The Blogging Experiment Theme has been released by its owner Ben Cooke to help him become a self sufficient blogger within one year. The theme is nicely setup and ready for widgets and those popular 125 x 125 banner ads. It contains a wide sidebar as well as featured sections above the main text and below.
Personally I do like the setup of the as it allows blog owners to feature their best content as well as provide advertisers with enough room to showcase their products.
For those of you who wonder whether this is free, no it isn’t. It will cost $ 75 and is not refundable! Ben is also planning eventual updates and states that:
If updates are offered to an existing theme, existing users will be offered the updates free of charge. However, if a theme is released as a new theme with significant design changes and/or significant new features, there will be a charge.
If you have a look around the more popular blogs on the web you’ll see this kind of design layout everywhere. In my humble opinion it is a great price for a great layout if you are willing to pay a little money to have a “” theme.
If you are a bit of a wiz with coding, you can even customize the colors as seen in the following blogs. Just click on each image to go directly to the blogs shown.
To install the Blogging Experiment WordPress Theme you will need to be familiar to some degree with customization, widgets, Plugins and themes. There is also some help provided in the comment section, but it states that they won’t do a full term custom install.
The theme was released in December 2007 so it isn’t brand new either. But definitely worth a mention I think.
Here is how the bottom of the theme looks. As you can see, you have 3 div’s in which to place content.
You could use this for your:
- recent comments
- widget
- Bumpzee widget
- Top commenter’s
- Your image
- related links
- etc.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Looks like this sort of layout is the in-thing now. I will get used to the free themes from Justin Tadlock before I decide big time on this one.
It seems to be a growing trend to put quite a lot in the header area above the actual content.
It’s a nice clean and tidy theme, but I prefer themes where visitors can read the content without having to start scrolling down the page after just on eor two sentances..
MattG
I like the way it is set up with the wider sidebar, but I’m not so sure about the wide ban above the content. I can’t tell from the screenshot what is actually going on as it is blurred. I think Matt was right about the scrolling too. Sometimes when I’m stressed for time, I won’t scroll down – just read what’s above the fold and move on.
June
@ Kai: yes they are. I have seen them appear more and more since last year when I did a make over on my own blog. At that stage there were perhaps a handful of bloggers using those types of theme.
After that, it’s gone mad.
@ Matt: Partially I agree with you. I certainly think that the title of your very first posts should be above the fold. However, even with a normal theme you only see the first post anyway, before having to scroll down.
What’s great about these type of themes is the fact that you can actually showcase your best posts, as well as your last x amount of posts right there to show above the fold.
In my eyes, that can only be a huge bonus.
@ June: That ban you are referring to is like a “showcase” show and tell area. You can use it to showcase your best posts, your products, your links or whatever you choose to do.
Hi Monika,
I bought the blue-green variation of this theme this morning … just finished getting it set up. I’ve written before about being a bit of “theme junkie”. I’m hoping that by actually paying for one, I can help to reign in my wandering eye.
I’ve known for a while that I would eventually go to this type of theme. And like you said in your post above, at $75, the price is certainly right.
Catch up with you again soon,
Todd