WPtouch Pro

WPtouch Pro is a plugin created by Brave New Code specifically for WordPress users. This plugin can easily optimize your site for mobile viewing on any device (Smartphone, Android, Tablet etc.) It automatically transforms your WordPress website into an app-like theme without a single bit of code. This is a great way to expand your sphere of influence by reaching out to the mobile market. According to its developers, “small screens + big webpages = disaster”. WPtouch Pro aims to provide a more stylish and user-friendly presentation of your content. WordPress users can also download the free version of WPtouch and tweak the default settings to suit their needs.

Sweet Captcha

Sweet Captcha is a new and fresh graphical Captcha focused on enhancing user experience on your website. Say goodbye to difficult, boring text and mathematical equations. The fun, colorful graphics encourage your visitors to engage and interact with your website thus increasing conversions and subscriptions, etc. This plugin is easy to use and works across different platforms (WordPress, Joomla, PHP), different browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) and different mobile devices (IPhones, IPads, Androids, etc.).

Instagram for WordPress

Instagram for WordPress – Show off your Instagram photos on your website with this plugin. A simple sidebar widget is created showing your latest 20 instagr.am pictures and picture embedder. This plugin requires PHP curl extension.

Sharebar

Sharebar adds a dynamic and fully customizable vertical box to the left of a blog post that contains links/buttons to popular social networking sites. For wide blogs, a vertical bar with popular sharing icons appears on the left of your post. If the page is resized below 1000px (default), the vertical bar disappears and a horizontal sharebar appears under the post title.

WordPress SEO by YOAST

WordPress SEO by YOAST – WordPress SEO is the most complete WordPress SEO plugin that exists today for WordPress.org users. It incorporates everything from a snippet preview and page analysis functionality that helps you optimize your pages content, images titles, meta descriptions and more to XML sitemaps and so much more. Created by Joost de Valk, well-known developer of WordPress plugins and an authority on WordPress and SEO tips.

The challenges of managing a large amount of content online have always been daunting. You have to make sure that the way you structure your site is intuitive for your user and easy to scan for information. If you can’t provide your readers with what they’re looking for in a timely fashion, they’ll quickly turn elsewhere to find the information that they need.

Fast forward to 2012 and the challenges of managing content online has become even more difficult. Now, instead of having to worry about getting your content out to users on desktops using different browsers, but you have to account for a wide array of mobile devices as well from smartphones to tablets of all sizes. Fortunately, if you take a look around the WordPress marketplace, there are a lot of people putting out really great quality themes that take care of all of those headaches for you, allowing you to focus on putting out great, quality content.

Magazine Explorer premium WordPress theme from WPZOOM is a great example of a theme that structures its content incredibly well. The responsive layout is intuitive and easy to navigate at all browser widths, and the WPZOOM Framework which allows you to make easy updates enables you to quickly customize your theme to match your tastes. If you’re interested in learning a little bit more about Magazine Explorer premium WordPress theme, you can check out the demo link at the end of the post after the features below. Enjoy!

Magazine Explorer Theme Features

• WPZOOM Framework
• Featured Slideshow
• Responsive Layout
• Carousel Widget
• Easy Customization
• Custom Widgets
• WPZOOM Options Panel
• Custom Menus Management
• Threaded Comments Support
• Custom Widgets and Features
• SEO Options Section
• Custom Page Templates
• Developed for WordPress 3.3+
• Custom Logo Input
• Automatic Image Resizing
• Internationalized and Localized
• Banner Management Section
• Custom Background Support

Being a realtor isn’t easy. Things are always competitive in real estate regardless of certain conditions, but considering the time we’re in right now and the downturn we’re seeing in the housing market, it’s even tougher to be in the business of selling homes. For a select few individuals though who are willing to think outside the box and try something different, there are solutions available that can help you out in your business efforts. Real Estate 2 is a completely revamped version of the Real Estate theme by Templatic that offers up some great functionality that is perfect for agents in any market to take hold of to use to their advantage.

