If you’re a small business owner, a blogger, or an artist looking to launch a new website or upgrade an existing one, WordPress is probably the best starting point for your website. And of all the reasons to choose WordPress, the most lauded is the least important: WordPress is free.

Yes, WordPress is free, but so are most of the other options you’re likely to be considering, including other Content Management Systems (CMSs) like Drupal and Joomla, as well as building a site from scratch. Websites consist primarily of different types of text files, any of which can be made (for free) with a text editor, but few people build sites this way. Why? Money isn’t the only factor. At the very least, there’s also your time to consider. Everyone has their mix of time and money to balance, but like any endeavor, both factor into putting up a website. So there’s the outlay of resources, and the effectiveness of the result. WordPress is excellent on both points.

WordPress is a Content Management System. Basically, a CMS like WordPress provides the framework for your site. It handles the technical aspects so that you can focus on content. If you’ve ever used webmail, like gmail or yahoo, you’ll find the WordPress interface to be familiar. Adding an image or a link is a simple, code-free experience. Changing the whole look of the site is simple. Adding functionality like forms and sharing is simple. Your content is kept independent of the presentation of the site, so that either can be changed without affecting the other. One of the chief problems that a CMS addresses is that it allows easy updates to your site. Want to add some new client testimonials or change a picture? There’s no need to call your web designer.

With a lot of web hosts, like bluehost.com, installing WordPress can be done with one click. Almost no technical knowledge is required. Pick a domain name and you’re off and running. WordPress is great for beginners, but it’s also excellent for anyone who doesn’t want to focus their resources on creating and maintaining their site. Even if you hire a professional to design your site, choosing WordPress as a foundation covers a lot of groundwork for them. Faster build, fewer resources… better work in less time.

With that said, WordPress is not just any CMS. It has a huge community of users and developers who have created

• Plugins (to add functionality): photo galleries, sliders, shopping carts, forums, maps… almost anything you can think of
• Themes (to change the visual presentation). The Thesis theme alone is reason to choose WordPress. Thesis expands on WordPress’s already remarkable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and provides a ton of other benefits. (See this post for a write up on Thesis.)

WordPress’s large install base also means that almost every service you might want to use will work with WordPress. Do you have a mailchimp mailing list? Get the wordpress plugin to add a signup form to your site. Want to recommend products from amazon.com? Get the WordPress plugin. Want to provide a mobile version of your site? It’s easy with a WordPress plugin. And if there’s something super-fancy that you want to do, but can’t find a plugin for, there are tons of developers out there who live and breathe WordPress every day.

The size, scope, and quality of the WordPress development community has also ensured that WordPress is

• Extremely Efficient
• SEO Friendly
• Standards Compliant
• Clearly Documented

At Pocket Studios, all our sites are built with WordPress and the Thesis theme. If you’d like a professional install and design, please get in touch.

Thesis is a theme for WordPress

What’s a WordPress theme? Themes are bundles of code and images that change the appearance of your WordPress site and sometimes add functionality. Thesis adds functionality out the wazoo. Thesis is a premium theme, which means you have to pay for it. I hope the rest of this article will leave you with no doubt that the $87 price is well worth it. (There’s also a $164 Developer’s License that gives you unlimited use on your own sites and options to purchase client site licenses – a no-brainer if you’re going to run more than one Thesis site.) Here at Pocket Studios, our site design prices include a client license.

“But,” you ask me, “Aren’t there bazillions of free WordPress themes out there? Why should I pay for one?”
“I don’t think ‘bazillions’ is a real number,” I say.
“This is coming from the guy who just used the word ‘wazoo’?”
“Fair enough. I’ll tell you why you should pay for Thesis.”

Fast and Light

Thesis is lightweight, which means faster load times for your readers. There’s not much to say about this beyond the obvious, but it’s too important not to mention.

Great for SEO

WordPress is nicely Search Engine Optimized. Thesis improves on this platform with streamlined code and easy-to-use ways to maximize your on-page SEO. Each Thesis page and post allows you to enter a custom Meta Description and Title Tag. Together, these constitute what will usually be displayed in search results. The Title Tag is usually the default bookmark and sharing label, too. Thesis also makes it easy to add alt text to any images you post, and to set noindex and nofollow tags for each page or category.

