Thesis 1.7 vs. Thesis 1.6: What Has Changed

If you have been in the business of blogging and have not heard of Thesis theme so far, you have missed on a whole lot of awesomeness. There are plenty of pro blogging premium themes for WordPress that can help you start a new blog or give your blog a makeover for less. But Thesis is without a doubt at the very top when it comes to ease of use, potential, and customizability. Thesis 1.7 is the latest edition of Thesis WordPress theme and has gotten a huge boost of power to help pro bloggers focus more on what’s important for their business and worry less about issues with their theme.

The developers behind Thesis have focused on providing a set of powerful features to WordPress bloggers to help them customize the look and feel of their blogs easily and optimize their web sites for search engines in the process. So you don’t necessarily have to hard code any on-page optimization tactics to get your WordPress website ready for the search engines. Thesis 1.6 already covered a lot of these options under the options page in the back-end. But Thesis 1.7 has improved a lot in that area and does seem a bit more organized.

Thesis 1.6 Options Page

Vs.

Thesis 1.7 Site Options Page

Thesis 1.7 has some of these options broken down into various sections. So customization options for the home page have moved to a whole different page (to make the whole process less confusing). So these features have not disappeared if you are comparing the two images above. (more…)

Get Started with Social Blogging with MyStream Theme

Everyday that passes by, more people take time to contribute to the social communities that they are a part of. Whether it is uploading a video to YouTube, posting tweets to Twitter, or updating Facebook, people are doing it all. The idea of social blogging has been born due to that fact. People are not only sharing content on top social media sites, but they are also sharing what they are doing on those sites with their visitors on a daily basis. That way your visitors will know what communities you participate in and how they can reach out to you there.

MyStream is a cool personal blogging theme that lets those new to blogging to get a fast start. The theme is designed with your social media profiles in mind. It lets you integrate your videos, pictures, and tweets into your blog easily. You can also let your visitors connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and Flickr. That is accomplished through a widgetized zone with custom widgets to display your social media profiles in your sidebar. (more…)

24 Best News Portal WordPress Themes

Just a few years ago, journalists had to spend thousands of dollars to create their own independent portals. But WordPress has changed all that. Now journalists from all walks of life can create their own news portals easily with WordPress. Premium news WordPress themes make it easy to create a news website without having to spend a fortune.

If you are a journalist/blogger looking to create your own independent news portal, you can set up and customize your website fast with previous WordPress themes. As long as you choose a theme that is SEO-friendly and well-designed and focus on providing valuable content on your portal, the sky’s the limit.

Here are 24 best WordPress news themes:

1. eNews: a very dynamic and attractive news theme for WordPress. Comes in various colors and lets you promote your best stories in its featured section.

2. Massive News: an SEO friendly, flexible theme that lets you build your news portal fast. It’s very convenient to get a handle on and comes with a powerful back-end.

3. One News: One News is one of the best themes for WordPress. It tops a lot of charts for a good reason. It can be used to create all kinds of websites fast. It’s very flexible too.

4. Gotham News: a highly attractive and flexible theme to help you build your own personal news portal. It’s search engine friendly and ready to be used out of the box.

5. New Yorker 2: duplicate the look and feel of some of the New York times. Great way to start your news portal.

6. Journal: a wonderful theme to create your own news WordPress blog fast. Very flexible and SEO friendly too!

7. The Beeb: a BBC look a like that lets you clone BBC and build your own news site.

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20 Cool WordPress Themes for Technology Bloggers

A lot of folks are starting their own blogs these days and technology is a hot topic to talk about on a blog. Whether you are getting started with blogging or want to build a solid business around your blog, you need a solid theme to help your work look professional and presentable to potential sponsors and partners. If you want to be a technology blogger and don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a WP theme, you should try premium WP themes out. You can easily customize them and save a lot of money in the process.

Here are 20 cool WordPress themes for Technology Bloggers:

1. Chrome WordPress Theme: an awesome looking theme for technology bloggers that is highly customizable and SEO friendly. It also comes integrated with video (YouTube, …).

2. One Theme: an all in one solution designed for all types of bloggers. Whatever your niche, there is a good chance you can use One Theme to create a killer website.

3. Thesis: the legendary WordPress theme that is used by a lot of super-bloggers and personalities from around the globe. Perhaps the most powerful theme available for WordPress today.

4. Arthemia: an attractive and flexible theme for technology portals. Great theme to start and manage your technology blog more effectively.