One really cool feature about Real Estate 2 premium WordPress theme is that the homepage lists a slideshow of featured products that is dynamically generated by user submissions! Who says you can’t put your clients to work for you? Additionally, any of your users browsing for a home can take advantage of the unique multi-category search, where multiple selections can be made to search for properties that are of interest to them. Additionally, there are plenty of widget-ready areas, which allow you to further customize the theme to suit your needs. There are widget-ready areas in the sidebar of the theme, in the footer, and in the middle of the page on your homepage.

Furthermore, Real Estate allows you to make the best use of your time by letting you perform bulk uploads and exports of listings via a .csv file. No more long hours spent manually entering one listing at a time through the night. Heck, if you start using Real Estate 2 premium WordPress theme, you might finally get to take a weekend off every once in a while!

Real Estate 2 is just one great option out of Templatic’s suite of products that offer up original, unique functionality for WordPress users. Of course there are plenty of standard blog and website templates as well, but utilizing a theme like Real Estate 2 helps you to unlock a lot of great potential out of your install to have your site functioning as a pristine selling machine at all times. Check out the list of features below to read more about Real Estate 2 theme and then make sure to click the link at the end of the post to see the live demo!

Real Estate 2 Theme Features

• IDX/MLS compatible
• Custom user profile fields
• Bulk Upload/Export (.csv files)
• Coupon module
• Several built-in payment gateways
• One Click – Auto install of the theme. No technical knowledge required
• Five detailed color schemes
• Fully customizable front page and many widget ready areas across all the pages/posts
• Excellent Support
• PSD File Included with multiple use license
• Multi level drop down menu
• Custom page templates such as archives, full width page, sitemap, contact page etc.
• Custom built, dynamic widgets that you can use multiple times
• Standard wordpress Blog and Pages
• Gravatar Support and Threaded Comments
• Built-in Ad Monetization
• Widget Ready with custom widgets
• Valid, Cross browser compatible

As the WordPress community continues to grow, there are more and more great free WordPress themes showing up on the market that can definitely rival some of their premium competitors. Their styling can vary from colorful and vibrant to clean and minimal, and many of them are being released as responsive designs even. We wanted to say thank you for your continued readership by sharing some of our favorite free WordPress themes for May, 2012.

Meeta

A great little blogging theme that is packed with plenty of premium features such as custom page templates, widgets, and even a responsive layout! Meeta is clean, minimal, and incredibly intuitive to navigate. Like all WPZOOM offerings, it’s built on the WPZOOM Framework and has plenty of advanced options to customize the theme to suit your needs and branding.

Esplanade

Esplanade is another great responsive template that is great for personal blogs, business sites, or even magazine style sites. Esplanade’s navigation is fully accessible on mobile devices with its included touch triggers which open up dropdowns as needed. Accessibility features like this are a great feature to have in any responsive design…try it out by resizing your browser when taking a look at the live demo!

GoPress

GoPress is a beautiful, minimal layout that is perfect for news websites or online magazines. There is also a video available on WP Explorer’s site so that you can see how to get things up and running quickly and easily.

Responsive

We’re a big fan of responsive designs around here at Blogging Experiment. So much so that our site is currently in the middle of a little responsive update of its own (so keep your eyes peeled for that one)! In the meantime, why not check out this great responsive template that is perfect for almost any application as its minimal styling lends itself nicely to a variety of situations.

Tint

Tint is a great free theme from Themes Kingdom that is professional, but it doesn’t feel stodgy or stuffy. The fun, vibrant layout is perfect for businesses looking to showcase their colorful side for all visitors to see!

Picking a WordPress theme can be tricky. Even trickier is making the decision to subscribe to a theme club. You’ll obviously need to make sure that whoever you decide to go with has plenty of options for you to choose from so that you can implement a website that suits your tastes, but there are plenty of other important factors to take into account as well. Here are some reasons why we think that choosing ThemeFuse is a great decision.

