So last week you probably saw my post my New Setup on my blog. It was a really cool JQuery inspired blog with lots of cool motion/action and little loading of new pages. Well, it turned out to be a whole lot more trouble because plugins were clashing due to the overloading amount of Javascript.
So today and yesterday I sought on a quest to totally redesign my theme from scratch. And this current theme is what I came up with! My first question is what do you think about it?!?!? please leave your comments below!
It’s a simple, neat and fresh looking theme, yet highly effective:
Basic features:
- Optimized for speed and loading time
- SEO optimal titles
- SEO optimal page layout and headings
- XHTML/CSS valid
- Customized 404 page
- 3 column theme
- Integrated Social bookmark buttons
- Integrated Multi Page widget
- Prints parent category in title
- Incoming Google image searches are expanded to site
- Adsense ready
My Take:
I am pretty happy with my work. I made a big emphasis on the SEO aspect of the site when designing it as I want to start getting some advertising revenue eventually on the site. Therefore, I made it Adsense ready. I also included a lot of social networking support .
The two level navigation is also a nice integration I think because it can save space and provide a way for the user to highlight the important categories of the blog. I’m pretty happy with the color scheme and the font types. The colors used have a cool and soothing effect to the eyes and the font types are easy to read. It’s also widget-ready, even though I hand-code instead of using widgets. The thing I love most about my theme is how fast it loads. The combination of a fast load as well as full SEO makes it pretty desireable. Hopefully my analytics and traffic in the next few weeks will reflect this.
Do you like this theme and would you be interested in purchasing to use on your blog? Why or why not?
#1 by Mark on February 15, 2009 - 1:40 pm
There shouldn’t be ANY conflicts if the plugins were coded correctly.
Javascript should NEVER be used in a plugin by simply declaring the html tags.
Plugins that use Javascript this way are DOIN IT RONG! Plugin developers need to learn that in order to avoid JS conflicts they need to use the `wp_enqueus_script()` function to ensure only one instance of a particular file gets loaded.
#2 by Mark on February 15, 2009 - 1:41 pm
That should be `wp_enqueue_script()`
#3 by Matt Brown on February 15, 2009 - 3:01 pm
Guess the statement “the only way to get things done right is to do them yourself” holds true….
#4 by JK on February 16, 2009 - 9:58 am
Nice setup, Matt! Is it just coincidence, though, that you have an “Insights” tab too?
#5 by Matt Brown on February 16, 2009 - 10:09 am
haha I didn’t even make the connection until now. oops. It’s just one of my categories….guess it’s time to pull out the thesaurus!