wordpress + thesis = perfection

disclaimer: all the Thesis links below are affiliate links. If you click on one and buy Thesis, I’ll get a 33% commission. I like making money, it allows me to do what I love, but if you’d rather NOT click on my affiliate link, click here to go to the Thesis site. I’m not writing this to make money, I just wanted to share my experience with Thesis because I KNOW there are other people out there like me who were originally frustrated by it. Read on!

I switched my two main sites (Grechen’s Closet and grechenscodes.com) over to WordPress (self-hosted, not wordpress.com) last year and started 4 other WordPress blogs this year…you could say I’m addicted. I LOVE the functionality of WordPress over plain old HTML (which was how I originally designed sites), how easy it is to use, and all the support, themes, tutorials that go with it. And now I love the Thesis theme.

But I didn’t love Thesis in the beginning – I hated it. I bought Thesis six or seven months ago to use on a site – I forget which one – and played with it a bit, but found it frustrating and really difficult to get to do what I wanted. I was already used to modifying theme files, css, inserting php, etc., so I wanted to just jump in and change everything. And you can’t do that with Thesis.

Which is actually a good thing. When I set my mind on re-designing grechenscodes.com away from a free BlogohBlog! theme, I looked around at lots of free basic themes and and thought about using Elegant Themes, which I use on Green Grechen, Grechen’s Closet and free!grechen, but wanted to stick with a basic blog format instead of a magazine format. THEN I remembered how much I like Jennine’s new design for THE COVETED on the Thesis theme, and thought I’d give it a try again. But before even doing that, I watched the video on the DIYThemes site by another blogger who switched to Thesis, which is where I learned about the Openhook plugin. That’s what sold me.

The openhook plugin took all the frustration out of customizing with hooks – I mean, when I first read the Thesis user manual and how to use hooks, I was confused as hell – and just wondered why I couldn’t just get in the code and add/subtract stuff myself like I was used to. I really felt like the writers left important information out on purpose just to make me feel stupid; and I know my way around HTML and CSS (and a little PHP).

With the new plugin, it’s a million times easier to use hooks. Basically, hooks are snippets of code you put before and after another snippet of code you want to go in a specific place on the page – like the header, or sidebar. Instead of actually going into sidebar.php and modifying code (and potentially messing everything up), with Thesis, you just go into the openhook admin, choose one of the sidebar hooks, add your code, save, and it’s there on your page where you wanted it. And if it’s not exactly where you wanted it, you can play around with the hooks and placements until you get it right. I use hooks to put the share/save button exactly where I want it, to insert adsense code after posts, and change my header. (The plugin allows you to do this FOR THE MOST PART without manually inserting PHP into the custom_functions.php file, but I did have to modify the file myself to insert the adsense code and change the footer.)

Now, I get it, and all in all, it took me only a few hours to have grechenscodes.com where I wanted it – a more professional-looking, easier to manage blog. It took me some time to tweak my header where I have the banner ad (I had to play around with the margins, adjusting by 2 or 3 pixels here or there…) and I added a “Fat footer” at the bottom for all my RSS feeds, but otherwise, it’s pretty much straight “out of the box” with only a few customizations. And the few customizations were so EASY.

The support forums are fabulous, and there are TONS of Thesis tutorials and tips from people who can help you do nearly anything you want. It still definitely helps, with any WordPress theme installation, if you know a little HTML, CSS and PHP. A good way to learn css specifically, is with Firebug, an insane little add-on for Firefox that allows you to inspect the element on any page; you not only view the source code, but also the css – so if you’re on a site you like the design of, right click on inspect element over the element you like and take a look at the css (okay, copy it) then implement it on your site. SO freaking easy.

People also talk about Thesis being SEO-friendly as a major reason to use it. Yeah, it’s very easy to tweak page titles, meta descriptions and keywords with Thesis (you can do this on each individual post) but you can also use the All in one SEO pack for about the same affect.

I’m very pleased with Thesis so far, and managed to convince my sister to implement it on her site as well! And now I’m thinking of switching over Green Grechen…seriously, I really think I have a WordPress blog re-design problem; I love to tweak and play with themes, although with my minimal design knowledge, I don’t end up doing anything complex LOL.

Some of my favorite sites designed with Thesis:

Sugarrae – she also has some good Thesis tips
Green your Decor
Green & Gorgeous
THE COVETED
Chris Brogan

Do you love Thesis? why? Have you tried it and didn’t use it?
I’m more than happy to try and answer any Thesis questions…if I can…

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