WordPress is a wonderful platform for website builders, and for Google in particular it seems to be the virtual equivalent of a cake with an endless variety of tasty and unusual ingredients. Yet for those of us who need something adaptable enough to be served up quickly to the search engines on nearly any occasion, and often with the minimum of notice, the icing on the cake can sometimes seem a small flawed.

Yes, we’re talking WordPress themes. These can make or break a site, and for search engines and surfers alike make the difference between encountering a flat and tasteless mass-produced sponge or an enticing confection that’s been specially made for the event.

But, with the right theme, it is possible to satisfy the surfers and feed the starving search-bots without spending hours slaving over a hot keyboard. As both a site seller (‘flipper’) and someone who builds and maintains a large number of my own WordPress sites, I’ve spent many hours trawling through themes in the hope of finding something that would fit the bill. For me, this would mean…

• A WordPress theme which made proper use of the HTML H1 tag, wrapping it around the page or post title instead of the blog title, which oddly is what’s usually done with it.
• A WordPress theme which demanded no editing of CSS or other theme files in order to change the site’s appearance. Not only would this make light work for me, but it would make life much simpler for clients, thereby eliminating many support queries and freeing up even more of my time.
• A WordPress theme which would instead make use of custom fields whenever I was selling digital products, allowing me to quickly insert or edit a price just once, yet show it in several instances throughout the theme – on the post, on the front page, and in archives. I’d also be able to add a payment button next to the price on the post at the same time.
• A WordPress theme which would allow me to test the effect on surfers of different layouts – putting the navigation in the footer for example, using a variety of widgetized areas to test the placement of monetization links or experimenting with the number of sidebars.
• A WordPress theme which would include the image gallery and magazine layout that buyers of ‘flipped’ turnkey sites seem to expect as standard, yet allow me to start some of my own sites by testing the traffic-attraction powers of various keywords with a simple, bare-bones ‘blog’ style configuration that can be prettied up once it’s confirmed that it’s getting an audience. Less time wasted on beautifying sites few are yet seeing means more time to spend on traffic building and promotion.
• A WordPress theme which would allow me to easily eliminate the sidebar on some pages, so that I can embed wider content. I’ve spent time in the past editing various theme templates to accommodate things such as an Amazon aStore, football league tables and Forex charts. This is time that could be place to better use elsewhere.
• A WordPress theme which included simple image management. Once an image was inserted in a post, it’s thumbnail would show up on the front page, in archives or wherever I wanted it to, without the need to make a custom field. Sites which relied on semi-automated plugins such as Amazon Autoposter for much of their output would then need far less time to maintain.
• A WordPress theme which showed only the date that the surfer was viewing the site, with none of the posts showing dates which would make their content seem like cyber-history two weeks after publication

I’ve found a seemingly infinite number of terrible themes during my search, and substantially fewer excellent ones. Some of these were very excellent, but all lacked at least one of the things that I felt I needed. It soon became clear to me that the WordPress fairy was not going to be waving her wand over my keyboard and giving me my ideal theme any time soon.

So I built my own.

Now available as the Abundance theme, it’s stark naked in it’s default form, but is readily capable of both the ‘bare bones’ configuration and the ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ look.

I’ve got my custom fields for price and payment buttons too, which makes making WordPress sites that offer digital products that much simpler, and editing and maintaining them even more so. I primarily use DownLoadGuard code inside my own payment button fields, but I’ve made sites for clients which use PayPal code in the field, as well as two sites which have used the payment button code from WHMCS (a system usually used in conjunction with hosting reseller accounts) in order to integrate it with WordPress. Furthermore, where a digital product had two options (e.g. a choice between PDF and video, or between personal use and resale rights) there are enough custom fields coded into the theme to cater for both. You can also show payment buttons and prices at the bottom of pages instead of posts, in which case your prices will not be shown on the home page or anywhere else on the site.

There are several widgetized areas available too – the Signup Box (traditionally where subscriber code goes, you can place anything you like there), two sidebars beneath it, a 468 x 60 banner area above and below the content area, a footer bar with room for four widgets and, on the posts pages, a 336 x 280 banner area inside the content on the top left.

Use of all these widgetized areas is optional as none of them have any default content. If there isn’t a widget dropped onto one, it won’t be showed. Likewise with any of the theme’s featured areas – tick a box on the theme options page and the area will be showed, leave the box empty and it won’t. The options page gives users the opportunity to easily edit the appearance of the theme without having to mess with any of the theme files and the first image that appears in every post is showed on the front page and in archives without the need to make custom fields, thanks to the theme’s integration with the ‘Get The Image’ plugin. This means that aside from the occasional addition of article content, sites which use additional plugins like Amazon Autoposter to generate affiliate posts can largely be left to look after themselves.

Although it’s not shown in any of the examples above, you can opt not to show the horizontal menu, and just place a page navigation widget in the sidebar. Show of the search box and clock at the top of the page are both optional too.

In a nutshell, the Abundance theme was made to suit me and my way of working and to make life simpler for clients. Would these things suit you or make life simpler for your clients too?

• A Search Engine Optimized theme that makes proper use of the H1 tags?
• Extensive theme options which eliminate the need to edit theme files?
• Custom fields for simple insertion of prices and payment button codes?
• Simple image management to help make semi-automated sites more ‘automated’ than ’semi’?
• Dateless posts that don’t immediately look like ‘yesterday’s news’?
• A theme that will show fancy headers, horizontal navigation, multiple sidebars, widgetized and featured areas, yet does not insist on it?
• Time freed up to make more money, play with the kids or snuggle up with your partner?

That all sounds very appealing, but there’s more. Buy of the Abundance theme includes…

• An illustrated user guide
• ‘The Keys To Affiliate Profits’ – a 129 page guide to affiliate marketing by the late, fantastic, Barry Richardson
• Favicon generation software to complete your site’s branding
• Free updates for the life of the theme

You can see the theme in action at abundancetheme.com where it demonstrates itself with small pieces about the various features, and also at…

And now there’s more! The Abundance Theme has just been updated to version 2.0, with even more features.

There’s a new navigation bar for categories in addition to the larger, main navigation bar. Both can be placed independently of each other either above or below the header, or not shown at all if necessary.

Content can now be positioned either to the left or to the right of the sidebar, and there’s a new widgetized area spanning the full width of the theme and running below the navigation/header area and directly above the content. Similar to the widgetized footer area, it will show three wide widgets instead of four narrower ones.

Although dateless by default apart from the javascript clock in the top left, Abundance 2.0 recognises that the content of some sites is more time-sensitive than others, and allows you the option of showing a date on post pages.

Most of the earlier demo sites will have been updated to version 2.0 by the time you read this, but you can most certainly see it in action by clicking on any of the links below…

Naturally the new version will be sent out free of charge to existing owners of the theme, and thanks go out to all those who suggested the new features.

For those yet to experience the ease and flexibility of The Abundance Theme, the theme with developer license is normally sold for $129.00, but Warriors only can snap up a copy for just $70.

[YES] Can be edited, including footer links
[YES] Can be used on all websites which you personally own
[YES] Can be sold as part of a website package.
[NO] Can be offered as a bonus or packaged with other products
[NO] Can be added to membership sites
[NO] Can be re-sold as a standalone WordPress theme
[NO] Can be given away
[NO] Can sell Resale Rights
[NO] Can sell Master Resale Rights
[NO] Can sell Private Mark Rights
[NO] Can claim authorship and copyright

Learn an abundance of free time, an abundance of features and an abundance of opportunities to earn more money, more quickly. Hit the button below to buy now.

If a developer license is too much for your needs, the single user version is available as a WSO here.