I was extremely impressed by the theme layout and went to StudioPress.com to see how much it would cost to purchase that theme template.  When I entered their website, I saw the theme I was looking at and found that it would cost around $79.  After looking at some of their other themes, I found their Pro-Plus All Theme Package for $250.  This package included, not only the theme that I wanted but all current and future themes that they might release.

I fought with spending $250 on WordPress themes but I took a chance and have no regrets.  Not only did I get access to all of their themes, they also have comprehensive support and tutorials that cover how to use and personalize their themes.

Some of the features that sold me are:

• Updated themes and access to future theme releases
• SEO optimized themes
• Theme options page in WordPress for simplified configuration
• Themes can be used as many times, on as many websites a I want, including client websites
• Themes can be modified as much as I want
• Comprehensive support and tutorials

The current theme on this website is StudioPress’s Magazine theme.  I spent about five or six total hours modifying this theme to my liking and installing and configuring some WordPress plug-ins that I wanted.  I used to spend weeks working on free themes or modifying standard themes to work with much less functionality than I have with this theme.

One thing to remember, even though StudioPress has made it easy to setup and customize their themes, you still need a good understanding of WordPress and some web programming knowledge.  Also, to change colors or font styles, you will need some knowledge of CSS too.

I am so impressed, I  signed up to be an affiliate for StudioPress.  I normally don’t endorse products but I am a very satisfied customer and think that they have something that other theme vendors do not come close to offering.

Like I mentioned in a previous post here, Spend time on your content and let someone else take credit for your theme. Using these themes from StudioPress is allowing me to practice what I preach.

Click here to visit StudioPress.

Oddly enough, I noticed a commercial saying that Bob Barker, from The Price is Right, was going to be the guest host on September 7th.  This really peaked my curiosity and I ended up tuning in to see what this was all about.  Suddenly, I found myself watching the show again and was surprised at what a good job the WWE did by having Bob Barker as a host.

The concept behind this was that the wrestling matches for the show were picked by wrestling game contestants, much like those games played on The Price is Right.  I don’t know if many of the younger younger crowd watched The Price is Right but many of us more worldly (older) people used to watch it pretty regularly.

Everyone is wondering what my point is and what this has to do with anything.  What I saw here was an excellent marketing ploy.  Here you have Bob Barker, who was the host of  The Price is Right game show, for 35 years on WWE RAW doing the game show format with the wrestlers.  This idea really brings thinking outside the box to a new level and although I don’t have statistics on how many viewers they had tonight, I would guess that it was on the higher end of the viewership scale.

Bob Barker even gave his signature line, “Help control the pet population and have your dog or cat spayed or neutered” and he was also able to talk about his new book, Priceless Memories.  Not only did the WWE use a TV icon to attract viewers, Bob Barker was able to market his book and promote his animal rights cause in front of a full arena in Chicago and to all the people watching the show on cable.

Based on Nielsen ratings from August 24th, WWE RAW had over 5.5 million viewers and I would guess that even the best marketing companies would have a hard time reaching that many people unless they are willing to pay many millions for adds during the Superbowl.  Overall, I think this is an interesting concept and I have read that RAW has some other guest hosts lined up in the coming months.

How does this apply to blogging?  In simple form, you could go find a guest to write a blog post or do an on-line interview and then allow them to market their product or cause on your blog?  This person could be someone who is well known in your blog niche or someone from outside your niche that offers their opinion or skills to help make your blog reach more people.

I am sure there are other ways to apply this concept and I would like to hear your thoughts.

For the longest time, I wanted to create my own custom theme for my WordPress blogs. I spent hours working on the classic theme, trying to make it look like I wanted but for some odd reason, it never turned out how I expected.

All this time I spent working on my themes is time lost writing content. Instead of doing what I really enjoy, writing, I was playing with code. Even though I have been designing and maintaining websites since 1998, I just couldn’t come up with a design that I was happy with. Finally, after installing the automatic WordPress update plug-in, more about that later, I went to http://themes.wordpress.net/ and started browsing the hundreds of really nice theme designs. I finally picked a couple, for this blog and a couple of my other blogs.

Because I now have a design that I can live with, I can spend more time writing content instead of trying to inflate my web designers ego. I was so caught up in making an original design, I forget why I setup my blogs in the first place.

A nice theme is good but good content is better.

I ended up wasting nine months on this blog alone because I could not come up with what I felt was a good enough design when I should have just been working on my content, like this post here. If you are a blogger / web designer and cannot create a design that you really like, just pick one of the excellent themes scattered around the internet and start putting your time into your content instead of your design.