The Fuse Framework

ThemeFuse isn’t just a collection of awesome WordPress themes, it’s a collection of awesome WordPress themes built upon and equally awesome framework that powers their huge backend administration panel, which allows you to take complete control over just about any element of your theme. Don’t get stuck with a theme that makes you conform to its style. Instead, go with the option that allows you to customize your site to tailor it to your specific needs. As far as theme club frameworks are concerned, ThemeFuse’s Fuse Framework is among the best in the industry and absolutely the most important factor in choosing to go with the club.

Shortcodes

Shortcodes are a great tool to use with any theme as they allow you to unlock some great potential with layouts and styles. In fact, with a proper set of shortcodes in place, the only real limit you’ll have to developing a killer looking page is your imagination! ThemeFuse includes a great set of shortcodes that are useful for a variety of situations, allowing you to take your website in the direction you want.

Additional Developer Goodies

All themes on ThemeFuse can be purchased with a standard license or a developer license. The developer license costs a little bit more, but you’ll receive a multiple-use license with the theme, layered PSD files, and the HTML and CSS files as well. All of these added benefits make going with ThemeFuse a great choice for developers looking to get projects off the ground more quickly.

Excellent Support

ThemeFuse provides all of their suport through their support forums, along with including extensive documentation for each theme. The documentation that comes with each theme is very thorough and even includes videos to help you get your WordPress installation up and running from the very start!

Theme Bundle

If you’re needing A LOT of help on various projects as a developer or designer, you can certainly purchase individual themes as you need them, but you might find it more helpful to go with the developer bundle, which includes all themes available on ThemeFuse for an insanely good one-time price. For the amount of functionality you’ll receive versus the cost, it’s practically a no-brainer if you find yourself constantly backlogged on work needing to bootstrap a project quickly and efficiently.

Theme Customization

While ThemeFuse doesn’t directly customize themes that they provide, they do work hand in hand with certified WordPress professionals who can help you with anything you’re looking to have done. Each developer’s expertise is listed below their name on the customization page so that you can find the right person for the job with ease!

Specialized Themes

One of the great things about the offerings provided by ThemeFuse is that they don’t fall into the same mold as a lot of the other theme clubs out in the market. ThemeFuse has plenty of designs suited specially for restaurants, bistros, bars, photographers, videographers, doctors, writers, marketers, artists, and so much more!

One Click Auto-Install

Who wants to mess around with server settings or configuration files all day getting a theme setup? That’s so 2011. In 2012, we install our themes with ease (as long as it’s from ThemeFuse that is). All ThemeFuse templates are able to be setup with a simple click of a mouse! It’s really that easy. You’ll be up and running in no time.

Built-in SEO and Marketing Options

All ThemeFuse themes come with built-in SEO and marketing options to ensure that your site rises to the top of the organic search mountain with relative ease. With great content and a good SEO strategy in place, it won’t be long before traffic starts coming into your site regularly and consistently.

Cross-Browser Compatibility

And last but not least, what’s a good looking theme if it doesn’t look good across all browsers? There’s nothing to worry about if you’re rocking a ThemeFuse premium template as all designs are compatibile with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera.

One of the things I appreciate the most about Elegant Themes is that they’re not content to merely rest on their laurels. While it isn’t the case with all businesses or individuals, it’s easy for any of us to forget how we achieved the level of success we have today. As organizations grow, sometimes things are simpler when you move forward making decisions as you see fit. Fortunately for the subscribers of Elegant Themes, they’ll never have to worry about partnering with a group that doesn’t care to listen to its users’ feedback. Trim premium WordPress theme was developed in response to many requests for a less stylistic, lightweight design, which coincidentally is exactly what they created.

