Wordpress Premium Theme - Which is Best?

I've used Thesis for quite a while now. I love it and I use it exclusively on all my WordPress installations.

However, in order to get the best out of it you do need to know CSS and enough PHP to work with hooks (although the Thesis Openhook plugin will get you around that).

It's light weight (meaning efficiently coded) which improves site load time, and it's got very focused SEO settings.

But if you're not good with code then you will probably be better off with something else.

There are a few more details here:

Thesis Theme for WordPress | Create an Awesome Home Business

Cheers,

Martin.

Thanks Martin. Thesis is heading the list at the moment. I read your posts about it, and I have to admit I've considered going down the route of building my own theme. The tuition is out there, and some of it is excellent, but adding yet another job description to what I'm trying to do - make a living online - is more faff than I feel like dealing with. Which makes buying a premium theme the best move. Some great tips on your blog.

I agree with Martin. Thesis is an excellent theme if you are familiar with css and php. Of course damn near any theme is customizable if you know css and php. Unless they've obfuscated the code.

If you don't know css and php, go with a theme that is very flexible. Get one that is widget ready, allows multiple sidebars, and has been updated to keep up with the changes in WP (look for revisions to the theme).

With the number of plugins now available you can make your theme function pretty much how you want.

Just keep in mind that in general the more plugins you add to a theme the more bloated the code for that theme gets. Plugins add calls to external css files, external javascript files, and external php files. Every time your site must bring in an external file you slow down the load time of your site. In many cases that time is imperceptible to the user, but when aggregated it can become unbearable to them.

Determine what you need your theme to do before you decide on a theme, then find a theme that conforms most closely to those needs. Most people do the reverse. They find a theme they think is pretty, then make it conform to their needs. They then frequently find themselves wondering why the theme they've added 15 plugins to takes so long to load.

Good Luck,
Gene

Thesis, Flexsqueeze, and Studiopress themes are all good and fairly easy to use.

Some are even building in their own seo enhancements but IMO this could cause issues that you'd have to resolve if you wanted to change the theme in the future.

I've been very happy with the Socrates Theme for Wordpress. Very easy to use, setup, and work with. And if you want to monetize your site, it has some cool features as well.

I tend to judge a site based on the ability to navigate the site and find the information I need. This is one thing that I feel the Socrates Theme does really well. In my opinion it presents your website in a professional looking way.

And the support forum has a lot of good tips and tricks for working with this theme. The admin is also quick to respond to questions.

Socrates Theme is my vote!

JR

Try the premium themes of Woothemes. They have an extended sale promo until today.

Before you buy a theme, take a look at Turbo Flex Pro Theme Master. It will convert most any regular webpage or template into a WordPress theme automatically. So all you would have left to do is decide what web page or free template you want to convert. Your choices from the free template sites all over the internet are pretty much unlimited. Grab a nice free, well optimized template from somewhere and let Theme Master create a WordPres theme out of it for you. Very simple to use.

John