As an SEO who has a passion for WordPress and frequently shops/browses for nicely designed themes, I decided to start putting together these posts that will help theme shoppers determine if a particular theme is going to be “SEO Good To Go” out of the box.
Today’s theme is U-Design by Internq7 and is available for purchase on Themeforest.net. I have used 1 other theme by this designer in the past for one of our clients and achieved wonderful SEO results
U-Design is WP 3.2 ready and is designed keeping SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in mind. This is evident by looking at the source code of the theme. The main content block is positioned above the sidebar so that your content is easily accessible by spiders/crawlers. The implementation of heading tags is superb and follows SEO best practices.
This theme is 100% HTML valid (W3C) out of the box with the dummy content. This may change as you add your own content and mark up. The theme also features a few sliders, two of these sliders (Cycle 2 and Cycle 3 slider) allow you to insert html content with h-tags, thus providing you room to create actionable (CTA) content that is also SEO friendly!
Internq7 did a wonderful job with the theme’s admin interface. To test the simplicity in setting this theme up, we had our director of business development (Albert), set it up for his own personal use. Albert was able to setup and completely modify this theme in less than 2 days with no prior knowledge of HTML, CSS or PHP.
The theme is built using the 960 Grid system, utilizes Google WebFonts and features an unobtrusive menu which will work if JavaScript is disabled.
One thing that I would add to this theme is support/ability to add title attributes to the top menu navigation links.
In closing, this theme is perfect for anyone who wants to set up an awesome looking site that’s very SEO friendly without altering the php template files or dealing with custom CSS. To take full advantage of this theme’s SEO powers you will need to add/install the All-In-One SEO Pack or Platinum SEO Pack plugins.
Nice review, thanks! I was just looking into buying the theme and SEO was my main concern. I like your findings altho I’m not really crazy about the top part of the coding. Anyway, I’ll take your word and get the theme as I think it’s one of the best on ThemeForest anyway
Best,
Alex
Hi Alex, I totally agree with you regarding the header. You should not have any issues moving all that java to the footer.
I actually see it as a benefit that theme developers leave it as is without compressing it or moving it to a different file. This allows folks that like to heavily modify themes to easily see what script is being used for what.
But in my experience, having all this script in the header is not a big deal. LOL – take a look at the source code on this page, and we still rank high in SERPs
I purchased and used this them on my website and WOW! Seo improved in a month! I was using xHTML before. So I used it along with the all-in-one-seo and it really made a difference. My website is a very competitive field, but I saw a two page google increase withing the last month. I wasn’t even in the top 50 before this them and my site is about 4 years old now! I would highly recommend to anyone. I’m developing a second site as I type this!
I’m happy to see that you got such awesome seo results with this WordPress theme!
Andon is amazing!!!
Our test site on this theme is also progressing very nicely in a very saturated Insurance Vertical with a brand new domain =)
You should use schema.org microformat for your address in the footer, trust me it will help with localized SEO.
Thanks for the advice! Will Do!
This theme is very flexible. The style is very easy to manage. I feel the freedom of designing on the theme panel. I am a theme buyer and this is the best theme I bought so far.
Hello Immediately I beg forgiveness for the language, I am Russian.
I have this problem, slider does not work in the “# 6 Kirkle 3.”
Maybe I’m missing extensions for PHP? Say what?
Thank you!
Which slider are you using?
nice and beautiful template
Очень интересная тема! Хорошо скомпонована, и 960 grid – то что доктор прописал!
Good theme, thank you admin
Yeah great theme…one of the best I’ve came across from an SEO perspective. Thanks for the heads up!
Arsen, thank you for your review. I like this theme; but, I have a question about TOS and Theme Forest. As a SEO, can I purchase this theme for a client and give it to them as part of my service? I do not want to do anything that could get my client (or me) in trouble. Thanks.
Good Question!
I think that if you buy the theme specifically for your client, and only use it for that client, you should be in good shape!
Do not re-use the theme over and over while only paying for one-time use.
It’s not fair to the Designer. These guys spend so much time on these #WordpressThemes and run support forums http://dreamthemedesign.com/u-design-support/ to help their customers.
Good Luck!
Can you add the Cycle 3 to his PureVISION Theme? I would like to add it to my website.
Yes you can, it will require some hard coding and I typically don’t recommend doing this unless you are very comfortable with PHP/CSS/JAVA as it will make your theme un-updatable.