5. Busy Bee: designed for pro bloggers, you get 13 color schemes and a clean theme that is perfect for writing about technology.

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Create Your Personal Blog with myweblog

Creating a personal blog couldn’t be easier these days. You don’t have to be a technical genius or have an Einstein-like IQ to set up a blog fast. WordPress makes it super easy to set up a website fast. Thanks to themes such as myweblog, you don’t have to spend thousands getting a custom design for your blog. You can get a well-designed, highly flexible design for an affordable price.

myweblog is highly attractive WordPress design that makes it easy to build a real community with your WordPress blog. Whatever topic you are into, you can use the integrated LifeStream info on your sidebar to let others know about your online activities. You can also change the look and feel of your design easily to make it look unique.

myweblog comes with an image re-sizer that makes it easy to add all kinds of images to your blog. You also get to create sticky posts on your featured section. You do get 5 color schemes to choose from, making it too easy to customize the look and feel of your website fast. The color coded categories at the top make the site more user-friendly. Flickr is integrated as well, enabling you to add your favorite photos to your blog quickly.

The categories at the top are all drop-downs, making it possible to add a whole lot of categories. The search function is in a prominent place to let your readers find content on your blog without too much trouble. myweblog by WooThemes is another good option to consider for everyone who’s looking to create or enhance her/his personal WP blog. It’s easy to use, user-friendly, and highly customizable. It’s not that expensive either.

Thesis 1.5 Review

Thesis is one of the most popular WordPress themes around. It has everything you need in a theme to create a super blog fast. It’s highly flexible and SEO friendly. And best of all, it comes with a load of options in the backend that you can use to customize your blog and optimize it as you wish.

Thesis 1.5 is the latest update to this theme. The backend has been reorganized to help you get more done without getting confused with all the options available to you. A few more SEO options have been added to help you manage your link juice and other factors more effectively.

As you can see in the above diagram, you can now handle canonical URLs and even no-index your archive pages right from your backend. The navigational menu has been changed well to help you re-order pages and change the text to what you wish. The re-ordering features is a drag and drop feature.

You can also change the font and change the look and feel more easily on Thesis 1.5. Whether you want to change the font of a section of your blog or just add a teaser, you can do it all in the back-end.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Thesis is a unique theme. It’s designed to help you focus more on your content and less on coding. And best of all, you’ll keep getting free SEO traffic with Thesis.

Pricing

Here is what I like about thesis. These guys are not trying to short-change you by offering you multiple packages without giving you the option to upgrade. You can always get a single license for $87. If you like what you see and are ready to upgrade to a developer license, you only pay an extra $77. Or you can just buy the developer edition from the get go for $164. What I like about the developer edition is the fact that it allows you to deploy Thesis on your clients’ sites for only $40 per site. That’s great news if you are a WordPress consultant. And if you don’t feel like linking back to Thesis’ homepage, you can remove the footer link as long as you get the developer license.

Overall, Thesis 1.5 is a killer WordPress theme that is designed for bloggers who are looking to get more out of their blogs. It’s easy to use, well-designed, and SEO friendly. If you have the budget for only one premium blogging theme, Thesis is one to consider.

52 Best Premium Themes For Pro Bloggers

WordPress is the most popular platform for bloggers. You name a decent blogger, and he/she has probably heard and used WordPress in the past. There is much to love about the platform. Not only there are thousands of plug-ins available to enhance your site’s functionality, there are lots of themes to choose from to get the design you love on your site. With that in mind. Here are 36 top pro blogging themes for WordPress.

1. Thesis: Thesis is made specifically for bloggers. It’s not only lightweight, but very easy to customize. Many super bloggers are already using Thesis, and sometimes even I wonder why I am not using it. So don’t be surprised to see me dump my current theme for Thesis soon (in the next few weeks).

2. Blog V3: Bob version 3 is one of the most good looking themes designed for bloggers. The design is superb, and it comes with everything you need to knock out your blog out of the park.

3. Streamline: Streamline is a highly flexible theme from StudioPress. It’s easy to customize and comes with a dynamic menus and ad ready.

4. Urban Elements: another great theme just for bloggers. Urban Elements is very simple and easy to change. You don’t have to be a programming expert to customize the look and feel.

5. Stylish Blog: a beautiful pro blogging design. Stylish Blog is not only stylish but comes social media and ad ready. (more…)