When I mention Thesis a lot of people don’t really get the value of it, to them Thesis is just a design. However they don’t understand Thesis and miss the real value of Thesis as a framework.
First off we need to understand what a good HTML markup and framework can do. With a good framework like CSSZen Garden, you can achieve radically different layouts like this, this or this without changing the HTML. Really if your page is constructed properly you can achieve incredibly different looks, like those I just showed you, by only changing the CSS file. What does that mean to you as an SEO? One of the common fears a lot of people have is that when they change their page design it will negatively affect their rankings. If you use thesis you can change your design without changing your code, or having to worry about a ranking change as a result.
Ok I know you’re reading the words on the page and you can understand them but you still don’t believe me. Perhaps you’ve seen Matt’s Cutts blog which is now on Thesis, or Danny Sullivan’s or even Sugarrae’s and you are just like, MEH they all look kinda the same. To show you how can get thesis to NOT LOOK LIKE THESIS, I’m going to show you a blog I set up for client and how I matched it to their existing website design. Here’s the existing site (new window) and here’s the blog running thesis. Unlinked, things change, nuff said.
The two designs aren’t pixel perfect, but to anyone who is not a designer or doesn’t have extremely sensitive designer sensibilities, the two look damn close. How much was involved in making Thesis look like that, 4 image files which already existed, 1 flash file which already existed, 1 custom hook to put up the flash file header, 30 lines of CSS, and some changes to the thesis design option panel, that’s it.
As I said many times the benefit of using thesis is you don’t have to touch the HTML you can just work with the CSS file, which amounts to a huge amount of time and money saved on publishing projects. I understand a lot people can monkey with the HTML, but with thesis you don’t have to anymore, it’s one less thing to worry about.
Stable code that doesn’t change everytime your design changes, means one less thing to worry about negatively affecting your rankings. If you’re ready come on over to Thesis …
