In the continuing Saga of Starting Over, I took a look at the blog, what content I had on there, how it looked, how fast it loaded etc etc.
When I set it up a year or so ago, I farted around for a while looking for a theme that I liked, was fast, mobile friendly and let me change a few things.
I wanted to have some pages be full width, be able to change the sidebar, create landing pages (no header) etc. BUT it had to be easy to use.
As part of the starting over process I decided that once and for all I was going to find a theme I liked. Well I looked around at free stuff and searched for a paid theme as well. There were some candidates in the paid arena I was reviewing.
Then I received and email about a theme that had just been updated again and had all the features I wanted. I realized the I had actually bought the theme years ago (2010) and had used it on a few sites but had forgotten about it as it was nothing special at the time.
I popped on the site and lo and behold, the theme had been bought back by the original creator, brought back to life and completely revamped. What is more, HE HONORED MY 8 YEAR OLD PURCHASE AND UPDATED ME AT NO COST!!!!!!!!
Talk about service!!
I have since put the theme on this site as well as some others and I love it!
The theme is Socrates and was originally developed and recently revamped by Dan Nickerson. It does all that I want (and more) it is easy to use and to adjust what ever I need. I had no issues moving from my old theme to this one. It is fast and looks good on my mobile too!
Don’t forget to install the Socrates Toolkit plugin as well. Among other neat features it lets you easily set up a simple membership area and protects your content. This is nothing fancy at all and if you want a real membership site there are lots of other plugins that have the full meal deal but for quick and dirty setup, this is really easy.
Who could ask for anything more?
Well, how about customer support?
I did have a small issue on one site that had a really old theme. When I switched, all looked well at first but once I opened the site in a new window the widgets in the sidebar had disappeared. I followed the advice in one of the help videos but still no luck. So, I emailed Dan. Within about 20 minutes he had replied and pointed me in the right direction (the inactive widgets section) and there they were, just waiting for me to drag them back to where they belong.
Fantastic customer support is all I can say.
So, if you are looking for a great theme, check it out and watch the demo of Socrates here.
