There are many WordPress Themes that are advertised as SEO friendly or SEO optimized, but very few actually are search engine optimized themes. I’ve spent almost a decade working with WordPress and almost as long developing WordPress SEO themes. To date (June 2014) I haven’t reviewed a WordPress theme (not developed by yours truly :-)) that was search engine optimized anywhere near the standard of my SEO themes. I’ve been that confident in my WP themes I’ve offered up to $5,000 for the first person who finds a WordPress theme that offers all the SEO features of the themes I develop plus one more SEO feature. No one has come close to claiming a cash prize. So you think a […]
Continue Reading Responsive SEO Theme Review
Talian Ad Theme Review
Hello again!
Well it has been a couple of upgrades since I first started with your template. This last update is unbelievable!
I guess the best things are the ease of installing the adsense and clickbank code, the new options for banner themes. I found an outdoor theme that works for my site and a very awesome fun and happy them to use for my new wordpress blog that I will be hosting at Dreamhost. Thanks a million David!
Talian Ad Theme Review
HeatMap Theme : Best WordPress SEO Theme
Hi David. Just found your blog and its now on my regular reading list. I am in a similar position to you domestically, and looking forward to increasing my fledgling income with your help.
First step is… I found a better search engine optimized WordPress Theme so you need to pay $500 I believe. Check out HeatMap Theme v4 and whether you agree and I get my $500 or not, I would be interested to hear your opinion.
HeatMap Theme : Best WordPress SEO Theme
HeatMap WordPress Theme All In One SEO
you posted there are none better and you will pay $500.00 if you can find one better. There is it’s HeatMap WordPress Theme. All the SEO features you have to add plugins for are built into Heatmap Theme.
I do not have to use plugins for SEO. You can send my $500 to the above address in paypal.
Thank you for the Christmas Present I need it. You can also send me your themes for testing on my test server to see if they are half of what you claim and I will post reviews of what I find.
HeatMap WordPress Theme All In One SEO
WordPress HeatMap Theme SEO Review
WordPress HeatMap Theme vs Talian SEO Theme Comparison.
Two people in two hours making the same claim about the HeatMap theme. Am I missing something?
This is just a few of the HeatMap theme SEO failings, I only need to find one for Talian 05 to be better.
HeatMap example site linked from their home page
SEO mistakes.
1. Using Home as the anchor text for the home page links, basic SEO mistake to use Home, Click Here etc… for anchor text. Talian theme better search engine optimized.
2. The read more links, the anchor text is not SEO’d as above.
3. No H1 header used on home page. We generally want SERPs on our home pages, for example the title of the site. Talian theme better search engine optimized.
4. Sidebar menus use headers (H4) for the headings, yes we want to highlight them a bit bigger, but don’t use a H4 (any header), use CSS. Talian theme better SEO’d.
5. This is the big one, SEO damaging. Uses nofollow attributes on links for comment author names. Nofollow deletes PR/link benefit, this is a BIG NO, NO, we no longer use nofollow on anything. Talian removes all nofollow links except those added to the Reply to comment links (I’ve recently persuaded WordPress development to fix that problem in WordPress 3.1, currently in beta) and links in the body of comments (I’m still working on that problem). Again, Talian theme better search engine optimized.
Didn’t even have to look past that sites home page to find those basic 101 SEO errors.
Quick look at a post.
6. Uses a H2 header for the title of the post, should use a H1. H1 isn’t used at all! Basic SEO 101 mistake, Talian theme better SEO’d.
7. Possible SEO mistake. Title element is built with the format: “Title of Post | Site Title” which is not best SEO wise. If you can set it to only “Title of Post” then it’s not an SEO mistake (didn’t check the HeatMap site for SEO features list).
I think my $500 is safe with regards the HeatMap theme.
In the HeatMap themes defense on the home page it doesn’t advertise itself as an SEO theme per se (which Talian 05 is). It has one line:
“SEO Ready – HeatMap Theme has a common sense SEO strategy built right in so that you can get the maximum Google love that your blog deserves.”