@andon_design keeps his themes up-to date and stays on them for a while, so any coding that you are going to do to modify the header or any of the theme files will need to be redone every time you run an update.
But.. YES EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE
@ArsenRabinovich – Blog comments to twitter? Mind = Blown!!!!
Color helps with retention a lot and each industry has its own colors.
Has anyone used CommentLuv – just installed it on this site
Hi,
I love the theme, but i am new. Can you confirm how much the theme is for me to build a site on?
And if i build a seperate site with the same theme, do i pay the exact same amont as the original amount again?
Thanks,
Paul.
Paul, you may purchase the “U-Design” theme from ThemeForest.net HERE
Regards
Hi,
I’m interested in buying this theme and wondering if it will work with Yoast seo plugin?
This is great because of the SEO focus, there are plenty of other beautiful templates out there that fall behind even against poorly designed wp themes. The fact that the main content is always positioned over the sidebar is solid proof…
Just for your info if you are SEO expert, almost in all themeforest themes content block placed before sidebar and everyone uses headings properly, this posts shows how you just got payed for writing this things. there are some themes out there with awesome features and powerfull built-in seo solutions.
go and review them. not such trash like udesign (1998 design and trend)
I am sure this comment will not be posted, pretty sure…
Hi Bob,
1. Not all themes on ThemeForest are SEO ready, this is a fact!
2. As mentioned at the top of the post, I did not get paid to post this review. I use the theme for this site, have used U-Design for some of my clients and was able to achieve amazing SEO results.
3. If you would like to recommend a theme for us to review, please use the contact us form to submit the url.
4. Seems like you have very strong feelings towards U-Design’s design. I think you are missing the point here… u-design = you design – the theme allows you to design your own aesthetic and “trend”.
And “Trash” does not usually become a featured item on ThemeForest, get sold 15,532 times and has 1,445 five star ratings. #JustSaying
5. Your comment (though very ignorant) is approved and published =)
Everyone check out http://artbees.net/ to see @BobAlpakar designs. Leave him a nice comment while you are there, sounds like Bob needs a hug!
Hey Arsen,
Thanks for your reply.
In fact I am a perfectionist, I like to see web trends move forward. I regularly follow web standards and new technologies that being adopted on high tech websites.
I am not an ignorant person nor insulting anyone. (between I am sorry for using bad language. later I was regretful about it. though give me a chance to explain my reasons).
I have checked U-design coding, admin panel’s UI and UX, its capabilities and so forth.
It might be SEO friendly, tough it does not mean it meets all criteria of web trends. yes it is on the top seller and Justin Bieber is also a pop star!!! I hope you get my point. I pity the taste of some people. There are many great themes which meets all standards from every perspective and even have built-in SEO solutions. by the way SEO is not only related to coding, if you believe with buying a theme you can increase your SEO rating, you are on the wrong way.
Yes you dont get paid for writing this review however you get bunch of traffics to your websites, thats also a mutual deal
There are many authors in TF would be agreed with my opinion.
Thanks
Love your sense of humor and wit, Arsen.
WOW!!! First of all I am impressed with your review of this theme. It is so difficult to find honest reviews on the web. Yours was extremely helpful. It shows your passion for the subject matter. Nice touch on the comments section. I will definitely purchase this theme now.
I wish that I had a review like this for all of the themes I am interested in purchasing.
Cool website by the way… Nice layout and well written copy!!
Let us know if you have theme that you’d like for us to review. I will be more than happy to do it.
Love this theme and the power of it.. thinking to use it in my new website
I would love to see some sample sites that have performed well SEO wise from this theme. Anyone willing to share?
Although your review enlightened some nice issues, I don’t think it helps in SEO. I have tried the theme, but I found no improvement in my site’s SEO. Wonder if it works really.
Even so, congrats to those who got benefited from this theme. But I got no value of my money.
Akash, I hope you didn’t expect to install this theme and sky-rocket to the top of page 1 in Google right out-of-the-box?
The theme is just an SEO friendly/ready platform for you to build your ranking strategy on. Maybe my review was not clear on this.
But here is some free advice (thanks for linking your name to your site above):
- Do not open your website to search engine bots while it is still in development. You have “lorem ipsum” content as well as dummy text from the original theme files across majority of your pages. Most of your image links are broken (at this time).
Most of the pages you have indexed in Google have Latin text, is “Lorem Ipsum” a keywords you are trying to rank for?
Here is a good place for you to start getting some basic SEO knowledge going.
I wish you luck in your venture!