The Thesis Support Community

If you buy a license, you’re also buying access to the Thesis support community, and it’s awesome. If you’ve never been part of a paid community online before, you’re in for a treat. A smaller, purposed community makes it worth searching the forums for answers. People are invested, and they tend to be patient and helpful. On rare occasions when I couldn’t find an answer by searching the forums, I’d post and would get a clear and correct response within hours. Unlike a lot of public forums, the Thesis crowd usually speaks from experience, and the results are really a pleasure to be part of.

Two Great Things about Thesis Updates:

1. Your purchase includes free updates for life.

2. All the customizations you make to Thesis are contained in one folder, so updating just means moving the folder.

#1 might seem more meaningful to you right now, and if you never use another theme (or another platform), you might not fully appreciate the second. But trust me when I tell you that upgrading customized sites is usually a pain in the keister (pardon the foul language). Thesis makes it super-easy.

Extremely Customizable

Customization is one of the big reasons that people come to Thesis, and – though I can’t believe I’m about to use this phrase – it’s great for beginners and experts. But it really is! Let me explain:

For non-designers / non-coders / beginners, Thesis gives you a huge array of click-to-change options for your design. Let’s say you’re a small businessperson who wants to set up your own site (without learning HTML, CSS, etc.). You don’t need to know anything about CSS to change colors throughout your site, or to change the layout dramatically (1, 2, or 3 column layouts – no problem). With just a little paint-by-numbers coding, you can make huge changes and add functionality using Thesis hooks. If you can copy and paste, you can make use of Thesis hooks to add all kinds of functionality to your site. Also, while you will find that Thesis looks pretty sparse out of the box, what is there is well done. The basic typography is good, which goes a very long way toward making your site look professional and easy to read. Add a header image and a post image, match some colors, and an image in the multimedia box and you’ve got a respectable website for very little time and money. If you have a designer set up your site initially, these options let you make changes without having to pay the designer for minor updates. For example, you might want to change parts of your color scheme seasonally. (Be sure to backup before making changes. It’s also a good idea to talk to your designer during the design process about things you’d like to be able to update on your own.)

For experts / designers / coders: I think of Thesis as the Un-theme. If you’re going to use WordPress, you’ll be using a theme, and Thesis is the best I have found at staying out of my way. It’s easy to get to a “clean slate” when you need to, which seems to be most every site, for me.

And you still have the benefits of the Thesis framework: Add in Google Analytics by pasting the code into a ready and waiting box. No plugin, no editing code. Feedburner script? There’s a box for that. Use the Thesis custom menu for nav instead of the WordPress menu and easily include or exclude whatever pages you like.

All customization can be done through just two text files, one for CSS, one for PHP/HTML, which keeps things clean and simple, and easy to transfer from one site to another (especially handy if you have a default set of customizations you find yourself using over and over).

Of course, all the basic customization – like easy access to the multimedia box – is great for clients to work with once you hand over the reins.

Nothing’s Perfect

The only real issue I’ve found with Thesis has to do with forms. Thesis overrides basic appearance of certain form fields, like submit buttons. It usually means adjusting the widths of the fields through the custom.css file or creating custom buttons. I usually prefer to use custom buttons anyway, but it can be annoying if you’re in a hurry and just want the default browser behavior. I hope and expect this will be fixed in Thesis 2.0.

Gimme Some Thesis!

If reading this post helped you decide to buy Thesis, please use one of the links below to purchase. I get a little back from Thesis when you do, which helps me to keep offering free help like this. (Cue “Circle of Life” music from Lion King.)

$87 for a Personal License

$164 for a Developer’s License (includes unlimited use on your own sites and options to purchase client site licenses)

Both come with a 30-day money back guarantee.

If you like the Thesis approach, but not the DIY, you can hire a designer. I recommend pocketstudios.com (try to look surprised). We offer basic WordPress + Thesis installs for $500 (including a Thesis client license), and full designs starting at $1500. Get in touch for a free quote.