HeatMap is an ad theme, not an SEO theme. I can see they have tried to SEO the themes code, for example not having a H1 header for the title of the site on Post pages, but it’s not gone that one step further of realising you need a H1 on the home page (title of site) and a H1 on post pages (title of Post).
In comparison if I advertised Talian as the best ad theme it wouldn’t be true, Talian does a very good job at providing my customers with ad based systems to their WordPress sites, but I wouldn’t argue it’s the best. I can see on the HeatMap home page a few features I’d like to add to Talian to make it better ad wise.
David
WordPress HeatMap Theme SEO Review
Talian Best SEO Theme
OK, well how about $400 then? Tell you what, let’s split the difference – you keep $250 and send the other $250 to PayPal for me… 8^)
Not a Charity :-)
ROFLOL, my wife just made our Christmas charity donation for this year.
David
Review Copies of Talian 5 Theme
Regarding testing Talian, I currently don’t have an option to send out review copies.
I plan to sell Talian via Clickbank soon, at that point I’m sure I won’t have any problems gaining plenty of Talian theme reviews :-)
Note: anyone into selling Clickbank products just got a heads up on a planned Clickbank product release that converts well. One site sent me non affiliate traffic (they made nothing from the sales) and it converted at around 10% (I was surprised it was that high).
The price of Talian will be going up a bit after it goes Clickbank and will be in USD$. Not sure what to set the price and the affiliate percentage at yet (I know most affiliates want 50%). Currently Talian is priced very low for what it does but then I get it all, similar Clickbank products that aren’t as good are priced significantly higher.
Would be very interested in feedback on both the price as a Clickbank product and the affiliate percentage?
I’ve run Talian as a bit of fun just on organic search engine traffic, not part of my SEO business, but recently had my eyes opened to it’s money making potential as an affiliate product (sold over 500 copies of Talian in three weeks due to one recommendation from an Internet Marketer!).
David
Review Copies of Talian 5 Theme
HeatMap AdSense Ready Theme
It looks like your newsletter has stirred some passions in Heatmap theme members at the prospect of $500 for xmas ;) lol
First up, thanks for noting that HeatMap Theme is indeed an ads theme, and yes you are right I don’t advertise it as an SEO theme per se, instead opting for a common sense simple SEO strategy that can be easily built upon.
Secondly, you have some valid points about the particular way creativitypro.com itself is set up… but creativitypro is just one example of how HeatMap Theme can be set up.
Heatmap theme is very flexible with its options and can be set up in lots of different ways for SEO benefit.
I actually popped into creativitypro.com this morning and ticked a few options, which addressed the majority of things that you noted. I designed Heatmap theme this way as many users have divergent ideas about what is good SEO (as most of us do) ;)
I’ll address each point you make about creativitypro.com and relate that back to how heatmaptheme itself can be configured…
—
1. Using Home as the anchor text for the home page links, basic SEO mistake to use Home, Click Here etc… for anchor text.
—
Heatmap theme implements the WordPress menu manager that was new with wp3. You can actually have your links named anything you like in the navigation bars… so if someone feels the can get better seo benefit by changing the names they can
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2. The read more links, the anchor text is not SEO’d as above.
—
Read more text is fully customisable using special custom fields in Heatmaptheme. If someone wants to SEO their more links they can do that in Heatmap theme
—
3. No H1 header used on home page. We generally want SERPs on our home pages, for example the title of the site. Talian theme better search engine optimized.
—
Heatmap theme actually has lots of different configurations for the H1 tag and where it is placed. I just activated the featured page option and now creativitypro.com has a H1 tag on the home page. There are also switches in the theme to place
the h1 in other places, including the new SEO text feature which enable you if you wish to place a h1 directly below the tag but also style with CSS so you can move it inline with the page content itself.
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4. Sidebar menus use headers (H4) for the headings, yes we want to highlight them a bit bigger, but don’t use a H4 (any header), use CSS. Talian theme better SEO’d.
