Hi all, I am interested in learning how to create wordpress themes. I have gone through all the sites and I am really impressed by Artiseer - http://www.artisteer.com/?p=purchase WPRemix - http://wpremix.com/purchase/ Anyone had experience of these two? Which one do you recommend and why?
Depends on what you want. Do you have 1 blog? Well i must say that i find Artisteer really basic and don't like the Artisteer "designs" (better say creations lol).
I am actually wondering if money can be made from creating word press themes and I read that a lot of Wordpress theme designers will use one of these two. I have three sites from which I make money but I want a new challenge, a new direction to go in. What you say about artiseer is what I had already thought however it seems to have such good reviews elsewhere where as WPRemix doesnt seem to have any reviews apart from on its own site.
Artisteer is for real noobs. People who have not even basic HTML knowledge. Check their demo video (or check some "designs" created with Artisteer that are offered here on DP). You must be kidding....
That's funny, I was looking at Artisteer because although I can build anything in PHP/HTML/CSS its my design skills that need help! No point in having validated, efficient, x-browser code if it looks like a dogs breakfast So far I've only played with the demo version and created html pages (as opposed to themes) and have been pretty happy with the code output so I'm curious about your industry standard comments. Any other tools to consider?
I have used Artisteer and it works very well. I get some nice designs and the software codes pretty decent. Haven't used any WP REMIX themes. So, I can't tell you anything there. Here is a URL of some current WP themes that I am working on that were deigned with Artisteer. http://wpthemes.spunkyjones.com/
I have looked at the code that Artisteer creates. I know google will penalize it because it is "heavy" even if it is validated. It can be done much simpler if you know xhtml and css. I can not speak for WPRemix because I have never looked at the code it generates. The web is turning mobile. I believe this is why search engines are beginning to penalize sites that have extraneous code. Artisteer generates a lot of needless code. I will say that Artisteer accomplishes its goals fairly well.
That could be true about the code being a little bloated. In that case, you could still design your site using Artisteer and export to HTML. Then find someone to hand code your theme. That is how I did it for the Spunky Jones SEO Blog theme. I haven't seen any of my Artisteer themes that I currently use on any of my sites getting penalized by Google. However, it could happen.
All things being equal I don't think Google will penalize a validated, albeit heavy, site. The html is clear and not filled with style tags, javascript and lines of like some sites. Google's real concern with page weight is being able to parse the page to find the content. Too much css and js on the page and it gets tricky to find what you are looking for. The size of the actual page is such a small component in a site's success that I wouldn't let the actual page size cause me too much concern. The type of sites Google (et al) want to reward are those that focus on real content.
On a correctly created page, the css and js are relatively linked and are not "on the page". But you are correct in making it easier for the search engine spider to find things on a page. Writing for readers and less for search engine spiders is a tricky and learned ability. One particular CMS is able to get first place in around 11 million results with one weak backlink, weak on-page optimization and no fresh content. That was before the "penalty" google initiated.