Trim premium WordPress theme is simple, professional, and versatile, due in great part to the clean styling mentioned earlier. But don’t let its simplicity in appearance fool you as Trim is a great option for anyone needing a fully-functional WordPress theme that won’t limit what you’re capable of accomplishing in the long-run as your business grows. One of the best things about Trim is that it is completely responsive, which means that all of your content is going to look great no matter what kind of device a visitor happens to be looking at your site on. It doesn’t matter if you throw an iPhone, Android device, tablet, or desktop into the mix, Trim handles them all incredibly well and delivers a great user experience to all of your customers.

It can be tough when trying to make a decision on a theme club or particular theme. With Elegant Themes, you’ll rest easy knowing that your subscription not only gives you access to the incredible collection of templates they currently have, but all future releases and updates to old themes as well. In fact, Elegant Themes is currently in the process of revamping a lot of their older themes to turn them into responsive layouts. Two of their most popular themes, DeepFocus and SimplePress have recently received this treatment and there are sure to be more to follow.

If you’re curious about Elegant Themes and would like to know a little bit more about how the club works, make sure to click on the link at the end of this post after the list of features below. Once on the site, you can read all about what Elegant Themes has to offer and how they’ve helped thousands of individuals just like you implement professional websites for their businesses. Enjoy!

Trim Theme Features

• WordPress 3.3 compatible
• Fully responsive
• Alternate slider layouts
• Dozens of fonts
• Opera compatible
• Netscape compatible
• Safari compatible
• Unlimited Color Schemes
• Gallery Section
• Threaded Comments
• Optional Blog-style Structure
• Gravatar ready
• Firefox compatible
• IE8 + IE7 + IE6 compatible
• Advertisement Ready
• Widget ready sidebars
• Theme Options Page
• Custom thumbnail images
• PSD files
• Valid XHTML + CSS
• Smooth table-less design

GridPort premium WordPress theme is an excellent eCommerce solution for anyone looking to start up an online storefront for their business. GridPort comes with a wide array of features that make it a great option for nearly any kind of online store as it is incredibly flexible and easily customizable.

First and foremost, GridPort premium WordPress theme features a responsive design that is beautifully minimal and incredibly intuitive to navigate. Your customers will have no problem getting around on this great layout no matter what device they happen to be surfing on. As it’s no secret that mobile browsing is continually increasing and will one day eclipse desktop browsing, it’s absolutely essential that your business begin taking steps now to ensure that you’re ready for your customers no matter when or where they’re viewing your site. Utilizing GridPort will give you the assurance that your site is future-proof and will look great no matter the situation.

Additionally, GridPort makes it very easy to update certain options throughout the theme to make it more closely fit your style and branding. The editor panel on the backend allows you to update colors throughout the theme, even with the buttons used in the theme. And you’ll have no problem showcasing all of your products in style with GridPort’s attractive Fancybox effect that is used on all images, even your product galleries and blog thumbnails!

Finally, you can rest easy knowing that GridPort comes completely translation ready as all copy throughout the template is built from the ground up with WordPress functions that are able to be accessed using translation plugins along with the creation of the appropriate files. A very cool feature indeed!

If you’re looking to implement a simple, effective online shop for your customers to come and browse your inventory, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better option than GridPort. From it’s fantastic responsive design to allowing users to fully update their theme as they see fit, it’s easy to see why it’s a top choice for eCommerce solutions. If you’re interested in GridPort premium WordPress theme and would like to learn a little bit more about what it has to offer, take some time to read through the list of features below along with checking out the live demo at the end of the post. Enjoy!

GridPort Theme Features

• Responsive design: looks incredible no matter what the screen size, from mobile devices to HDTVs
• V-Grid animation for your product page images
• Pop-out shopping cart tab (optional)
• Choose most colors from your theme options panel (even choose from a number of button colors)
• Fancybox effect for all images, including product galleries and blog thumbnails!
  Beautiful product pages with unique look across different screen sizes
• Translation Ready: all text in the theme uses WordPress functions and can be accessed using translation plugins like WPML and by creating .mo and .po files!

