Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
In this episode, we talk about the themes we recommend for your WordPress website.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
- Studiopress.com – Genesis Theme by StudioPress. The theme we use on ALL of our websites.
Let’s dive into this week’s question!
JOCELYN: Today’s question is from Bruce Cook and it says:
“What themes do you recommend for your WordPress website?”
SHANE: All right Bruce. There are a ton of options out there for themes. There are all sorts of different frameworks and it seems like you can just find a theme anywhere all over the place, but the one that we have settled on for all of our websites is called Genesis. Genesis is basically a theme or framework that sits on top of WordPress, and then you can go buy what’s called Child Themes to manipulate the look and feel of your website from a website called StudioPress.com. Genesis is amazing. It just has awesome codes. It’s so clean. It never breaks on you like some of the free themes do and we just love it because it makes everything so simple and we know that our website is always going to work.
Also, it’s mobile responsive. A lot of traffic that we get comes from mobile devices – people on their phones, people just out and about maybe on their iPad or a tablet, and what responsive means is that Genesis will always kind of fit whatever screen it’s on. So when it’s on a PC, it’s going to look good. If it’s on a tablet, it’s going to look good. If it’s on a phone, it’s going to look good.
Genesis is the theme that we recommend to everyone because we tried a lot of themes. We’ve tried Thesis. we’ve tried dozens of free themes and we just don’t feel like any of them ever could stand up to Genesis when it came to functionality, good code, and just how well it worked.
JOCELYN: Genesis does have a cost to it. It’s around $60 to buy the framework but you can use it on unlimited sites. So if you have more than one website, you can certainly use it on all of those. There are tons of Child Themes out there and a Child Theme basically just means that it is a theme that works with Genesis to make your site look different. You might not necessarily know it by looking at our sites that they are all the same theme but each of them has different Child Themes, so just something to think about when you’re looking around.
We’ve used a lot of different kind of themes as far as when we started our websites and Genesis has definitely been our favorite. The theme that we use on Flipped Lifestyle is called Sixteen Nine and it is mobile responsive. Some of the Child Themes are not so you do have to watch when you’re choosing a Child Theme for Genesis to make sure that that Child Theme is mobile responsive. It is so important.
We went to a conference recently that said that up to, I think it was like 60% something of website users were now accessing it now on their mobile device and of course that would be different for every kind of website but it is so, so important that you have a mobile responsive site. So definitely keep that in mind as you’re choosing a theme.
SHANE: One thing that we want to put on here too is don’t settle for a free Child Theme. If you’re just trying to learn WordPress and you want to throw a theme on there, just play around with a free theme, that’s fine but free themes are free for a reason because they do not have functionality. You are going to run into roadblocks. If they are going to break or they are made with bad code or something, there’s going to be something eventually that you’re going to need that a free theme cannot do.
If you spent months making a website on a free theme and you finally realize, “Oh no, this thing can’t do what I need it to do,” you are going to have to switch anyway and you’re going to get into a situation where you’re going to have to switch. If you do it on that side of the equation, you are going to be paying someone a lot of money to move your website onto a new framework so you might as well get good code, get everything first.
Our goal is always to save you time and to save you money, and to help you avoid making mistakes that can cause you money or cause you time. One of the biggest things we can say upfront is, pay $60 for a theme. Get something that you like and as you build your site, it’s going to come out with a much better product on the end.
Alright, guys, great question, Bruce. Thanks for doing that. If you guys want to ask a question, you can do so on Sunday nights over on our Facebook page and until next time. We will catch you all on the flipside.
JOCELYN: Bye.
SHANE: Do you need step by step instruction? Do you need us to help you create your digital product and get your online business started? Well, you can do that. We actually now offer a course called the Flip Your Life eCourse where we show you how to create your first digital product in 29 days or less.
All you have to do to get more information on this program is go to FlippedLifestyle.com/FlipYourLife, and that’s all one word, and you can check out everything that we do in that course to help you get your digital product created for sale online even if you don’t have a website. That’s FlippedLifestyle.com/FlipYourLife. You can check when our next session is starting at that link.
You can connect with S&J on social media too!
Thanks again for listening to the show! If you liked it, make sure you share it with your friends and family! Our goal is to help as many families as possible change their lives through online business. Help us by sharing the show!
If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y’all next week!
Michael says
S & J –
Great tip!
I’ve been using the Genesis platform and a couple child themes from StudioPress and I love them!
I bought the “Focus” theme several months ago. And, just a few weeks ago, I revamped my main blog (www.CraftyDad.com) using the “Beautiful Pro” theme.
“Beautiful” makes my site look really great and the only tweaks I made were some of the built-in options. I’ve not done any ‘coding’ changes.
I totally agree with you: free themes are NOT the way to go. Sometimes “you get what you pay for”. : )
Thanks again for more great content!
BTW: My new logo (which I REALLLLY like) was created by the good folks at LogoNerds. Thank you SO much for the heads up on them. They do great work! At a super-great price.