I’ve built literally hundreds of WordPress sites over the years, some for myself, and others to sell on. During that time, I’ve tried dozens of WordPress themes. Some met most of my needs, but all fell short in at least one way.

I don’t demand much from a WordPress theme…

It should be properly optimized for search engines, with content towards the top of the source code and navigation code towards the bottom. Most importantly, the post or page title should use the H1 HTML tag and not the blog title. This last one has caused me to reject the majority of themes before even downloading them.

It should be quick and simple to edit and maintain – not just for me when building my own sites but, when building sites to sell, for my clients too. Simplifying life for them simplifies mine as well. No one needs to be answering support queries all day, and if something as simple as a color picker can prevent clients from corrupting style sheets and then hollering for help just as I’m about to take time out with the kids, then I’m all for it.

It should be flexible. Buyers seeking websites often want as many bells and whistles as possible, with appearance being of more importance to some than potential, particularly with newly created turnkey sites that have yet to see traffic or revenue. How the appearance of a site is expected to draw the traffic that hasn’t seen it yet is a bit of a mystery to me – I’ll often start my own sites after doing keyword research by throwing up a bare bones configuration with the appropriately tagged and categorized articles etc and then experimenting with the effect appearance has once the world starts showing up on it’s doorstep. This allows me to move quickly from building one site to the next, without wasting time with image galleries and fancy headers on the odd site that fails to draw interest. In these instances, I’ll need a theme that allows me to add such things but does not require them.

If my sites are offering downloadable items for sale, my ideal theme would use a custom field for the price, so that I can display it in several places but only have to edit it in one. A custom field for the payment button code would be nice too. Again, this makes life easier for clients.

Hmm… maybe I’m just a little demanding. If such a theme exists, I couldn’t find it and so created my own, adding features that suit my way of working as I’ve discovered I needed them. The Abundance theme is the result.

I use the theme every day in my work, and hope it proves to be as successful for you as I’m finding it to be for me.

Best wishes,

Diana Lane.