The world of WordPress is in a constant state of flux. It seems like everyday the platform itself or some clever developer is coming up with a new and exciting way to extend the power of what WordPress can do. I firmly believe that the fact that WordPress has such a large and active communities is the biggest contributing factor to its continued success. That success is propelled forward by theme developers and designers who are looking to continually push the boundaries of what is possible with WordPress. Today, we’d like to walk you through some of the trends we’re noticing in WordPress theme development and how they’re shaping the way we look at not only WordPress or our websites, but the Internet itself.

Responsive Design

Responsive design is everywhere it seems. Everyone from single-person shops to large clubs have begun to incorporate responsive design techniques into many of their themes. StudioPress, WooThemes, and Elegant Themes are three of the biggest clubs to begin using responsive design regularly in their themes. In fact, some are even going back and updating older popular releases to help bring them into the 21st century a little easier. Elegant Themes in particular recently revamped two perennial favorites, DeepFocus and SimplePress

While this is certainly a lot of work for the developer to undertake, I’d expect to see this happening more often with other clubs as they go back and iterate on what they already have. If a theme you’re using doesn’t have a responsive layout already, just take a look around at some of these great clubs and see what they have to offer. Who knows, your favorite classic theme could be getting a responsive upgrade at this very moment!

Minimal Layouts

I think this factor sort of goes hand in hand with responsive design, but I’ve seen a lot more minimal themes making their way into the marketplace recently. I personally feel like responsive design naturally gravitates towards a more minimal aesthetic, as it is all about delivering content in the most accessible way to your users regardless of device or browser. While heavily stylized sites used to be the norm a couple years ago, many developers are adopting this attitude with their designs. Now, I’m not saying that a site with a stronger theme can’t be responsive, just that the idea behind responsive design itself sort of supports the notion of clean, minimal, intuitive design. What always amazes me is that even with a minimal approach, there always seems to be a never-ending stream of incredibly creative layouts being developed. I think as we move forward, you’ll see this approach continue to gain in prominence across all theme clubs.

eCommerce Integration

With so many great and easy to implement eCommerce solutions out there, it’s no wonder that we’re beginning to see more and more themes that support this type of functionality. One of the biggest players in this arena in recent months has been WooThemes with their release of the WooCommerce plugin, which is completely free to download and transforms your plain ol’ WordPress install into a fully functional online shop. There are plenty other solutions as well, and most of them are open-source, which is another huge testament to the WordPress community and their continued desire to give back to others using the platform. With the ease of integration and the ability to completely transform a standard site, I think you’ll see more developers incorporating compatibility with various eCommerce plugins as time goes on.

Conclusion

WordPress and the people surrounding it never cease to amaze me. Every day I wake up I feel extremely blessed to be a part of this fantastic community that is united with one common goal in mind: to help turn WordPress into one of the best options available on the market for managing websites. It will be extremely exciting to look back in the next couple of years and see what has happend. For the time being, we hope you enjoyed this piece and keep on blogging!

As with any institution or group that has been around for a long time, it can oftentimes be difficult to remember what things were like in the past. What it was like before their influence started changing the way things were done? What was it like for them when they first got started out? I think it’s easy to look at the behemoths of business around the world and forget that they were also the “little guy” at one time.

Elegant Themes’ story is no different. They’ve grown leaps and bounds from their start of developing simple blogging themes for a then new WordPress platform into the giant they are today. They’re one of the most well recognized brands as far as theme clubs go, and for good reason. Their pricing has always remained extremely competitive over the years, while the themes they continue to release regularly push the boundaries of what can be done with the ever-popular CMS. Today we want to take a look at Elegant Themes’ journey from where they started to where they are today, and where you can expect to see them in years to come.

Humble Beginnings

The screenshot below showcases Elegant Themes’ inaugural template that helped them make their foray into the WordPress theme marketplace. Blue Sky was a simple blogging theme that was developed with only the most basic functionality in mind. By today’s standards, this theme might seem rather simple, but “back in the day” it was taking full advantage of everything WordPress had to offer. It was cross-browser compatible, took advantage of Gravatar thumbs for comments, and contained custom thumbnail images.

