You should watch the videos on this page after reading this article.

You’ve found this page because you are interested in optimizing your site’s internal SEO.

You might even be considering installing the ‘All In One SEO’ plugin. After all, it’s a good plugin with lots of positive reviews.

But I want to spend the next 2 minutes giving you a viable alternative. It’s then up to you decide which approach is most suitable for you.

What is the alternative to the All In One SEO Plugin?

The alternative is Thesis, which is a premium wordpress theme with inbuilt SEO functionality. Chris Pearson, its creator, has intentionally set out to get rid of the need for an SEO plugin. We’ll come to WHY he has aspired to do this in a moment.

What are the differences in features between All In One and Thesis?

They largely share the same features. Thesis offers a couple of additional site-wide features that All In One does not (like no-following your ‘Home’ link in your nav menu to minimize link juice loss) , but on a post-by-post basis, you can do the same things with either.

In other words, you can customize your title tags, meta tags, control your no-follow and no-index from within your wordpress page editor, for both.

If the features are similar, then why should you consider Thesis?

It’s to do with how ‘bloated’ your wordpress site becomes once you start using plugins. When you use a plugin, you use a lot of extra php calls and functions on top of your normal site code to make it work. And these extra code calls increase the time it takes for a visitor to load a page on your site.

And this ultimately affects your search engine rankings…

Because Google now factors in page-load time into their algorithm. In Google’s eyes, a faster site equates to a better user experience, so they are now rewarding fast sites.

Now, what Thesis does is bypass the need for a plugin. Instead of having to use code to integrate 3 things (wordpress itself, the wordpress theme, and the plugin), it only has to integrate 2 things (wordpress itself, and the Thesis theme). This dramatically reduces page-load times.

A Faster Site = Better Google Rankings

In fact Shawn Collins, who runs the Affiliate Tips blog, managed to reduce his page load times from 10 seconds down to 1.4 seconds by switching to Thesis. That is a HUGE difference in speed!

So no matter how good a plugin’s feature-list might be, by definition it can never serve as efficient code as something integrated into the theme itself (a plugin implies you are plugging something extra into the code base).

The Upshot?

If you are looking to squeeze every possible SEO edge from your wordpress theme, you should choose Thesis.

Using All In One will improve your core SEO features, but it will compromise on your overall site speed, which itself can affect your rankings. If this is a compromise you’re willing to make, go for All In One SEO.

You should watch the videos on this page after reading this article.

You already know that Google takes into account multiple factors when deciding where a website is going to rank in their SERPS.

But did you know this one?

Google has started to take into account how fast a page loads in the browser. From their end, a faster loading page = a better user experience.

Suddenly this has a big impact on which wordpress theme you should use. Many themes look pretty, but their underlying code is bloated, leading to sluggish loading times.

Here’s a case in point.

Shawn Collins found (to his alarm) that his average page load time for his blog was over 10 seconds. This was the impetus he needed to install thesis theme, because Chris Pearson is ruthless in his quest for efficient code. A lot of the power of thesis lies ‘under the hood’. The results speak for themselves – Shawn’s pages now load in 1.4 seconds.

Watch this video of Chris Pearson (creator of Thesis), talking about the fundamental differences on how Thesis theme stands out from other wordpress themes. You are going to learn that there’s far more to a good wordpress theme than making it look pretty.

Here’s the crack – owning the Personal license of Thesis theme is great, in the sense that it means you are using Thesis! But it does tie your hands a bit. Primarily, it means you can only use the theme on 1 of your sites.

However, it is possible to upgrade to the Developer’s license, so that you can use the theme on an UNLIMITED number of your sites. Don’t worry, there is no technical difference between the personal and developers version, the only thing different is the usage rights. As well as being able to use it on unlimited sites, you are also permitted to remove the Thesis link at the bottom of the theme when you have a Developers license.

How to upgrade

Go here and login to your account. Then in the top right corner click ‘DIY Dashboard’. From there you’ll see a link to upgrade to the Developer’s Version. Simple as that.

Also note, by upgrading, you’ll get a free upgrade to Thesis Theme 2.0 when it is released (which will cost over $300) – it is still someway off being fully developed but it promises to be a game changer in the blogging world!

Like a leader in any market, Thesis has inspired other developers to create similar frameworks. In the last few months we’ve seen a handful come to market. It has to be said that Thesis is already a relatively mature and stable wordpress theme/framework, and is several iterations ahead of its competitors. Thesis theme created itself a separate niche in the premium wordpress theme market, and these latest themes are trying to claim a piece of that pie. Currently Thesis is leaps and bounds ahead, but the following might be worth following in the future…

Other Wordpress Theme ‘frameworks’

- Frugal Theme: to give it some credit, they do have a few high profile blogs using their framework. But if you look at a screenshot of their admin layout, it is eerily similar to the Thesis admin area. Coincidence?

