With me focusing on web design a lot recently, I’ve been trialling a number of themes that can be used in WordPress. I never thought I would be a loud advocate for WordPress previously, but I can understand the trend in people having sites built within. The theme looks are unlimited and take some of the difficulty out of the coding to have your site look the way you want it. But how do you get a theme that not only you love the look of, but is also one that helps your business convert sales?
In this blog post, I look at the three top themes which I hear recommended by others over and over again including the one that I personally recommend.
X Theme
X4 is the latest edition of the X Theme and is the one that is gaining a lot of talk recently. It allows users the chance to pick a ‘stack’ as the starting point, giving you the versatility to completely change the way the site looks to make it completely unique. From there, you can add in any number of extensions to build it up into a cohesive and workable website for all kinds of businesses. The unique thing about the X Theme is that they interviewed a number of internet marketing experts to get their insights into what makes a great selling website before adding their advice into the actual theme, allowing everyone to be able to access it.
Pros: Freedom to choose any number of looks and the ability to add in a number of extensions to help your site really become unique. The front end page builder tool allows for easy design once you know what you want. It’s regularly updated to ensure safety, improved design and fixing of any bugs.
Cons: As with the other themes I look at, there is still a lot of things that a new site designer might not know what to do with it. I’ve seen a lot of people say that it’s not the easiest theme to work with because of the need to install various extensions. Plus, with the sheer number of options, it takes a while to work out which one is right for you. If you are building multiple sites, you do need a licence for each site.
Website: https://theme.co/x/
Cost: $64US for 6 months support
OptimizePress
OptimizePress is one of the themes I hear regularly mentioned when people are discussing what to use to build their websites and landing pages. Why? Because it covers so many areas specifically to do with sales. Landing pages, sales pages, membership portals, registration pages… it does it all. Plus, it also comes as a plugin.
Pros: Plugin option means you can keep your old site and just add in the sections you need. Ability to have a site up and running in minutes.
Cons: The need to purchase each template separately. Suffers from bloat (due to the resource intensive plugins etc). The update to 2.0 seems to have divided a number of their loyal users.
Website: https://www.optimizepress.com/
Cost: $97US a year
Divi
Divi is the theme I use constantly! I was introduced to it about 6 months back and it changed the way I design websites. Because I use it a lot, I did get the lifetime membership, but that means I can use it on any number of websites I design. Divi recently updated to version 3 and it’s opened up a whole new load of features. But instead of raving over everything I love about it, I’ll try to summarize the theme as best as possible. As with X Theme, it allows you to build any number of looks within the one theme, giving you freedom to choose. It has a visual builder as well as the old Divi builder which I still use today. It relies on modules within rows, each module can be different things and each row can be configured differently.
Pros: I find Divi super easy to use and it was quick to pick up when a first time user. If you are trying to work out what you want a page to look like, they have several specific page layouts already designed which you can easily convert to the look you want (delete this, add that etc). It allows you to drag and drop sections if you decide you want to change where things are placed. And it’s element selection for the modules gives you the ability to have things quickly added to your page that you might not have known you needed. As with X4, Divi3 is rapidly updating at the moment while it’s fixing bugs as they are discovered ensuring that it’s the best possible theme it can be.
Cons: The visual builder is quick to use, but I find that I sometimes will still need to revert to the old Divi builder to fine tune some bits. I also use an additional plugin to give myself some extra options that aren’t necessarily in the theme (which also isn’t advertised anywhere really, it was a tip I was given by someone else).
Website: https://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/divi/
Cost: $69 – $89US a year OR $249US for the lifetime
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission
Conclusion
Despite what everyone says, there is no be all and end all theme. You need to find the theme that you (or your designer) like and can work with. Whether its something that is built entirely to work as a marketing platform or one that allows you the ability to design your own thing easily. What matters most is that when you design the site to convert, you start with something that you can work with and then build from there. For me, that’s Divi and it is one I will continually recommend at this stage.
And then focus on the various aspects that help with converting along the way. This is something that I will be delving into more over the next few weeks.
