As I talk with more people about my approach to building with or migrating their sites to a WordPress+Thesis platform, I’m also trying to come up with a clear and concise definition of why I’ve chosen these tools and why they’re a great options for so many individuals, businesses, and organizations.
Here’s where I am so far…
WordPress is a great platform because…
Even persons with relatively little technical skill can understand, create, and publish pages and posts. No coding experience required (although a little HTML/CSS/PHP wouldn’t hurt.)
It’s amazingly extensible with multiple plugins for almost any task you can think of. Of course, it’s also annoying searching through all of those plugins to find one that does what you want it to do (only then to discover that the developer hasn’t worked on it for over a year…)
And, there’s a large, active, and growing population of users and developers who are willing to share their WordPress knowledge and experience with the rest of us. (Thanks!)
Using Thesis is worth the premium because…
The code is clean, scalable, flexible, and SEO optimized. None of those characteristics are guaranteed if you’re using one of the many free themes out there. Sure, newbies may complain about the cost, and ninjas may want to roll their own for ultimate control, but for the rest of us, it’s a no-brainer. Just buy Thesis.
It’s easy to customize. Most of the common options are available right there on the WordPress dashboard. Want to show a certain page on your menu? Check a box. Want to add header or footer scripts? Just paste them into the header or footer box and save. Want to change a color? Pick one from the color box. You’re not *required* to write code or FTP files.
Oh, and did I mention that all of those customization options are stored all in one place? As Joe Kraynak points out:
I soon discovered the idea behind Thesis. In most WordPress Themes, you have to edit multiple files to control the look and layout of your blog. These files are packed with codes and settings. If you make a bunch of changes, tracking down those changes later can be nearly impossible. With Thesis, the core theme files remain unchanged. You make all changes to two files: custom.css (for style changes) and custom_functions.php…
And again, there’s another large, active, and growing population of users and developers who are willing to share their Thesis + WordPress knowledge and experience with the rest of us. (Thanks, again!)
What do you think? Are these characteristics relevant to you or your business? Too technical, not technical enough?
{ 2 comments }
Thanks for the Thesis lead.
Glad I could help!
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