—
Some people like this strategy, some people might have different ideas. Seems to work for me. If someone really wants to change this behaviour its pretty easy to do with a few theme edits.
—
5. This is the big one, SEO damaging. Uses nofollow attributes on links for comment author names. Nofollow deletes PR/link to the Reply to comment links (I’ve recently persuaded WordPress development to fix that problem in WordPress 3.1, currently in beta) and links in the body of comments (I’m still working on that problem). Again, Talian theme better search engine optimized.
—
Well done on persuading WordPress devs to change this. Until WP 3 comes out If someone is concerned about this default WordPress feature there are plugins to assist.
—
6. Uses a H2 header for the title of the post, should use a H1. H1 isn’t used at all! Basic SEO mistake, Talian theme better SEO’d.
—
See point 3. H1 one tags have lots of options in Heatmap theme.
—
7. Possible SEO mistake. Title element is built with the format: “Title of Post | Site Title” which is not best SEO wise. If you can set it to only “Title of Post” then it’s not an SEO mistake (didn’t check the HeatMap site for features list).
—
I prefer to place the post title first, site tagline second, and sitename third, as I feel the first part gets the SEO benefit, but the tagline and sitename give the Search Engine results context for real human visitors, when they are scanning
results returned. Thats SVO, search visitor optimisation ;) Again works for me.
If others feel thats not for them, editing a few lines will fix that up (and of course Heatmap theme members often ask me for little edits for all sorts of things, and if a request is within reason, I’m only too happy to give them a few tips or a code snippet or two to tune the theme to their liking.
I note that both our themes rank well in the adsense search space ;) We must both be doing something right :)
I do commend you on your work on creating an SEO theme, and of course, theme authors and bloggers look to other like yourself for the latest thinking about the subject.
Feel free to drop me a line via email. It would be great to connect up for some theme author geek talk ;)
HeatMap AdSense Ready Theme
Best WordPress Theme Designs
Your coding is second to none in terms of SEO themes. That is a given at that point. I am basically independent in my life partially because of your themes.
What I am really looking forward to is theme design options.
Many people still buy themes on looks and I think if you have a little extra in terms of style, it would go a long way in terms of return for you.
For example, 101cookbooks.com is a site with a white theme (the lady who has this is a web designer obviously, think part of her 24k Alexa is from the design, people land on her page and say WOW.) but maybe that is not a practical look for your theme. (thepioneerwoman.com is another, but that is a different animal as it is MU, it has a 2.5 look with image icons on the categories or tags)
Nor maybe it be the best in terms of income. I do not know. But it is just my two cents.
Feel free to ignore/delete any of my crazy ideas. Just brainstorming on your blog.
Best WordPress Theme Designs
HeatMap Theme Design
Mark, you are 100% on-target from my point of view. I would have bought Talian theme a long time ago if it wasn’t so, well there’s no other word for it, ugly.
Most people are not web developers although they must, in order to develop a website that does substantial online business, learn to appreciate good on- and off-page SEO. Talian comes with excellent on page SEO built right in. Of that there is no doubt.
The problem is that, not being web developers, most people will continue their search to find the right theme for them based on the way they see it representing their business, or the way they want it to look, and believe that with the right SEO plugin(s) they will achieve something similar.
They won’t, of course, but that will not stop them trying. So they probably buy something like the Heatmap Theme http://heatmaptheme.net/theme-demo/theme.php?theme=graphite because in terms of its looks, its streets ahead of Talian. And as a SEO’d theme, the latest version is very good.
Unless he has done extensive blind testing (which I doubt he has or I am sure he would have got the message a lot sooner), the author of Talian needs to take into account that he doesn’t really know why people buy his theme, only that they do (or do not).
I think when he offers the kind of look people see best representing their company or niche (not just the stark look of an typically ugly Adsense site), he will find that a lot more people buy his theme and are pleasantly surprised to find out the 1st class SEO advantages they get too.
