon design side. So you get a good mix of both. You also get access to all of the themes, not just one or two.

The functionality with the sliders and portfolios are excellent in his themes. If you are savvy enough or can afford to hire a developer, then you could probably mix and match some of the functionality in his themes into whichever theme you like the best.

And you can't beat the price. Only $19.95 per year.

Dennis

Yes, some great premium themes may make it look easier than it is, especially when it comes to customization. For example, I use ThemeHybrid (free) on a number of sites and think its great, but it isn't so simple to customize. That said, if one pays for ThemeHybrid support (approx $38 a year), solutions will be provided for questions you submit (probably better and more timely support than offered by Thesis).

I have yet to come across a theme with all of the flexibility and feature options I desire.

I have used Gardner's Studio Press themes... and to be honest they are nice on the front end but annoying on the backend. He's a designer but not a programmer.

I like the back end of Thesis is pretty good, but the front end looks to plain for my purposes and I don't want to spend all day reworking everything.

That said try and find a theme that works really well on the backend. In this case my vote would be for Thesis.

But I use neither as there are so many other Premium Options available. Don't jump the gun on theme selection... it's a real time saver when you find the right one for your needs.

Question or advise needed. I'm trying to do several sites for a local roofing company and I know that Wordpress is the best for getting SEO optimized sites. I feel extremely overwhelmed right now because I purchased Thesis over the weekend and can't seem to get anything to look good. I don't know css at all and know just a little bit of html. The sites really don't need to be blog oriented, so I'm wondering if I should just return to html templates and then use other SEO methods on those sites instead. Any ideas from someone with experience?

It seems like StudioPress may be easier to work with. Has anyone found that to be the case for a newby on Wordpress sites? Also, can someone recommend a good starting place to learn what I need about Wordpress to get good looking, clean sites up? They don't need to be fancy, but I want them to look good. It seems like Thesis has more functionality while StudioPress is better in the preconfigured design area. Any thoughts or alternatives someone can suggest?

I just don't want to spend time on static sites and then end up having to come back and do them all over in Wordpress later.

I prefer StudioPress over Thesis big time.

I have also just started playing with the iThemes package which includes "Builder", a very powerful and highly customizable theme.