How to Make Your Thesis Theme Your Own

8 Thesis Theme Tutorials You Can Use Today

Sometimes I think my best brain exercise is working and writing on this blog. I’ve learned more since I began blogging (6 months) than I can remember from grad school (which, admittedly, isn’t much).

I’ve told you about both my excitement and my frustration with being a newbie at customizing the Thesis Theme.  Today, I want to share with you some of the Thesis Tutorials that have made the journey more fun and less a pain in the butt.

Design

MattFlies – Ten beginning ways to customize Thesis

A helpful place to start is here, with “ten beginning ways to customize Thesis”  I find the archive page listing section very interesting, and I will be trying that as soon as time permits.

Tabbed Widget Tutorial

This is also from Mattflies.  It guides you through setting up tabbes for various and sundrie types of posts

OpenHook from Rick Beckman at Kingdom Geek

Open Hook and Thesis have, in my humble opinion, changed everything about blog, maybe even web design.  My guess is that if you have the Thesis Theme, you already use OpenHook, but just in case, check it out.

Empty Cabin Media — How to add a second menu

I haven’t figured out exactly how I would use a second menu.  Go do EmptyCabin Media and take a look at the site they designed with a second menue.  They have set up a second menu that looks neat, simple, and elegant.

Get Creative With Widgets

Thesis Hacker – Add different widgets to individual pages.

I have not used this yet.  This is another example of the extreme flexibility of the Thesis Theme, giving you the ability to bend it in any way you want without breaking.  Even if your break it, you can head over to the Thesis Theme Forums for tips from both the experts and other users.

FergusWeb – Thesis Tutorial – Creating New Widget Areas

The thing that intrigues me about this tutorial is the ability to add widgets to the footer hook in thesis (See OpenHook above).  High on my list to try very soon.

Search Engine Optimization

Double Mule – SEO for Everyone

This has been one of the most helpful for me as far as getting a clear (er) (I’m not quite there yet) view of setting up my sites for SEO.  This is important, as I have to eat, too!

Sugarrae tutorial on targeting advertising by category

If you do any affiliate marketing, I would subscribe to all of what Sugarrae writes.  She is one of few that seem to know the business well.

Bonus

Krispy Kreme UK

I am probably stepping in doo-doo here, because I cannot remember on which site I found this, but when I looked at it, I was impressed that it is actuall built on the Thesis Platform.  It looks to me like a full fledged statice website.  Just another example of the flexibility of Thesis.

If you are serious about blogging, I can’t think of any other investment of under a hundred bucks that you could make to begin stylizing your blog to reflect who you are.  If you do buld a blog or website with Thesis, please let me know.

If you are ready to get started, you can click here or below to get your digits around Thesis -

Mike

Photo via Capture Queen