For one small annual fee, the Elegant Themes club membership gives you access to their entire growing portfolio of premium themes, which as of the writing of this post currently stands at an amazing 76 premium themes. This gives you access to a large number of premium themes to choose from and is especially great for someone with limited coding skills or someone with a large number of websites/blogs. And the best part of being a member? The Elegant Themes club continues to grow each month as new premium themes are released for FREE to all of their 100,000+ members.

Each theme from Elegant Themes includes the following core list of features:

• Intuitive ePanel theme options page to give your site flexibility
• Strong focus on support and community
• Advertisement Management
• Search Engine Optimization
• Cross-browser compatibility guaranteed
• Frequent theme additions and upgrades

So why would a site dedicated to providing WordPress hacks write about Elegant Themes?  Well this week I am proud to announce that we’ve managed to partner with Elegant Themes to host a giveaway of three memberships to their exclusive theme club. If you’d like to win, all you need to do is leave a comment below explaining why you deserve to win one of these three Elegant Themes club memberships! We’ll announce the winners next Saturday, May 26th, 2012.

Update: Congrats to our winners, Marc Forrest, Steve Robillard, and Jon Owen!!

While long-lasting SEO is hard work, that doesn’t mean you can’t take steps to make it easier. That’s where a CMS like WordPress can team up with a variety of tools and plugins that will both save you time and produce better results for SEO on your website and blog.

Use a SEO-Friendly Theme for WordPress

You can create great, relevant content on your company’s blog, but if a search engine can’t sort out the code on your website and find your blog, there’s no point in writing it. Opinions vary about the benefit of paying for an SEO-optimized WordPress theme, but the key is picking out a theme that has clean, search engine-friendly code. Paying $50-$100 for a solid, SEO-optimized theme won’t hurt, but picking out a sharp theme with cluttered code will.

There are a number of WordPress themes that boast the ability to boost your search engine ranking. Some free themes such as Vigilance provide a clean, SEO-friendly design that website developers can modify and optimize.  However, if you want to increase your search engine ranking right from the start, consider a premium WordPress theme.

After switching to the Standard Theme, publishing and leadership blogger Michael Hyatt reported:

According to my Google Analytics account, my visitors have increased by 38.4% and my page views by 43.8% in the week following the installation compared to the week before… I really think Standard Theme’s native search engine optimization (SEO) accounts for most of the uptick.

The jury is still out regarding which theme is the best. For example, a recent review of Thesis and Genesis showed that they both offer many of the same features, and that the best theme may come down to personal preference and familiarity. You’ll find advocates of many premium themes, but for the purposes of SEO, each puts you on the right course.

Optimize WordPress with Plugins

There are many WordPress plugins that you can install in order to improve your website’s SEO, but there are only two main plugins that you need in order to immediately take your website’s SEO to the next level. For starters, you could carefully sort through your website and build a site map in order to make it friendly for search engines, or you could install and Google XML Sitemap plugin and get back to creating top notch content. It’s really that simple to create a sitemap with WordPress.

Another top plugin for WordPress is the All in One SEO plugin. This plugin enhances both your site’s overall SEO and the SEO of each individual blog post, helping to optimize your titles and meta-tags, while also providing customization options for more advanced users. The All in One SEO dashboards for the post editing screen and for the general site are easy to use and provide SEO benefits “right out of the box.”

Invite Search Engines with Scribe SEO

While Scribe SEO is still technically a WordPress plugin, it is a premium service that requires a monthly fee. Though Scribe SEO may not be ideal for the casual blogger, its SEO services are perfect for bloggers who want a sure-fire way to quickly optimize their blog posts for SEO.

After creating your blog post, Scribe SEO “shows you keyword phrases you might have missed… tells you how to gently tweak it to spoon feed search engines based on 15 SEO best practices… [and] tools help[s] you build back links from other sites, crosslink the content within your own site, and identify influential social media users who want to share your stuff.”

This SEO tool takes all of the guesswork out of the process and lets you know how effective your efforts are. When you consider what it may cost to pay for an SEO writing course and the uncertain benefits that may come from it, Scribe SEO is a tool that will be well worth the investment if used properly.

SEO requires effort, but it doesn’t have to be such a time-consuming investment. By using the right tools, you can make the most of your SEO efforts and see dramatic increases in traffic to your website.

WordPress blogs are:

• Free
• Easy to set up
• Easy to share

The attendees rush home, set up a blog, and begin posting. A few weeks later they hit a wall. No one is reading their posts, let alone sharing them. Ideas for new posts have dried up. What went wrong?

Whether you’ve been blogging for a long time or you’re hoping to launch one soon, here are eight things you need to know about launching and maintaining a blog:

1. Understand Your Audience

People want stories or a high value offer that will help them. You need to communicate in terms that they can identify with or you need to offer them something valuable that they actually want.

Even if your blog is focusing on bare facts or industry trends, look for a narrative hook or brief anecdote that will draw readers into your post. Most blog readers scan posts for key content, but if you can’t figure out a way to draw them in, your hard work will go to waste.

2. Research Your Material

If you don’t have solid content and unique ideas that take stock of what’s been written before, chances are you won’t add anything valuable to what exists online. Why should readers visit your particular blog?

Read the blogs and magazines of your industry, and pay attention to any bestselling books. Look for fascinating angles on a story and explore counter intuitive or fresh ways to write about your topics. Spend some time learning how other professionals research so that you are never stuck with blank page syndrome.

3. Develop a Specific Niche for Your Writing

Readers need to have clear expectations for what they’re going to find at your blog. Quality is important, but the subject is equally as important as your craft. Your posts should meet a strict subject criteria that help ensure you’re writing material that meets the needs of your specific audience.

4. Network with Other Bloggers

Guest posts and comments on other blogs are critical in growing your blog’s audience. Fellow bloggers are part of the conversation, not your competition. In fact, failing to network with fellow bloggers may be the main reason why your blog fails to attract readers.

5. Time Your Posts

By setting up an auto-post for 4 AM Eastern Time, you’ll put your work in front of a greater number of readers as they begin their days. If you’re relying on social media to share your content with readers, late afternoon, especially on Friday, is ideal for Twitter, while evenings and Saturdays are ideal for sharing on Facebook.

6. Use a Blogging Platform That Can Grow with You

Too many blogs are launched without giving thought to the future. While services such as Tumblr, Blogger, and Typepad create respectable blogs with some good features, the most complete blogging platform today is WordPress. The plug-ins and variety of themes accommodate a wide variety of blog formats. See “10 Reasons to Use WordPress”  for more.

7. Your Blog’s Design is Important… to a Point

There are some bloggers who have been wildly successful with only a basic Blogger design or ho hum WordPress theme that is a dime a dozen. However, these bloggers have effectively networked and shared critically important content that trumps site design. Readers want the information they’re sharing, and therefore the same old blog theme isn’t a major setback for them.

While all of the above is true, you need a site design that makes your content easy to read and offers a professional presentation of yourself. If you’re launching a blog today where the competition for readers is fierce, you can’t afford to overlook your blog design. A professional design will lend greater credibility to your site, setting you apart from the guy who tosses up a blog post each evening in his bathrobe and slippers. In addition, an optimized WordPress Theme will offer greater SEO capabilities. Besides, it’s easy enough to customize a WordPress Theme if you want your site to stand out from the crowd.

If you’re starting out, check out this list of the best free WordPress themes or look for a list that includes some of the top premium themes if you want an extra edge on your site’s design. Don’t forget that WordPress.org has a gallery of themes you can use.

8. Invite Your Readers Back

Most visitors to your blog will not think of returning unless you make it simple for them to do. Make it easy for them to subscribe by RSS or e-mail, but also consider signing them up for a weekly e-mail digest of your posts through a service such as MailChimp. This will ensure they see all of your posts without cluttering their inbox. Some readers prefer daily updates, but giving them a weekly digest option will appeal to certain segments of your audience.

Your blog is a valuable tool for your business, but using it effectively requires planning and the right tools. Blogs are long term investments that can pay off if you plan them correctly.

If you are trying to figure out which blogging platform is right for you, here are 7 benefits to blogging with WordPress:

1. It’s Cost-Efficient

One of the great things about WordPress is how cost-efficient it is. You can start blogging for free. WordPress is a free, open source platform that allows you to reach your audience free of charge. Additionally, there are paid upgrades that you can use to increase the attractiveness and customizability of your blog. However, even the paid features of WordPress are reasonably priced, meaning that you can get a high quality platform without paying a premium price.

2. Integrate with Your Website

WordPress is also easy to integrate with your website. WordPress is compatible with a number of control panels, and you can add a blog to almost any site with the help of WordPress. Blogging with WordPress is easy to start, and it’s easy to ensure that your blog is fully integrated with your brand and your website.

3. Simple Interface

The WordPress blogging platform is easy to use. The interface is easy to use, and intuitive. It’s easy to add images, video, and more. You can easily format posts, without the need to know html (although there are options that allow you to easily work in html, if that is your preference). Someone with very limited knowledge of the Internet and technology can start blogging quickly and easily with WordPress.

4. Very Customizable

It’s easy to let your personality show through in your WordPress blog because the platform is very customizable. There are a number of “themes” that you can choose from. You can even add your own code and develop a look all your own. There are ways to customize how your blog appears, as well as how public you want your blog. Customize settings to determine who can read your blog, who can comment, and even add extra authors with limited credentials. You can also customize your categories and tags, and other aspects of your blog.

5. SEO Compatible

WordPress is easy to optimize for search. You will find that WordPress comes with a number of options that allow you to optimize your blog for search engines. It’s possible to add descriptions and keywords that make it easier for search engines to find your blog. WordPress is quickly indexed in the search engines, and you can find yourself in search results fairly easily.

6. Resists Spam

You also end up with good spam protection with WordPress. WordPress makes use of Akismet, a popular and effective spam blocker. You can weed out spammy comments automatically, boosting the credibility of the site, and preventing you from having to go through so much spam on your own. WordPress can help you avoid being buried by spam.

7. Encourages Reader Interaction

WordPress also makes it easy for you to interact with readers. You can set up notifications when you receive comments so that you can keep up with what is happening with your readers. Control who can visit your blog, excluding trolls, and encouraging good community members. It is easy to build a community on WordPress, attracting loyal followers.

Due to the flexibility and the options offered by WordPress, it can be a great choice for any blogger. You can customize to fit your needs, and it is a great tool to grow your blog following.

That being said, money and art have to mix at some point. You need your money to support your art, whatever it may be, and that is equally true for bloggers and other authors online.

So how do you make money from your WordPress blog without selling your soul? There are many different ways you do that, but it’s important to find the right model that works for you, your niche and your site.

1. Advertising and Sponsorships

For many, advertising is a foul word. However, it doesn’t have to be if done well.  Advertising that isn’t intrusive and doesn’t get mixed in with the content can be a very simple and safe way to earn money from your site. However, this means keeping your ads away from your editorial content physically and figuratively, ensuring a total separation of the paid message from your creative one.

This can be tricky if you find yourself writing about the companies that advertise on your site (it might be wise to favor sponsorships as you can control who advertises better), but with proper disclosure this doesn’t have to be a major problem.

All in all, if you don’t intrude on your readers needlessly and don’t let your advertisers influence your work, you can host ads on your site without worrying sacrificing your integrity.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing, such as through Amazon, Commission Junction and other companies, can be a very risky way to earn money from your site. However, if you properly disclose your affiliate links and, once again, don’t let your potential to earn money color your opinions you should still be able to sleep at night.

Though this seems simple, it can be very difficult. Giving a bad review of a product means making less money on it from affiliate marketing. However, giving a good review just to earn the extra money is the very definition of selling your soul (not to mention your readers) to the highest bidder.

That’s why it’s important with affiliate marketing to maintain your disclosure at all times and always write as if there were no affiliate links at all. This will help your readers trust your opinions more and, in the long run, buy more of the products you do recommend.

3. Sell Products

Selling both physical and digital products on your site is often a natural way to earn cash without worrying too much about the moral implications. After all, since you aren’t working for third parties, there are fewer conflicts that can create ethical dilemmas.

However, it’s important to remember that, as with advertising, you don’t want to overload your reader with promotion and you have to make sure that the products you sell fit you and your brand.

For example, a site about physical fitness probably doesn’t want to sell bottle openers. Finding merchandise that can fit well with your brand and your message can be a great way not only to earn money, but also provide additional benefit to your site’s readers.

4. Sell Services

Selling services, such as consulting, design or writing, can also be a natural way to earn money. As with selling products, there tends to be fewer potential conflicts. However, you can still run into them as you may have to write about companies you consult or otherwise work for.

As with other means of earning revenue, it is important to disclose any relationships you have with the parties you write about. However, it’s also important to respect the confidentiality of your clients and never reveal information told to you in confidence.

Always remember, with your services, that your writing is the advertisement to lure people in for your services. Though it might be tempting to hang onto information that may be of value to your clients, you have to remember that your clients are paying for your time, not just your knowledge.

There is no way that mere words on a screen can take away from that.

Therefore, it’s very rare that you should not give away information for free out of fear it could hurt your business.

5. Speaking

Finally, bloggers are a hot commodity in many circles for speaking engagements and some earn a good living doing little else other than traveling the world and being paid to speak at various events.

This can be a difficult niche to break into and it may require many years of constant promotion and speaking at free events to build up a reputation. However, once you do it can be a fun, fast-paced and lucrative business.

Still, it’s important to remember that your message needs to remain consistent. This can be hard when companies and conferences may want you to change what you say for their audience. You need to be clear and consistent, and that may mean turning down some jobs to keep your integrity intact.

In the end, the most important word you need to learn when it comes to making money from your site and not selling your soul is “No.”

Learning when and how to say “No” is crucial to maintaining the important balance between your blog and your finances. It can be tough, especially when times are tight. However, those who maintain their integrity do much better in the long run than those who sell it off.

After all, with both blogging and business, trust is everything. If you’ve sold off your integrity, there’s no way others can trust you and that impacts both your readers and potential future business partners.

On the other hand, if you’re the person everyone looks up to, then they will also be clamoring to hear what you say and to do business with you. At that point, most likely, the money will start to find you.

Of course not. That’s why many sites direct mobile traffic to sub-domains (e.g. “example.com” becomes “mobile.example.com”), a workable solution if you have time to generate new versions of each page from scratch.

Luckily for WordPress users, mobile themes like WPTouch and WordPress Mobile Pack offer a better alternative to mobile sub-domains. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. Maintenance

Having a mobile sub-domain requires you to maintain multiple versions of each and every page – a laborious task if you don’t have a large staff.

Mobile themes, on the other hand, simply deliver all of your existing content in a mobile-friendly format. You can maintain your site as usual and rest assured that everything will display properly in mobile browsers.

2. SEO

When other sites link to your content, those links help you rank higher in the search engines. If you have multiple domains, all of which have different permalinks for each page, you forfeit your ability to rank well in the search listings.

Think of it this way: I post an update on my blog and get 10 links. 5 of those links are from desktop users, and they point to the post on my main domain. The other 5 links come from mobile users, all of whom were redirected from my main domain to a dedicated mobile sub-domain. Their links go to the mobile version of the post – the one they pulled up on their phones.

Instead of getting 10 links for my post, I really only got 5 for each version – a situation that leads to lower overall rankings for my content.

With a mobile WordPress theme, however, your content stays in one place. The page you serve to mobile visitors is the same one that exists on your main domain – everyone who links to it is linking to the same page.

3. Sharing

Mobile sub-domains can also cause social media havoc.

Let’s say you tweet a link from your phone and your colleague clicks it on her desktop computer. She’ll get the mobile version of the site that you tweeted – a version that is probably all text, heavily compressed into a tiny column, and devoid of any navigational links to help her explore other corners of your site.

This is not good for the user, and it’s unlikely that she’ll share any of your content with others.

Again, your mobile WordPress theme can save the day here. With no separate link for anyone to share, you don’t risk serving the wrong version of your site to any visitors.

And since several mobile themes are free, there’s little reason to put off “mobilizing” your site any longer. Spend an afternoon setting up a mobile WordPress theme and stop missing out on all that great traffic.

This post was contributed by Adam Green. Adam writes copy for tech companies and stays up to speed on enterprise fraud management software as best he can. Follow him on Twitter @IAmAdamGreen.

The WPCandy post was advocating that theme designers should stop bundling WordPress plugins and other functionality which limits how easily users can switch themes, something which I feel is absolutely a good idea. But that’s not what I want to talk about in this post — I want to focus specifically on the issue raised in the WPLift post — building plugins directly into themes.

The post shows you how to add the DP Twitter Widget into your theme; it’s literally a case of copying a pasting the plugin’s code into your functions.php. In fact it’s so easy that there’s no reason not to build every single widget and plugin you can think of under the sun into your theme, right?

Unfortunately it’s a little more complicated than that and for the rest of this post I’ll set out exactly why that’s the case.

Firstly, the second you build a plugin into your theme, you’re assuming responsibility and are obliged to support the plugin, so if anything breaks in future updates, you’ll need to be able to fix it. Say the plugin used Ben’s timthumb and updating was an absolute necessity, the onus would then be on you to provide the update by offering an entire theme upgrade rather than just a simple plugin update independent of the theme.

Second, what’s the point? The functionality you’re providing already exists and unless you’re significantly changing the plugin, I’m struggling to see the point of just duplicating functionality. Sure, you get to brag about how your theme has thousands upon thousands of built in widgets and it makes everything really fun and it’ll do everything you’ve ever wanted, but by just adding a plugin that already exists into your theme, you’re just adding something I can do already by installing plugins. Plus, I’ll not lose everything in two years when I decide I need to overhaul the look of my site! And hey, there are sites like mine out there which show you how to do things like building a WordPress powered email newsletter without plugins anyway!

I’m not just wagging fingers from the rooftops — this was a mistake I made when I launched my ill fated theme site, WPShift nearly two years ago. At the time having a ton of functionality in a theme was the way to go and we made a decision that we would go down the route of essentially just bundling plugins with the theme.

I’m glad to say this isn’t all the range any more, so please don’t do it, it’s just making a mess in the long run.

Once of my most recent Facebook plugin discoveries came from the developers at Premium Coding, a website which builds quite a few things, including a series of premium WordPress plugins.  The plugin I want to talk about today is called Facebook Page Themes, and the title pretty much sums up what this plugin does.  With this premium WordPress plugin users can generate a custom designed theme for your Facebook page, giving your business a professional look that promotes your product or service.

So, why would a website or business want a custom Facebook page?  To reach the average customer, having a Facebook page is just about a requirement these days, and they are completely free with a Facebook account.  The problem is they all look the same.  In order to stand out, many major corporations have decided to build custom web pages to help their product stand out.  But what about your average blogger?  Using the leverage of this WordPress plugin, you can easily create a plugin which helps promote your product or service directly to these (potential) customers.

After working with the designers of this plugin, I’m happy to report that I was able to give Facebook Page Themes a try and see exactly how easy it is to create your own custom WordPress theme.  First, here is the feature list for this plugin:

• Easy to install like any other WordPress plugin.
• Currently there are five pre-made templates available (black, grey, brown, blue, and red), but this number will continue to grow over time with new templates promised each month.
• Built using HTML/CSS making them relatively easy to customize.
• Make updates to their page directly from the WordPress dashboard.
• Plugin uses the popular Nivo Slideshow image rotator (for front pages) and Lightbox (for image presentations).
• Support for multiple templates, allowing you to use different templates for different website pages, or use one for your product and the other for your personal Facebook page.

Once you get your copy of the Facebook Page Themes plugin, you can simply unzip the file and upload to your website just like you would any standard WordPress plugin.  Once activated, this plugin has its own spot in the navigation menu called “FB Themes.”  From here you can build your own custom page through a series of menus that gives you control over how your page displays.  Options available include a traditional blog-like page (the default setup for Facebook pages currently), a home/splash page, and of course a portfolio page.

While my time with the Facebook Page Themes plugin was an overall good experience, one downside that I discovered was not actually the plugin’s fault, but instead a problem with the secure browsing Facebook uses (https).   After checking into why things weren’t displaying properly, I discovered that Facebook made changes to the HTTPS protocol on October 1st, 2011, so Facebook users with secure browsing turned on will not be able to view your page properly unless your website has an SSL certificate.   Fortunately Premium Coding has provided a free workaround to this issue using Social Server which they’ve detailed here.

Overall I have to say I was very happy with my time trying this plugin and can recommend it to anyone who would like to clean up and improve their default Facebook page.  If you’d like to learn more about the Facebook Page Themes plugin, you can get additional information here.

Not long ago I covered a free WordPress plugin called WPTouch which creates a mobile-friendly version of your WordPress blog to display for mobile web browsers.  The unfortunate truth, however, is that outside of clicking on a link from Twitter on their phones, most iPhone, Android, or mobile users in general do not use the mobile web to view a webpage.  In order to maximize convenience for your readers you really need a custom iPhone application.  This is where an app I recently discovered, Wiziapp, comes to the rescue.

What is WiziApp?  Wiziapp is a WordPress plugin that automatically turns your WordPress blog into a native iPhone app in real time, giving easy access to the following within the application: Posts, pages, comments, categories, tags, links, images, videos, and audio files. And if that wasn’t enough, Wiziapp even offers a push notification service to notify iOS users when your website has new content available!

