Welcome to a new part of Teenius: Blogging Product Reviews. I’ve decided that every now and again (probably fortnightly), I’ll be reviewing a different blogging related product that I think you’ll find interesting and useful. All the products will be picked by me, so you can be assured that they will be fully truthful!
The first review is of a product that has revolutionised blogging: the Thesis Wordpress Theme.
Since this theme came out, it’s had a huge impact. Not only is it now displayed on hundreds, if not thousands of blogs, but it’s also given people who aren’t good with code (such as myself!) the chance to customise their Wordpress theme to make their blog look exactly like they want it to.
So, for people who don’t know, what is Thesis?
Well, Thesis is a premium theme for Wordpress which is unbelievably customisable. But here’s the clever part: you don’t need to know any code to change things around. Everything is editable through the ‘Thesis options’ tab of your WP dashboard. As well as this, Thesis is already optimised for the search engines, thus making it SEO friendly!
What makes Thesis so special is that you can get a unique looking theme without spending hundreds of dollars on a completely custom theme.
There’s the good, but what about the bad and the ugly?
What’s wrong with Thesis?
As I said, I would do an honest review and that’s exactly why I’m telling you the negatives too. As you may have guessed by now, I’m a big fan of Thesis, but it does have it’s down-point.
So, what’s wrong? Well, because Thesis is so good, it has been slightly oversold in my opinion. There are now tons of blogs using it and it seems to have lost it’s exclusivity a bit. Because of this, you now have to spend either time or money to customise it, otherwise you’ll just blend in, and that really won’t do your blog any favours.
I must admit, I’ve struggled to find any other things wrong with Thesis, so I can conclude that the problem is that ‘to reap the full rewards of Thesis, you must customise so much the original theme is unrecognisable!’
What the pros say…
I’ve had a chance to speak to Alex Fraiser, who is one of the leading minds in Thesis customisation. He runs ‘Thesis Thursdays’ on his personal blog, and this is what he had to say about the Thesis theme:
Thesis is by far the easiest to use theme in the WordPress market. With each version of the theme getting smarter and easier to use, Thesis is setting the standard of how a theme should be constructed. I use Thesis so much that I decided to build all of my blogs on it and even base my freelancing business around the customization of Thesis. I feel that without Thesis running on a blog, everything would be much harder than it needed to be.
7 Cool sites using Thesis
To see what is achievable from this revolutionary theme, check out some awesome blogs running on Thesis!
Buy Thesis
You can buy Thesis by clicking on the banner I have done in this post, or by clicking here. I am also running a special discount for Teenius readers where you can get $10 off the price off Thesis! For more details on that, visit this page.
Cool review Simon.. really enjoyed reading.
Thesis is really one awesome and successful theme, though I’ve never had my hands on it yet..
It’s a really great theme; I downloaded it and tested it out, and I really, really like it!
Out of all the non-custom themes I’ve tried, it’s the best! 
Yeah, thesis theme is the most well known premium wordpress time for now in my opinion.
Very true; I feel it’s awesome affiliate program has really given it a big boost in branding as now most bloggers have heard of it!
I think it is good, because it has wide range of support and a lot of people who would help you with the modifications to the template. You can make it unique with some modifications. I think Simon provided some good examples, what you could do with it.
However, it is very very expensive. To be honest, I don’t like to pay more than $80 and still have to keep thesis link. There are many other good themplates, with some knowledge of design, can also be modified and used as quality theme.
Also, there isn’t a rule states that you’ve got have thesis theme to become a successful blogger. There are many other big blogs, that don’t use this theme.
Personally, I think $80 is more than reasonable. After all, you can customise it to look completely unique, and for a custom theme you’d expect to pay hundreds of dollars. Also, it looks quite good without customisation, so I definately feel you’re getting your moneys worth.
Remember that you can get a $10 discount on Thesis; click here for more info.
As for the last paragraph, where was that said?! :S
You’re right. The problem with Thesis theme is that A LOT of users buy it but never maximize its use! I mean its odd because what happens is that even if its super customizable, blogs look the same with others because of the owner not customizing it to its full potential.
Definately! The whole point of buying Thesis is that you should customise it, so if you just leave it standard then you’re really losing out!
Hi Simon, thanks for mentioning MakeThingsFair.com in your post. Glad you like the design!
No problem, Jonathon! It’s an awesome theme, and really shows Thesis at it’s best!
[...] Blogging Product #1: Thesis Theme @ teenius.com [...]
Thesis is a fantastic investment for any blogger. The range of seo, design, and admin options really make blogging and internet marketing a professional experience.
My opinion is if you want to get a professional income from blogging, you are going to have to invest some money into getting a professional theme and design. Like Teenius has!
Nicely said, Seth!
I especially agree with the last paragraph; thanks for your kind words about my design, too!
Excellent review. I’ve hard in lots of places now though, that the “hook” things can make things so difficult, that the whole premise of “no knowledge required” really isn’t all that true…..any thoughts on it?
Heard not hard lol, sorry.
I think the most important thing that make Thesis popular on the internet is that Thesis is not a theme, it is a software and of coursem, software must be smarter than normal theme
I love Thesis
Nice way of looking at it!
Thanks for the comment,
Nice review though, very helpful to read!
Cool blog too!
Thesis theme is cool and many users can really create stunning designs.
I guess it comes down to ‘Is the user willing to learn?’ I say this one can modify and create unique sites, if they learn a bit of CSS and PHP. There are those lazy users who don’t do much and then complain, sorry to those users.
Exactly. As I said in the review, you really need to customise the theme; and even if that is a simple thing to do, it still takes time. You can’t just press a button and have an amazing theme, you need to press multiple buttons!
Wow , very informative post. I’ve heard a lot about thesis, I think I will give it a try!, Anything you would recommend for .blogspot? Thanks
Stopping immediately and starting a self hosted WP blog would be my advice!
lol
I have heard a lot about thesis and now I have come across a post about thesis. But the price is too much. Like one of the comments mentioned that you will get many themes which are as good as thesis. And its not necessary to have thesis to be a successful blogger.
Anyways I have a thesis theme but I am quite adjusted to the present theme that I am using………….
I disagree that it costs too much. Thesis is a great framework, and you can create any design you want. A custom design may cost hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, so to get it for $87 is a bargain!
Cool review Simon I using thesis.. check out my blog and give me suggestions to redesign it..
Good review.. One guy was asking about Pro and Cons of Thesis.. I linked him to this article !
Thanks for linking him here, Enk!
i am already a fan of Thesis theme, i was using a free wp theme earlier but few months back i got my Thesis theme and its really rocking results its showing.
i am trying to do some modifications everytime to make overall look more better
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