I’ve been looking for months for a decent wordpress theme. All of them had good and bad features, but not one that I saw had everything I wanted – SEO friendly, easy to customise, flexible and of course the main thing – look good.
i must admit that I was looking at free themes – I have used some good ones but was never 100% happy with them, and yes I could of created one myself but I won’t show you my efforts there. They are quite embarassing to say the least.
Next was to check the themes that you have to pay for. What was so good about the paid ones that publishers were selling? Mmm not really sure, although I did found a couple that were targetted at particular niches such as a pet website or an automotive enthusiaists website. Do you think I could find an IT related theme that I was happy with? Ironically not. Mind you I think I’m just a bit picky too.
Then I came across Socrates.
How’s this for a list of features:
* Built in Header Generator
* 200+ Niche Header Designs
* Upload Your Own Headers
* 4 Custom Nav Bars with New Window and No Follow Links!
* Optional Built In Adsense, Affiliate and Clickbank Ad Bar
* Social Media Slider – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,YouTube, RSS
* Choose from Dozens of Backgrounds On The Fly
* Custom Styling and Color Options
* Affiliate Program Integration
* 728×90 Banner Custom HTML Rotator
* Multiple Sidebar Layouts
* Internet Marketing and WordPress Training
* Monetize With Any Affiliate Program or Network
* Sales Page Templates
* No Side Bar Template
* Squeeze Page Template
* Advanced SEO Layout
* In Post Ad Units – Can be Disabled on Per Post Basis!
Sounds good. The video was even better. I was thinking of giving the Socrates team a testimonial before even trying it!
Price? $47 for a single domain license or $77 for an unlimited license. I went with the unlimted as i could deploy this on a few of my sites, and what I’ve found is that you need only change a few things to make them look all completely different.
I must say, I’m very happy with the way things are panning out. I still have a bit of work to do on this site, but the changes are easy to implement.
For example, in the control panel of the Socrates theme there is provision to put in your Adsense code, Google analytics code and sponsored ad code. The theme does all the rest by placing the ads in the right places.
Site banner or background too hard to design? Well you don’t really have to worry as you can use the ones that come with the theme. In the relevant menu, your WP install will download the latest banners/backgrounds from the Socrates website for you to use. Such a simple solution, and allows your site to have a decent lookbefore you design whatgraphics to use – mind you they are good enough to keep forever.
Look at the old theme of this website:
Please at least check out the video and features of the Scocrates them to see for yourself:
