I also wanted to create a design that put the emphasis on content and conversion.

The result is Kickstarter, a clean, simple skin that lacks clutter and gets you past the ‘out-of-the-box’ Thesis look and feel.

In coming up with the design, I asked myself what were some of the features I look for in a blog design as well as what were people asking for help with in the DIYthemes forums.

Features

Here are some of the features Kickstarter comes with:

• Custom styled Feedburner opt-in box
• Custom styled landing pages
• A widgetized footer for your copyright text
• Built in styling for Gravity Forms

And when I looked at some of the design customizations people were asking for help with in the forums, here are few popular requests I found:

• Nav menu displayed inline with the header
• Colored sidebar that runs the length of the theme
• Boxed hover effect over sidebar links

Although these features are relatively simple, non-coders often struggle to achieve them and that’s why I chose to include them in Kickstarter.

And by keeping the overall design simple and neutral, you have the opportunity to change the look of your site simply by changing the primary link color and/or the nav bar colors.

Out of the box Kickstarter comes in a nice red (#B81919), but you could easily change it to the Thesis default blue (#2361A1) or a nice green (#539C0f).

Designed for Conversion

The two most important features are the baked in styles for the Feedburner opt-in box and custom landing pages because they should help improve your conversion.

A well designed opt-in box that integrates seamlessly into your site is important for building trust and looking professional. Unfortunately the default code that Feedburner supplies creates a form that often looks un-styled and out of place. Kickstarter solves this with styling that makes your Feedburner widget look great in your sidebar.

Landing pages are also “mission critical” when you want people to take a desired form of action. Whether you’re trying to cash in with a sales page or grow your list with an email opt-in page, conversion improves with a focused design that does away with the regular sidebars and other distractions.

With Kickstarter you can activate a custom landing page simply by selecting ‘No Sidebars’ from the ‘Template’ drop-down when editing a page in WordPress.

So if you’re in the market for a Thesis skin and want a de-cluttered look that puts the emphasis on content and conversion, then Kickstarter will get you up and running quickly.

Plus it’s free .

Click the button below to download Kickstarter now:

Running Thesis 1.81? Please use this thesis-all-options.dat file instead of the one included in the download above which is for Thesis 1.8.

Installing Kickstarter

Installing Kickstarter is quick and easy:

• Download and unzip the Kickstarter Skin from the link above.
• In your WordPress dashboard go to Thesis » Manage Options
• Under ‘All Options’, click ‘Upload’ and select the .dat file that came in the Kickstarter download
• Open your FTP program and replace the Thesis 1.8 ‘Custom’ folder on your server with the Kickstarter ‘Custom’ folder
• In your WordPress dashboard got to Thesis » Site Options and click the save button. Then go to Thesis » Design Options and click the save button
• Refresh your site and Kickstarter should be successfully installed

Reminder: replacing the ‘Custom’ folder will cause you to lose any existing customizations you’ve made to your custom.css and custom_functions.php files.

Adding a header image

The optimal height for your header image is 100 pixels high. The maximum width of your header will depend on the number of tabs in your nav menu but you should be ok with an image 500 pixels wide or less.

To upload your header, go to Thesis » Header Image » Upload in your WordPress dashboard.

Feedburner Email Integration

Adding an email opt-in form from your Feedburner account is easy.

First, in your Feedburner account make sure you’ve activated email subscriptions by going to Publicize » Email Subscriptions and clicking ‘Activate’.

Next, add a Text Widget to your WordPress blog sidebar in Appearance » Widgets.

Paste the following code into the text widget:

<form action="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify" method="post" target="popupwindow" onsubmit="window.open('http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ContentConverts', 'popupwindow', 'scrollbars=yes,width=550,height=520');return true"><p>Get updates delivered straight to your email inbox:</p><p><input id="emailinput" type="text" style="width:220px" name="email"/></p><input type="hidden" value="ContentConverts" name="uri"/><input type="hidden" name="loc" value="en_US"/><input id="emailsubmit" type="submit" value="Get updates!" /></form>

Make sure you replace both areas in the code snippet where XXXXXX appears with your Feedburner feed title which you can find at the end of your feed URL.

You can also change the call to action text to whatever you want.

Click save and you’re all set.

Using Landing Pages

Here’s how to take advantage of the built in landing page styling that comes with Kickstarter.

First create a new page in WordPress. On the right-hand side of the page under the Page Attributes » Template drop-down select “No Sidebars”.

Click save or publish and that’s it!

And don’t forget Kickstarter’s landing pages come with custom styling for Thesis’ built in ‘alert’ class.

Adding Feedburner Opt-in forms to your landing pages

If you want to add a sharp looking opt-in form to your landing pages, simply paste the same Feedburner code snippet above into your landing page but add

<div class="optin">

before the code and

</div>

after the code.

Make sure you’re in the HTML editor, not the Visual editor when you’re pasting in code

You can see an example in action on the live demo landing page.

Widgetized Footer Copyright

To edit the copyright text in your footer, go to Appearance » Widgets and add a new text widget to the ‘Footer Copyright’ widget area.

Leave the title of the widget blank and add your copyright text to the body of the text widget and click save.

Get started with Kickstarter now:

Running Thesis 1.81? Please use this thesis-all-options.dat file instead of the one included in the download above which is for Thesis 1.8.

If you need help with installation, customization or opt-in form integration for services like Aweber or Mailchimp, make sure you check out my support packages.

And if you have any questions about using Kickstarter, please leave them in the comments below.

Including some on how to install Thesis.

But many assume you have a basic understanding of web hosting, installing WordPress and using FTP to upload files to your server.

This tutorial is assumes none of that and is aimed at beginners who want to get their first self-hosted WordPress site up and running on the Thesis Theme for WordPress, all in three simple steps.

To get started, watch the video tutorial below.

The Beginners Guide to Installing Thesis

The video below was made with novices in mind and shows you what I think is the easiest way to get a brand new WordPress site up and running on the Thesis Theme.

Resources: Bluehost | Thesis Theme

You can check out the example site we created here.

What if I Already Own My Domain?

If you already bought your domain with a domain registrar like Godaddy, all you need to do is point it at Bluehost’s servers. The video below will show you how.

Bluehost nameservers: ns1.bluehost.com | ns2.bluehost.com

Free Thesis Set up

If you’d like to forget the tech stuff just start blogging, I’ve got a special offer that will allow you to get WordPress and Thesis installed for free. You can find out more about that here.

If you have any questions about the above tutorials or installing Thesis, be sure to leave them in the comments below.

And make sure you don’t miss out on future Thesis tutorials by subscribing for free updates:

If used correctly this technique can get you more readers, subscribers and sales.

Used incorrectly this technique can also cost you subscribers, customers and sales.

Which technique am I talking about?

Read on.

Curiosity: A Powerful Sales Trigger

There’s no doubt curiosity is a powerful copywriting technique.

Utilizing the curiosity appeal increases your prospects desire to not only read your copy, but also take action to satisfy their curiosity. Combined with strong benefits, curiosity simply adds another layer of desire to your sales message.

As humans, being curious about something kinda drives us crazy. We feel that powerful urge to “scratch the itch”, it’s just the way we’re wired.

That’s why top copywriters recommend using curiosity in your headlines to pull readers into your copy. It’s also why they combine it so often with fascinating bullet points which have the ability to make your offer seem irresistible.

Curiosity can get people off twitter and onto your blog. It can get them to download your free report and join your email list. And, It can get them to buy your product.

As long as you don’t reveal too much.

When Curiosity Kills the Cat Sale

When it comes to using curiosity in a selling environment, there are certain situations and products where revealing too much can cost you sales.

Expert copywriter, John Caples warns against this downfall in his classic book Tested Advertising Methods.

He explains how satisfying curiosity instead of arousing it resulted in him not buying a book he was initially interested in.

Some time ago I read a review of a new novel. This review aroused my curiosity about the novel and I considered buying it. A few days later I saw an advertisement for the same novel. The advertisement contained several long quotations from the book itself. I read these quotations. They revealed so much of the plot of the story that my curiosity was satisfied and I decided not to buy the book. A book review had practically persuaded me to buy the book. An advertisement lost the sale by satisfying my curiosity. – John Caples

The same effect occurs when you see a movie preview that leaves you feeling like you’ve just seen the whole movie.

Obviously this scenario doesn’t apply to all products such as software and physical items like electronics. In those situations you can use curiosity to get attention, but it’s better to list your features and benefits and give your prospect as much information as possible to help them make a buying decision.

But when it comes to things like ebooks, free reports, webinars and info products, watch out when describing your product you don’t give away the farm.

Focus on telling enough to arouse curiosity but hold back from satisfying it.

Try picking out the major benefits or “ah ha” insights your product offers and describe the result the prospect will get. Not how they will get there.

For example if you have a free report about weight loss, you could describe it in the following way.

In this report you’ll discover:

• The one food that helps you recover from your “cheat day”.
• Why exercise is not the best way to lose weight… and what is.
• The simple way to avoid junk food cravings.

Copy like this describes the outcome without filling in the gaps that will leave your prospect satisfied. Instead your prospect will have to take action to discover the solution.

As Caples says, “An advertisement that gives away its secret in advance is like a magician who shows the audience the secret of his tricks before he performs them.”

And the same rules apply online.

Or maybe you’re currently using WordPress.com and are thinking about buying Thesis but heard it requires “web hosting” and think it sounds technically intimidating.

Well, I’ve created a nifty infographic that spells out exactly what you need to get your Thesis site off the ground.

Click the image to view the full size version and find out more about an upcoming video tutorial.

Download the PDF or view the full size version of the Infographic →

Get more information about how to use these services and strategically market your business online.

This Dodo knows how to sell

If you look around, most businesses are Dodos when it comes to marketing and selling their products online.

Their websites are out of date and clumsy, and their online sales are all but extinct.

Whether it’s a ugly website or the inability to communicate what makes their offering remarkable, plenty of businesses struggle to present a professional online presence that builds trust and gets people to pull out their credit cards.

However, there are businesses that are doing it right and as it turns out you have to be a Dodo to copy them.

In this case I use the word Dodo because I’m referring to the company DODOcase. DODOcase makes high-end iPad cases and have sold more than 10,000 units at $60 a pop because they understand how to present and position their product to consumers.

Let’s look at how they do it.

1. Attractive Design that Showcases Your Product

Lets face it, people definitely judge a book by it’s cover. Humans prefer things that are pleasing to the eye and subsequently place a higher value on them.

Therefore how you “package” your business with your website is just as important as how you package and design your products themselves. In fact both need to work hand in hand.

And even though every product isn’t exciting or sexy, a website can still package and present a boring product it in a beautiful way.

For physical products, this means professional photographs that don’t look like they were taken with your point and shoot camera at your kitchen table.

And for digital products like online training and software, you can still “package” them with a great looking website, sales page or even graphical representations created with e-cover software.

DODOcase does an excellent job showcasing both their product with beautiful photography, as well as their company with an attractive website.

The fist thing you see when you land on their site is a gorgeous slideshow that takes up a large amount of real estate. They have a physical, and very visual product so showcasing it in this fashion is a good way to introduce it to visitors.

But what if you’re selling a digital product like software? Well a slideshow with a bunch of screenshots might be okay, but a video demonstrating how the product works would be more effective.

What you present visitors with first depends on what you’re offering but it needs to be visually appealing.

2. Tell A Story – Position Your Business

“It’s the story, not the good or the service you actually sell, that pleases the customer.” – Seth Godin

Telling a story about your business and your products is ultimately what makes someone choose your offering over the competition.

Unless you tell a story that carves out a unique position or premise in your prospects mind, you’re simply competing on price which you always want to avoid.

“The Rolls Royce of iPad cases”

The DODOcase story is about a small group of artisans in San Fransisco who use traditional book-binding techniques to make handcrafted cases that feel like hardcover books but are adapted to modern devices like the iPad.

Even though at its core the DODOcase is just an iPad case, the story behind it makes it more than that. It’s no longer just about protecting your iPad but also about using quality materials, supporting local artisans and taking traditional techniques and adapting them to modern technology.

DODOcase makes your iPad better by telling you a story. And the story is what makes you want to buy a case from them instead of the competition, regardless of price.

Storytelling works when the story actually makes the product better.

3. Social Proof

If you’re a blogger then you already know the important role social proof plays in making your content seem more valuable.

As long as you have decent numbers, highlighting elements like the number of blog comments, subscribers and retweets your blog generates helps to provide visitors with quick-reference cues for deciding whether your stuff is worth reading.

But what about a small business website? Even one without a blog?

Well, social proof is just as important. Things like customer testimonials, media mentions or even displaying positive tweets about your business can act as important psychological triggers that work to build trust and help convert visitors into customers.

DODOcase places a large focus on using social proof as a trust building tool on their website by prominently displaying quotes and logos linking to leading tech blogs and mainstream media that have mentioned or endorsed their product.

Even if you don’t bother reading the reviews, just seeing those logos tells you these guys have a product worth talking about and therefore probably worth buying.

What’s Missing?

DODOcase does an exellent job showcasing their product, telling their story and building trust with social proof, but they also have a few opportunities they could take advantage of to really take things to the next level.

Content Strategy
While they have a blog, it’s mainly company focused comprised of announcements and news related to their products.

To ramp up their content marketing efforts even more they could shift to a more customer focused approach and start posting iPad tips and tutorials or even app reviews.

This would help them begin to pull in more traffic from search engines and social media sharing sites where this kind of content is particularly popular among gadget geeks and travels easily on places like Twitter.

Content that’s valuable on its own and lacks and immediate sales pitch is really what we’re really talking about. You give something away for free (iPad tips, tutorials and reviews) and sell something related (iPad cases).

Email list building
Once a more robust content marketing strategy is in place, so is the foundation for building an email list of prospects who haven’t bought yet. Folks come for the helpful free content and sign up for email updates which in turn gives you permission to take them off road to sell once in a while.

What about you? Do you know of any other sites doing a good job when it comes to selling online?

This is not your typical Thesis WordPress review.

The technical in’s and out’s of Thesis have been well covered throughout the blogosphere so I’m not going to go into them in too much detail here, but I will review some of the new features in Thesis 1.8.

I’ll also help you decide if you think Thesis might be right for you.

But first, here’s a quick story about how I came to buy the Thesis Theme for WordPress in the first place back in 2009.

Discovering Blogging

Before I ever heard of Thesis, and before Thesis was ever created, I used to stumble across Thesis creator Chris Pearson’s personal site once in a while. This was back sometime around 2005 when I was starting to become curious about websites and blogs.

Blogger
At first I tried out Blogger and created a haphazard food blog about cooking, which is one of my passions. I threw up three quick posts, peppered the site with Adsense and waited for the money to come pouring in.

Although it’s laughable when I think about it now, I try to keep in mind that everyone starts somewhere.

I began using Google in an effort to discover what blogging was all about and how to make it work. Along with obvious sites like Problogger, Pearsonified was one site that kept popping up in my search results.

I remember being impressed by Chris’ design and free themes, but confused about the content in his posts. I had zero knowledge about WordPress, SEO, hosting or how to use “themes”. It all seemed like one big daunting tech mystery.

These frustrations, combined with zero Adsense revenue (big surprise) was enough to put the whole website/blogging thing on the back-burner.

WordPress.com
A year a so later during university I started to create some hobby sites for friends and social events I was involved with on the free Wordrpress.com platform. I thought its default themes were a bit slicker than what Blogger was offering.

I knew there was a WordPress.org option but it involved web hosting which I found intimidating. Plus I was busy with school.

After I graduated in 2006, I wanted to create a site of my own but I was still unsatisfied with the look and feel and lack of flexibility WordPress.com offered. So I set out to figure out how to use the WordPress.org software.

I was also starting to read sites like Problogger and Copyblogger more and noticed they were using WordPress.

WordPress.org

Eventually I felt like I had enough information and was ready to push myself out of my comfort zone and purchase web hosting. Although I was still uneasy about using FTP, I was able to get WordPress and a couple free themes installed.

I recall being very happy about this breakthrough. However, my happiness soon turned to frustration and disappointment as I simply could not figure out how to get the themes to work properly or customized in the slightest.

Then I remembered Pearsonified. I headed back and it was like a brand new site that suddenly made sense to me. On my previous visits to the site I wasn’t ready yet for the resources available.

Now I was.

It was fall 2008 and Chris had a post about a theme he had recently released called Thesis. I had a feeling it was going to be a solid product.

Part of the reason was because Chris had demonstrated his abilities with his own design and his free themes. I also got the sense from his content that taking shortcuts wasn’t his style and that he cared deeply about getting things right from a coding and design standpoint.

Thesis looked great and I actually viewed having to pay for a theme as a positive and not a negative. As far as I was concerned it meant less people would have it and my blog would be more professional and less cookie cutter. That’s changed now because a lot of people own Thesis, but at the same time it’s getting even easier to customize.

Back then I thought it was mind blowing just to be able to select the number of columns on your blog and move them around with the click of a mouse. That feature alone sold me.

Learning how to build websites

Purchasing the Thesis Theme for WordPress was a turning point for me online. I was starting to create websites for some of my relatives who have businesses and Thesis allowed me to create a professional web presence with very limited coding knowledge.

