I have spent many years buying and downloading WordPress templates and even having WordPress templates and themes created and customized for my websites.
During these many years I was not aware of the Thesis theme for WordPress. “Mashable” even considers the designer behind Thesis to be one of the top 10 best designers they know or atleast worth following on Twitter. Below is a quote from Mashable giving their recommendation to the guy behind Thesis, Chris Pearson.
Mashable – “Pearson is best known for his WordPress
theme design, Thesis, which took off like a rocket in 2009. Hailed as the last word in functionality and elegance, one user even said: “If God had a WordPress theme, he’d use Thesis.”
P.S. God would have a much better WordPress template, just saying. 
A really great development with the Thesis Theme for WordPress is the fact that they have just released their updated version of the Theme known as Thesis 1.8.
One of the number one benefits about this theme now and before is the intuitive nature of the theme. The Thesis WordPress theme is like a website builder you would see on a newbie hosting site like GoDaddy but for those who want a much nicer professional feel and look for their site. You will find the back end builder to be smarter, more powerful, and accessible than probably anything you may have used before to create a website.
WordPress and wordpress themes are not like the typical proprietary website builders available with cheap and free hosting sites. A wordpresscontent management system or CMS tool is what professional website design companies use.
Don’t be intimidated by the fact that you will be using a tool professional web designers use everyday because WordPress is the number one open source content management system on earth.
The reason so many website owners, designers, and developers use WordPress is due to it’s ease of use and small learning curve.
WordPress and the thesis theme go hand in hand because the theme is about as self intuitive for new users as learning to use WordPress itself.
Both Thesis and WordPress have multitudes of online video tutorials allowing a new user to easily learn what to do next in a step by step fashion.
I personally hate reading manuals and instructions which generally makes situations worse but I have been able to fumble around and find my way through WordPress and the Thesis 1.8 theme without a hitch.
The new Thesis theme 1.8 has new security enhancements. Thesis 1.8 not only incorporates WordPress nonce field protection, but it also boasts a refined data-handling system that will help keep your sites both safe and stable!
Here are The Main Features and Options Available With The New Thesis 1.8 WordPress Theme
1. Header Image Uploader
Adding a unique header image is a great way to personalize your site. The problem is, simply adding a header image does not ensure proper SEO or good usability. Web ninjas know that header images should be clickable, CSS-based, and SEO-optimized, and let’s face it—this all sounds pretty technical.
With the new Thesis template you can have a really nice graphical header designed by a designer of your choice and upload the header image into Thesis with nothing more than a browse, upload, and click of a button.
2. SEO Character Counters
Search engines only like to show so many characters when displaying your website in their search results. Thesis considers this little problem without you having to consider or even worry about it.
Thesis will let you know how many more characters you should type for a description of a page and tell you to stop when you are about to reach the limit.
3. New Google Fonts!
Google has some really cool looking fonts to choose from that you don’t typically have access to. Thesis 1.8 has incorporated the Google Fonts Directory into their new theme allowing you to pick what could end up being a high converting customer attracting font.
Because these fonts are delivered from Google servers everyone regardless of browser or PC will be able to see the new font you have chosen for your website. You may not have known this was even an issue but now you do
4. WordPress Nav Menu Support
Thesis 1.8 has its own navigation bar designer and controls but WordPress does to. Thesis has blended the two to allow you to have double the power over how you would like your navigation menu displayed.
5. Category/Tag/Taxonomy Page Options
In version 1.7, I introduced a new “Page Options” system that allowed you to add SEO details like
Tags and Category SEO features are now easily accessible and offer the ability to employ SEO strategies with ease.
In Thesis 1.8 you can add specific descriptions and key words to tag and category pages. This has significant SEO advantages and should increase traffic to your website.
If you decide to create a customized tag and category structure Thesis allows you to use custom descriptions and keywords within these pages as well.
6. Favicon Uploader
For those who have fav icons they use to help promote their website there is an easy to use tool to pull these into your site in a professional manner without the need to know how to code.
7. Custom Loop API
The custom loop API is fantastic simply because API’s are considered to be the premium in design features among any website or service. By having an API you can do virtually anything to your website in regards to automated custom-ability. This feature is best left to a programmer and is used for complicated tasks involved with employing live changes to your site from other API services on other sites your site needs to talk to. For many this feature is outside the scope of what they will be doing with there site. It is however good to know it exists.
Beyond these great features in the WordPress Thesis theme you can also find new and informative instructional videos on how to install and configure your Thesis theme once you have bought it.
So Now, the Question Is…
…Have you upgraded to Thesis 1.8 yet? If not, get on it. You don’t want to miss out on all these great new features!
Are you a Thesis user yet? Join over 28,000 others who are benefiting from airtight SEO, lightning-fast page loads, unmatched flexibility, and an incredible support community. Get Thesis here!