- Genesis Framework by Studiopress. This was created in March 2010 by Brian Gardner, who is a recognized expert in the WP theme space. Arguably it’s a little more ‘out the box’ than Thesis in terms of sidebar widgets etc, but its still very much in its infancy.

These are the 2 products that have had a stab at matching Thesis on its framework capabilities. Of course, there are hundreds of other premium themes on the market, but they are not directly compatible. If you are struggling with the concept of the differences between a wordpress theme and a wordpress framework, you should probably watch the videos on this page.

Rather than offer you yet another review on Thesis theme, we’ve put together a list of the most insightful reviews to save you time.

1. Check out this page on what current users of Thesis have to say about it.

2. Then, read this article, which is a tutorial covering the SEO capabilities of Thesis. This tutorial goes ‘under the hood’ of Thesis, which we find gives you a better idea of how Thesis works, rather than talking about it in abstract terms.

3. This is a good review of a respected SEO expert who at first didn’t see the value in Thesis, then once he started using it quickly changed his mind.

4. The guys over at Art of Blog have done a number of ‘how to’ articles on using Thesis. Again, we think it’s better to have a quick flick through these because they go behind the scenes of Thesis, rather than reading features which don’t mean much if you haven’t yet bought it.

5. Go read this article about future proofing you code – it will help explain one of the underlying philosophies of the Thesis theme, which is to preserve your code on any future upgrades of your wordpress theme, or wordpress itself. This is written by the creator of Thesis, Chris Pearson.

Despite us listing these 5 good reviews, our main recommendation is to go get a copy of Thesis, and take it for a test drive. After all, there is a 30 day no-questions-asked guarantee, so it’s even worthwhile getting a copy and THEN reading all the reviews so you can follow along with your own copy of Thesis as a guide.

The ‘retail’ price of Thesis is as follows:

Personal License = $87
Developers License = $164
License to use on Client’s Site (for web developers) = $40 per site

Is it possible to get a discount on these prices?

Let’s have a look….

Discount codes: Chris Pearson – the creator of Thesis – used to periodically release coupons for a short period of time. However, the last time he did this was on Black Monday in 2008, and he’s vowed never to do a sale again. He says that he doesn’t want to risk devaluing the software by doing discount pricing, even for a short while.

Rebates: Until recently, there were a number of sites where you could get a rebate on Thesis theme, typically 3-4 weeks after you bought it. These sites would pay you a cut of their affiliate commission if you bought through their link. However, the guys at DIYThemes changed their terms and conditions on their affiliate policy in March 2010, which stopped affiliates from doing this sort of price discount.

The upshot? It’s pretty difficult to get a discount on Thesis. The next best option is to search for bonuses offered by affiliates of Thesis. Some of these are probably more valuable than any discount you’d get anyway.

Until recently, there were lots of people offering ‘rebates’ for Thesis. This would

This is one of the cool things about being a part of the Thesis community.

There is no finished-product as such because it’s a work-in-progress. Other theme developers have to juggle multiple themes and so updates become infrequent once they are shipped.

Consequently, new Thesis releases do generate quite a buzz in our small community, fuelled by Chris Pearson’s relative secrecy about what he’s working on at any one time.

What we know about Thesis 2.0 as of February 12th 2010

• Thesis 2.0 release is imminent (due out any time now
• Rumor has it that its a self-sufficient CMS, not requiring Wordpress..
• There will be a Skins market. Chris will aim to do 5 designs this year.
• New pricing structure $297 floated around. Existing customers = free upgrade.
• Stylesheets will be reduce from 4 down to 2.
• Will be a way to download and share core SEO and design features within community.

February 11th 2010

Chris sends out an email, adding:

• Thesis 1.7 will be released within the next 14 days.
• You’ll be able to save and restore the Thesis Options without having to be woefully inefficent.
• Control the indexing (noindex, nofollow, noarchive) on every page of your site
• New headline filter
• Basically, this simple filter will allow developers to show/hide headlines, and you’ll be able to use this to create more diverse post styles on your site.

February 9th 2010

Chris appears on Webmaster Radio to speak with Joost. Here are the key points:

2 mins 20 secs – this has become Chris’s mantra: ‘To build the ultimate publishing platform for the web’.

9 mins 12 secs – Chris really doesn’t seem to like the wordpress platform.

10 mins 55secs – Aims to reduce the number of stylesheets from 4 down to 3, and eventually 2, to reduce code bloat.

31 mins – LeVar Burton uses Thesis.