But I was determined to learn how to fully customize Thesis and the support forums were the perfect classroom. They make learning HTML and CSS so much easier because every forum thread is like its own customization case study.

Could I have learned how to develop and customize WordPress websites with another premium theme? Probably. Have I tried other premium themes? Yes. And they all have their positives and negatives.

But I started out on Thesis so it will always have a special place in my heart.

Even with the recent drama regarding Thesis and the GPL – and the fact that some influential bloggers are trying different themes right now – it doesn’t change the fact that Thesis makes building great looking sites super easy.

So what’s new in Thesis 1.8?

Thesis 1.8 has just been released and it’s another step in the right direction, especially for novice users.

Here’s a select look at some of the new features in 1.8. (For a full list of features, head over to DIYthemes)

Header Image Uploader
As far as I’m concerned, for the everyday user, this is the most important new feature in Thesis 1.8. Adding a header image is the first thing everybody wants to do when they create a new website or blog.

The ability to do this without having to touch any code has been a major request in the forums and I’m glad this feature has now arrived. What’s also great is that Thesis recommends the optimal width for your header based on the size of your content columns. Now even the most inexperienced users can give their site a unique look and feel with the click of a mouse.

SEO Character Counters

This is a small but nifty feature that I really like. Thesis already comes with the ability to customize the title tags and meta descriptions of your blog posts but you had to count each character to make sure you weren’t going over the limit Google would display on SERP‘s.

Now as you type your title tags and meta descriptions Thesis counts the number of characters just like Twitter does when you’re typing a tweet.

Favicon Uploader

If you’re anything like me then you usually have at least five tabs open in your internet browser at all times. Adding a favicon to your site makes it easy for users to identify which tab belongs to your site and it’s one more opportunity to add a bit more branding.

Support for Google Fonts
I’m a bit of a font junkie so I was excited to see Thesis 1.8 provided support for the Google Font Directory. That’s 28 new fonts that you can play with. Pretty sweet.

Plus the fonts are all web safe. In other words, every user can see them no matter what browser they use.

Category/Tag/Taxonomy Page Options
A cool new feature in Thesis 1.8 for those who want get a little more advanced is the ability to edit the headline, add introductory content and customize the SEO options for your category pages.

This is exciting because it allows you to create content rich pages that are highly optimized for different topics organized by category. And if you wanted, you could use your new customized category pages as way to organize and handle the cornerstone content on your site.

The bottom line

Since I first bought Thesis, I’m happy to say that Thesis and the DIYthemes support forums have taught me a tremendous amount about building websites which is a service I’m now able to offer to other people.

Plus there’s an affiliate program that allows you to promote Thesis and earn cash. And it works. The first dollar I ever earned online was through Thesis, so yes I will get a commission if you buy Thesis through my link.

If there’s one small knock on Thesis, it’s that to make it look highly customized you do need to get into a little bit of code.

But again, with every new release, Thesis keeps getting more “point and click.” And if you’re inclined to learn a little code, Thesis and the DIYthemes forums are the perfect place to start.

For me, Thesis was the final destination in my journey to create a website that I was really proud of.

Three Reasons Why Thesis is Worth it

• Thesis is easy to use. You know that exciting fuzzy feeling you get when you experience a breakthrough and figure something out? When you buy Thesis and start playing with the design controls you’ll have more of these than you can handle. And if you get stuck, the super-active support forums have you covered

• Thesis gets the first sentence read. Let’s face it, amateur design turns people off and cheapens your content. And if you ever want to sell something, your design better convey trust. Even out of the box, Thesis looks good enough to keep people around and convince them to give your content a shot.

• Thesis is inexpensive. The previous blogging, kumbaya-mindset of “everything should be free” has shifted. Free doesn’t necessarily mean good anymore and now more than ever people are willing to pay for the perfect solutions to their problems. At $167 for the Developer’s Option and only $87 for the Personal Option, Thesis is a small (but critical) investment in the business or project you’re ready to pour your blood, sweat and tears into.

For content marketers, bloggers and small business owners, Thesis will get you up and running quickly with a slick looking, search engine optimized content platform. And under the current pricing structure you get lifetime free upgrades.

Plus, there’s a risk-free 30 day money back guarantee.

So if you’re looking for a good theme framework to get started on, you’ll get a lot of value out of Thesis.