Here is a complete list of the features provided by the Wiziapp team:

• Create and personalize your iPhone application from your WordPress dashboard using the plugin’s wizard.
• Deliver all of your blog content directly to your App in real time.
• Notify your readers about new posts via push notification service.
• Your readers can easily read and post new comments directly from your App.
• Your App will display your images and galleries in native iPhone style.
• All the media you have posted will be collected to video or audio libraries.
• Your readers can easily search your blog directly from your App.
• Playing video and audio using Wiziapp’s advanced players.
• Enable your readers to navigate between posts by categories, tags or author name.
• Integrate with your login system.
• Your readers can easily share your posts and images via Facebook, Twitter, Email or SMS.
• Monetize your App by displaying ads using your own AdMob account.
• Your readers can easily save your posts to their ‘favorites’ list.
• We publish your App to the iTunes App Store and save you time & money dealing with an Apple developer account.
• See daily stats of your App visits and downloads.
• Stay up to date with all iOS and WordPress new features.
• Check out the Wiziapp tour here.

So, it sounds awesome, but is it difficult to setup?  How does it work?  I put the plugin to the test to find out just how easy it is to use.  Here are the steps I followed, which allowed me to build an app within 10-15 minutes:

1. Download the WiziApp plugin from the official WordPress Plugin Directory here.
2. Upload and activate the WiziApp plugin.
3. Access the “Create Your App” menu in your WordPress dashboard and name your application.
4. Design your splash screen using the plugin’s generator or upload your own custom splash design.
5. Customize your app’s appearance.
6. Build your App menu (tab bar).
7. Determine if you want to enable your readers to share your content via Facebook, Twitter, Email, or SMS.
8. Configure push notification options.
9. Enter your AdMob ID if you want to monetize your application.

Once configuration is complete, the next step is to sign up for your Wiziapp account to get your new application into the iTunes App Store.  As of the writing of this review, it looks like there are three plans available, each of which is a little different to cover the varying needs of all types of websites.

• Personal Blog:  $199.00 setup and $19.90 a month
• Professional Blog:  $299.00 setup and $29.90 a month
• Enterprise Blog:  $499.00 setup and $49.90 a month

What makes this plugin/process better than just building your own custom application?  Even if you have the ability to build your own application for iOS, there is still the matter of getting it approved through Apple’s walled garden and into the iTunes App Store.  Of course, this is probably my favorite part about this WordPress plugin.  Wiziapp will actually use their own Apple developer account to publish your application, meaning you won’t need to sign up as a Apple developer (which has a $99.00 yearly fee) and deal with Apple’s approval board, which in my personal experience has been an absolute nightmare.  Wiziapp has an established setup which should make the approval process fairly easy.

Overall, I have to say that the entire process of building your application was surprisingly easy and looks really good.  If you run a WordPress blog and would like to build a custom application for your website, there is no cost to simulate your own application for FREE with the Wiziapp WordPress plugin and then you can decide if you want to have your application published in iTunes.

Note: This review was sponsored by the team at Wiziapp.

Of course, thanks to beauty of the open source nature of WordPress, WordPress users have access to all sorts of great WordPress plugins.  I recently found myself debating whether or not to develop an app for WordPress Hacks and decided that first I would look into what free WordPress plugins were available.  My goal was simply to find one which would display a WordPress blog to mobile browsers in a mobile friendly format.  

Based upon roughly 2 million downloads plus great reviews, far and away the best plugin I’ve found to accomplish this is one called WP Touch.  For those that haven’t heard of WP Touch, this WordPress plugin automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, and will display this theme when your WordPress blog is viewed from an iPhone/iPod Touch, Android, Palm Pre, Samsung  and BlackBerry Storm/Torch mobile device!

The admin panel allows you to customize many aspects of its appearance and deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of your WordPress website to mobile visitors, all without modifying a single bit of code or making any changes to your standard WordPress theme.  The mobile theme also includes the ability for visitors to switch between WP Touch view and your site’s regular theme if that is what they prefer.

If you are looking for a more feature-rich product, I discovered that users can also purchase a Pro version of WP Touch which includes a slew of new features like more style, color and branding customizations, themes, 10 languages, more advertising options, web-app mode, and even iPad support.