33 mins – surprised at lack of diversity in Thesis sites out there. Took a full year for people to understand what people can do with Thesis. Really only in the last 3 months has there been a real increase in skins being used for Thesis.

34 mins – my goal is to lead the creative charge to show people what can be done with it.

38 mins – Unique styling for each post. Thesis can do this, but will definitely do more of that in the future. e.g. getting rid of sidebars, coming in 2.0 post and page templates. On this post do I want to show sidebars? Apply CSS classes that affect all code within body tag. But does require user to be totally savvy.

43 mins – Chris’s background.

46 mins – When Thesis 2.0 comes out, we’re going to redo the pricing structure. Bottom line is anyone who buys now will get the full monty when we upgrade. Floated around idea of $297. Talks about Thesis theme skins market, how he’d work on doing 5 skins throughout the year plus a host of other designers.

January 29th 2010

Chris lets it slip that a future Thesis won’t require Wordpress.

4th January 2010

Chris interviewed by Art of Blog. He announces three things:

1 – Pearsonified Design

He is going to port the rather lovely Pearsonified design over to Thesis and eventually release that skin to the public.

2 – Version 1.7 vs. Version 2.0

Going to rock out a new version of Thesis theme, though unsure whether it will be 1.7 or jump to 2.0. He’s got a bunch of 2.0 code written, but is yet to decide whether he’s going to make the leap. If it’s 1.7 it will be out in the next 3 weeks.

3 – Community sharing
Adding a way to download and upload and share your options, so that will make it easier to skin out a site and encourage sharing of core SEO and design settings.

Somehow whenever the conversation turns to SEO for wordpress blogs, it inevitably turns to a discussion about why Thesis Theme is so good for SEO. But why exactly is this? Here we specifically discuss the top 4 reasons why:

1. It serves up H1 tags for blog headlines

H1 tags are REALLY important for SEO. And it amazes me how many supposedly robust themes get this wrong. Some have the blog title permantly as an H1. WRONG! Thesis gets this right. It’s not rocket-science, but you’ve gotta have building blocks right?

2. You can control your title tag

Even more important than H1 tags are <title> </title> tags. Almost all other themes will default to using the blog title for this. They don’t even give you the option of being able to customize it. WRONG. You want your keyword density to be stronger in your title tags than your headline tags, namely because you want your headline tag to be more ‘reader friendly’.

Some wordpress plugins give you SOME flexibility over this, but you cannot guarantee that plugins will remain compatible with theme upgrades.

3. You can ‘no follow’ links to the Home Page

Your ‘Home’ link in your nav menu is likely to be the most common link on your site, and you are wasting link juice by having it point to ‘home’.

4. Thesis effortlessly deals with canonicalisation issues

One of the flaws of wordpress is that it serves up different web ‘addresses’ for each page you create, e.g. mydomain.com, www.mydomain.com, mydomain.com/index.html. Duplicate content issue alert! Thesis has a simple checkbox to make sure they redirect to the same page to avoid this problem.

5. Thesis ‘no-indexes’ archive pages

When you create any post in wordpress, a duplicate is stored in the archives, and this can again lead to duplicate content issues. You can remove this issue by ‘no-indexing’ these archive pages.

There are more kick-ass SEO features in Thesis, but I promised to give you a handful of specific features.

My answer – probably. But there is one instance when you shouldn’t.

Let’s deal with the ‘why you should’s’ first:

• You can use the same theme for ALL your clients sites – this means you become expert at using Thesis theme = save time and energy and more time giving value to your clients.
• The hook framework + the custom_functions.php combo means that making minor code changes to the site is always from the same place. No need to spend 15 minutes search for that one line of code that you can’t remember where you put it. With thesis you know it’s in custom_functions.php.
• You know future updates of Wordpress aren’t going to break the theme, because Chris Pearson (the creator) makes too much money now from Thesis to let it die. In other words it has momentum. Don’t underestimate how important this is.
• You know future updates of Thesis aren’t going to break your custom code – because the CSS and the custom functions files are seperate from the Thesis code framework, so that part can be updated as much as you like and it won’t affect your customizations.

Here’s the one drawback you need to consider:

Because Thesis is now so comprehensive, it means you can potentially do a lot of quick customizations for a client in not much time, without touching the source code. But if you want to do some MAJOR customizations to wordpress, that not even the Thesis hooks can handle, prepare for a headache – it’s no longer a case of opening up index.php and editing the appropriate code. Thesis is a web of different files and folders, and it can take hours and hours to track down the appropriate code and figure out what to do with it. And once you start messing with the core Thesis code, you know that future Thesis updates are going to cause problems with overwrites etc.

That said, Thesis is a great tool for developers for 90% of client websites. So much so that you’ll probably free up a couple of days a week for yourself with the decreased workload. Sweet!