Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

Dear Steve,

I'm looking into the same issue for my own site and of all the Wordpress themes I've seen so far (and I've seen hundreds), the theme that has the best of everything, SEO, the lot, is the Thesis Theme for WordPress.

According to the website:

"Thesis boasts the strongest SEO of any theme on the market today thanks to its expertly-coded HTML + CSS + PHP framework. Not only that, Thesis also contains additional options that will allow you to fine-tune each and every page of your site. The days of worrying about your in-site SEO are over—with Thesis, your strategy is “just add killer content.”"

A single user license for Thesis is $87.

For more details, click here:

www.diythemes.com/thesis/

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Steve, good to hear from you. You probably remember me as TrinitySEM but the business has gone through an identity change.

Thesis looks like a great theme but much of its functionality can be achieved with a few choice plugins. And, despite what most of us in the search community would like you to believe, there isn't any magic going on in the code.

If Thesis is ideal for you then it is worth considering. Another option is to peruse the wordpress.org extensions section for blank or "starter" themes that closely resemble the architecture of your planned design. This will save you time. Many open source web apps have starter themes available (WP included).

As far as what to look for, the code isn't as critical as it used to be back in the day when dumb crawlers didn't have the power to scan entire pages. Ideally it would be best to select a CSS/tableless theme (though this won't boost rankings) that utilizes HTML/XHTML/CSS navigation and is not loaded with Javascript (JS, AJAX) and Flash.

If you refine your search down to two or three options, email them to me and I'll take a quick look at the code for you.

-Greg Hill

Steve,

I recently moved my blog to wordpress.org and bought Thesis. It has all that you want and an added bonus for me is the forum. They are very helpful and make it easy for non technical people (me) to really customise the site to suit your needs. Also all upgrades are free.

WordPress is by itself SEO friendly, Thesis I have found improves the SEO.

Let me know if you need any further information.

Don't confuse the theme with the plugins.

The theme is the look-and-feel. Some of the themes (including Thesis) support adding plugins easier by non-techies. But if you have the skills (or know someone who does), you can start with any of the themes that are "close" and customize it to your exact needs.

The plugins are add-on functionality (which some packages include). You might want to take a peek at SEO Title Tag and Social Marker plugins.

Steve,

For the $87 version, there is a line at the bottom in the footer with a link. Unless you want to be an affiliate there is no logo.

Steve, I just realized that your question also asked what blog software to use. All of us instantly assumed that you were using WP. I usually recommend WP if the function is pure blogging (or perhaps is a simple site or a hybrid of the two).

Some friends are using expression engine and like it but I have not experience with it.

If the site is more complicated I prefer Drupal with the one caveat that the learning curve is steep on the dev side.

In my opinion it depends what you want to promote. I have always used WP as my blog platform and when combined with other SEM methods like boomarking and RSS feeds among others - it works beautiful!

Since WP is 100% free - that is what I would use. Thesis is a WP theme and there are literally hundreds of themes some that are free and focused on SEO/SEM. I would stick with 100% free stuff for now in combination with a link building campaign that utilizes every possible channel available (cost and time justified).

You will find that this is good enough for most markets. I personally dont believe that you need to get Thesis for now becuase there are some free themes out there that would provide equivalent functionality or close to it at no cost.

I find that tools and internal SEO are very important but the majority of times the difference really lies on the amount and techniques used in your link building.