People might not have guessed back then that Elegant Themes was poised to become one of the largest names in the WordPress biz, but they certainly were, and Blue Sky marked their beginning as a quality theme provider for years to come.

Beyond the Blog

Quite a few releases down the line, Elegant Themes started thinking outside the blog as it were. As WordPress began evolving into a more full-fledged content management system instead of a strict blogging platform, many developers were starting to see the potential of using WordPress to organize and manage their site content. MyApp was one of Elegant Themes’ first themes to really break out of the traditional blogging mold and deliver a theme that was geared towards not only standard site design in general, but also a niche audience of app developers.

Elegant Themes started introducing newer features like widget-ready sidebars, which really opened up a lot of potential for people utilizing WordPress to run their sites. But the implementation of these new technologies was only the beginning for Elegant Themes.

Shop ’til You Drop

As advances on the WordPress front began to support more powerful functionality like eCommerce sites, theme developers saw a great opportunity to work on themes geared towards that specific purpose. The setup of a site for selling goods online can be quite a difficult undertaking, from the actual design all the way through how to set up the more difficult development-oriented tasks such as payment gateways and order processing. Elegant Themes was quick to act on this though and introduced Boutique, a premium template that worked with an assortment of plugins to turn a standard WordPress install into a fully functional online shop.

With the inclusion of PayPal payment processing, Elegant Themes subscribers now had a feature-filled theme that met a very specific need of the community. Elegant Themes was continuing to garner accolades for their stylish design and intuitive administration panels, which allowed for easy management of all their themes.

Goodbye, “Blue Sky”…Hello, “Sky!”

With the release of their newest theme at the time, Sky, Elegant Themes was beginning to incorporate more advanced features that were truly transforming the traditional WordPress run site into something that was very unique and easily customizable by users so that no two would ever be alike. Sky included some very cool features, such as very powerful homepage slider that loaded all of its content using AJAX, essentially allowing users to add as much content as they wanted to their homepage without it bogging down the load time. Content was only delivered up once it was requested by a visitor and clicked on. These simple but powerful features helped to add an additional sense of polish to all of Elegant Themes’ offerings that put them ahead of most other developers and clubs in the marketplace.

Continued Evolution

Elegant Themes continues to push boundaries that most other designers and developers don’t take the time to try and implement into their themes. Not that long ago, Elegant Themes released their very first responsive theme ever called Evolution. Evolution was a huge step forward for the club as they embraced this new design approach that delivered content in a way that was tailor-made for whatever device might be looking at it. Utilizing Evolution on your website essentially meant you had two or three websites in one as all of your content appeared flawlessly across mobile phones, tablets, and desktops.

Looking Forward

One of the things I love most about Elegant Themes is their desire to continually iterate their work and improve upon the past. In fact, a couple of their most popular themes, DeepFocus and SimplePress, were recently converted into responsive designs. This intentional and purposeful drive for quality and excellence is one of the great things that sets Elegant Themes apart from other competitors in their space. Elegant Themes keeps their customers up to date with the latest happenings in their shop on their blog as they release previews about upcoming releases and news on older themes that are receiving updates. If you’re interested in checking out more of what they have to offer, make sure you visit Elegant Themes today to see a more comprehensive list of themes and features provided by the club. With the support, updates, and continued releases put out by Elegant Themes on a regular basis, it’s absolutely the best deal in WordPress for your money!

Tell me one place that even comes close to offering such an amazing deal on Premium WordPress Themes. Not to mention, each membership includes access to what is arguably the most active WordPress support forum on the planet (the Elegant Themes Forums) PLUS all future themes and updates while an active member. For more info, check out our Elegant Themes Review.

76 Themes, Support Forum that is second to none, Updates, Future Releases, & More for just $39. Get your membership today.

(We’re not just proud to promote this fine product, we’re paying members as well!)