Not at all the way he has seen his product and sold it so far, but then again, he is a developer. We just want the best theme (whatever that means) but for sure, it also means the best looking theme.
HeatMap Theme Design
Why I Develop WordPress SEO Themes
The people who buy Talian 5 tend to be those who understand SEO and want to make more money online, that’s what Talian 3 and 5 does extremely well.
Note: I didn’t release Talian 4: Talian 3, 4 and 5 are based on Talian 1 which I didn’t design, basically the Talian colour scheme wasn’t mine, the PHP coding is, I can pretty much add this code to any WordPress theme design: your site for example which uses HeatMap has loads of SEO mistakes, I could take the HeatMap look and add my SEO code, it would look like HeatMap, but SEO wise would be like Talian 5. Talian 2 and Talian Reloaded are completely different themes (not mine, completely different code) which complicates matters further.
I wouldn’t call Talian ugly, when I first converted Talian to SEO/AdSense coding I didn’t like it, I preferred one column themes (SEO wise there’s no difference between one and two column themes), but it became the most popular theme on this site, so with limited time for theme development updated Talian first and so far haven’t got around to updating the other themes and the Talian look has grown on me over the last few years :-)
For me when I choose a theme for a site it’s in this order:
SEO, SEO, SEO, Make Money, Make Money, What it Looks Like.
Of the version 3 themes, SEO wise they are all pretty much the same, AdSense wise Talian tended to out perform the others on CTR. Talian 5 is better than all the version 3 themes as there’s new SEO features and generally feature wise it’s better as it’s got a lot more options.
Of course I understand the average user works the other way around, they use a theme because they like the look and worry about the rest later. Like you say they think they can achieve maximum SEO through SEO plugins, which isn’t true. For example in version 6 I’m disabling three of the default WordPress widgets because they are damaging SEO wise (most users won’t know they are SEO damaging).
Theme development isn’t my main business, I’m an SEO consultant and until very recently most of what went into Talian was because I planned to use those features. I had no serious interest in selling thousands of copies of Talian (to be more precise I didn’t have the time to put into marketing themes as a business), it was useful from an SEO perspective etc… to have a small number of users (like Mark) giving feedback on possible features they’d like to see to give me ideas I might not have thought of (developing themes has helped me so much in keeping my SEO skills sharp). If a feature was useful to me or easy to add, I’d add it, but it was never about making a theme that would fit every users needs.
Developing themes was basically a hobby that helped develop my SEO skill set.
That’s very recently changed, had my eyes opened to the possibility of making a lot of money from selling SEO themes (more than I make from selling SEO services, I’d be dumb not to act on a revelation like that :-)) and so you will see a major shift in how I develop WordPress SEO themes from “what do I want in a theme”, to “what do users want from a theme”.
David
Why I Develop WordPress SEO Themes
Performance WordPress Theme
David, it sounds like your epiphany is going to bring me what I am looking for – a top performance WordPress theme that I am able to format into what my mind’s eye thinks is a good looking website for me. But that’s just it, isn’t it, beauty (and the opposite or lack of) is in the eye of the beholder. And we are all very different when it comes to matters of taste.
Will you have also have a ‘free’ version that would be, say, a feature limited version allowing you to develop a more substantial understanding of how it works before committing to invest?
Performance WordPress Theme
New WordPress Theme Designs
Funny you should mention a white theme, I used the site you linked to in another comment (your friends site that uses a customised version of Talian 5) as the inspiration for a simpler white version of Talian.
I’m putting more of the css coding into the custom css files so further customisation is much easier for both customers and me for future colour variations.
I have most of the SEO/WordPress settings type features I want to add to the next update already coded. So will be working on design mostly now.
Plan to code in a custom ad system as well, will be able to add almost any ad type on top of the current AdSense and Clickbank coding.
If I have time want to try to add a single sidebar version with the one sidebar quite wide to accommodate a double set of 125px wide image ads (popular ad format for custom ads), so a sidebar with width around 300px.
Today I’ve coded in the ability to add a header image behind the name of the site, the search form (which can now be disabled: coded that in as well) and navigation links. It can be turned on/off and have set some default images (made 3 so far, will probably add 10 headers) and have one tick box free for a custom header image the user has to upload. Basically you make an image with dimensions 1000px x 110px and it fits right in the middle of the current colour scheme of the header area (a 120px height image). This results in an overlap leaving the top and bottom 10px of the current background image/colour showing with the new header image over it. I suppose you could also make the image 1000px x 120px if you only want the new header image to show.
Thinking about adding the ability to have a large ~800px wide ad above the current banner/widget area (add a big ad or banner there and turn off the rotating banners otherwise would look really cluttered). Maybe a 800px wide banner type ad and the remaining space (approx 200px)for a smaller ad or a Twitter link or something.
All accessible via the options page which will be fun to code :-)
Will be putting significantly more time into development from now on as in January will be releasing a Clickbank affiliate program to sell the next version.
I’ll be registering a new domain that will be dedicated to version 6 (won’t be called Talian) and will use the domain for Clickbank promotion etc… Generally speaking Clickbank affiliates don’t like to promote sites like this one, I have too many links off the site to my other sites and there’s the other themes that are for sale here as well.
Bugger, just realised I’ll have to make make some affiliate resources :-)
All Talian customer will receive a free copy of the renamed SEO theme. I’m expecting a LOT of new customers when I start selling via Clickbank. Think I’ll give current customers a week with version 6 before opening it to Clickbank affiliates per se, give customers who are into promoting Clickbank products a little time to write reviews before we get the inevitable “this theme is awesome” reviews from Clickbank product promoters who don’t even buy the product!
About the only limit in what can be coded in a theme is a limitation on options. With version 6 there’s going to be over 100 options on the options page (up from ~45 in version 5) and though I can add all sorts of features to a theme, more options added, more complicated it gets. Fortunately there will always be the add your AdSense ID leave everything else default and forget about it option :-)
David
New WordPress Theme Designs
White WordPress Themes
Terence, I have two comments on your comments. :)
1) I agree that most people buy a book by its cover. I use to work in a bookstore for years, and know this to be true.
2) However, I would not say Talian is ugly at all. In fact it has brought me to riches and am grateful. What I personally did was modified the header and made really beautiful banners. I have kept the original black theme as it is good for photos which I use a lot of to pretty up my site. I also created a logo which is important for all sites. I use paint.net – its free and easy.
But all that said, I think more design options, colors like ‘white’ :) might be a good idea as from my experience in working in a bookstore. People really respond to book covers.
This theme is pure value. I would not hesitate to buy it based on style as the code is so good. I have been using WordPress for almost 5 years can say it is the best code. If you know a little CSS you can make it look like whatever.
I think the most important page is the first page. What I call a Wow page. If you make a custom WOW page which people land on. They are more likely to hang out of your site.
You do not need beauty to make a website rock, but you are right Terence people judge a book by its cover and it does not hurt.
White WordPress Themes
Beautiful/Ugly WordPress Themes
Mark, I speak for nobody except myself and my use of the term ugly was not meant in any way in a pejorative sense. And I can understand a feeling that overrides any sense of taste or design. For you, if it works, then its beautiful. I can understand that. For me, not having bought it, it looks ugly.
But I will watch this space and if it gets more beautiful, in my eyes, or David decides to do a sampler ‘free’ version I can test, I will try it out for my next site and see if it can become beautiful for me too.
Beautiful/Ugly WordPress Themes
Wall Street Journal WordPress Theme
The white theme looks great. I am really looking forward to it all.
It is interesting that you use my friends theme for inspiration. When we were looking at how to transform your theme to a white theme we used the europe.wsj.com the Wall Street journal as a starting point.
I strongly believe in design or art you need a starting point, ex nihilo nihil fit, nothing comes from nothing.
Thank you again for all your hard work, and I know it is a lot of work.
Wall Street Journal WordPress Theme