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| What is The Best Professional WordPress Theme To Use in 2015? Posted: 13 Feb 2015 02:31 AM PST  Is X theme the ultimate WordPress theme? Does X Theme Fit Your Development Style and Needs?This is the second review from the series about the best WordPress themes you should consider using to increase the speed of how quickly you develop websites for your clients. Now, you will be choosing a WordPress theme or WordPress theme framework that fits your development style and needs. When you make a decision, you will use your top choice as a base for building all your websites. In this article, we will deeply review and analyze the X theme, which recently has been getting wide popularity among graphic and web designers. You might have seen their ads appearing in the web design community all over the place and wondered what’s the deal with this mysterious X? While X is not officially titled as the theme framework based on theme functionality, it can be used as one. As I go deeper in reviewing the theme, you will understand how and why. X is a much cheaper premium solution compared to its competitors, but the value and functionality you get for the price is amazing. X theme is here to disrupt the WordPress market loudly standing out of the crowd. Currently X is the Number 2 best WordPress theme on ThemeForest, but seeing what X has created, I am very confident this year that X will gain the No. 1 spot. Things to consider when choosing WordPress theme or framework:
For X WP theme review I will especially focus on four main criteria:
*Note – before picking the X theme for review, I analyzed the top ThemeForest themes ElegantThemes, WooFramework, Thesis, OptimizePress, Themify, WpZoom etc.. To make it an easy affordable, premium WP theme choice, I am reviewing X theme first.  When you buy X theme, you don’t just get one theme, you get 4 unique designs (called Stacks) and 33 unique pre-built demos. X Professional WordPress Theme by ThemeCo ReviewWhile X isn’t called a framework, it is built as one. X might feel as a surprising choice to use as a framework but as you keep reading, you will understand why it’s worth giving this theme a try and why I am considering it the best WordPress theme of 2015. For several years, Themeforest themes had a bad reputation because most themes don’t use the best coding practices. Themes are bloated adding unnecessary code and making theme files and databases larger and slower than they should be. The situation has been improving but still it is the case with most of the ThemeForest themes. X theme stands out from the crowd because it is not only a very beautiful and non-coder friendly theme, but also has a clean code, amazing functionality, and good site loading speed. It does not clutter your theme with code you don’t want to use. In addition, X is very powerful in terms of functionality and customizability as well as great for professional web developers as well. X theme was launched on December 2013 by Scott Marlow and Kyle Wakefield. After working for a year on X theme, they released it to the public one year ago. They don’t have a long background in the WordPress field like the Genesis founder but they are very experienced entrepreneurs. They came in the market with a fresh look to bring in innovation and change. X theme has been built from a marketer’s perspective, which is what I like most about the X theme. Because in the end, no matter how beautiful your website is, what matters most is that your website gives you the results you desire and the leads to conversions. On 17 July 2014, they achieved the Power Elite status on Themeforest in just six months by selling $1,000,000+ worth of WP themes and achieving the fastest selling Themeforest theme status. Currently, the X WordPress theme has been purchased more than 40,000 times and answered over 20,000 support questions (within Themeforest and their website). X theme definitely was one of the best WordPress themes in 2014, and has committed to do even better in 2015. When I reached out to X theme founders and asked what is the single best thing about their theme, they responded with one word – SUPPORT. Their theme is mostly purchased by designers and is even used by the Utah US government. It does require quite a bit of learning before you can utilize the X theme to its full potential. I do believe it would take at least a few days of studying to use maximize the X theme’s full potential. This is pretty easy, though with their thorough documentation and training videos. As a not so technical person anymore (haven’t been actively developing websites myself for several years), I did appreciate that I could achieve all the functionality and visuals I wanted without touching code. All I need to do is just use their management panel and connect the pieces together. This power makes the X theme a great option for graphic designers to build powerful custom WordPress themes without an extensive programming knowledge. Professional developers and web designers can choose to deactivate the visual components and work in code straight from admin section. No need to touch FTP, re-upload files, or setup local servers anymore.  You get access to X own support center, besides being able to use Themeforest comment section. Theme Support and DocumentationSupportOnce you buy the theme, you get access to X forum where you can ask all your interesting questions. Questions can also be asked within Themeforest comments though the main activity happens on the forum. On Themeforest alone, there have been 3,600 comments answered while more than 20,000 questions have been answered within the forum. Themeco has over 10 dedicated full-time staff who handle support related to X, and their response times are extremely fast. They aim to respond within 24 hours (including the weekends if possible) and generally are able to respond much faster. DocumentationFirst of all, you can download the 40-page PDF documentation explaining how X theme works and how you can set it up. Their knowledge base is really comprehensive with the following sections:
Their knowledge base is very helpful including textual as well as video explanations covering basic and advanced customization topics. Within the X dashboard, you get access to following resources:
 Learn basics of internet marketing with X videos! X theme strong marketing focus is one of the biggest reasons why I like this theme so much. It’s not about just a pretty website, but it is about building a website that leads to results you want. With X, you even get basic marketing training to be a better help for the clients you serve..and be able to charge more since you now provide higher level help.  X has gorgeous retina visuals and stunning animation effects. Design and VisualsNow this is where X really shines. X looks amazing straight out of the box and you can duplicate their beautiful demos to achieve the same look and layout with just a click of button! That is pretty damn impressive! You must have a Stack (how X refers to its 4 unique designs) selected to use X. Switching Stacks doesn’t just mean you get a new skin, it means you’ll get a whole new set of styles, features, and functionality specific to that Stack. For example, Icon’s unique fix sidebar is only available in that Stack because you cannot use it in any others. Additionally, Ethos’ magazine-type has features, such as Post Carousel, Post Slider, featured post display, and more, which are only available in that Stack. Then on top of that, you will be able to further customize a theme by creating a child theme to overwrite the styling of the Stack you use. Hope this helps you to understand how Stacks work, Now, we can dive in deeper into the four main Stacks X has:
That’s a quick overview, but lets dive deeper now.  Different demos in different sizes for Integrity theme. Integrity X theme10 Integrity theme designs are multipurpose and best suited for small business owners who have a lot of needs. Maybe you want music, fashion, restaurant, photography, agency, video, portfolio, eCommerce, responsive, one page, BuddyPress, real estate friendly WordPress theme? X theme gives you functionality and the visual support to do it all. Compared to Icon (which is best for light, clean and white designs), Integrity has light and dark, black theme versions and by default is more feature rich. This design sports big background images with parallax effects and possi. Integrity makes an excellent option for landing pages and one page websites presenting your product or services in style.  Enjoy professional minimalism with Icon theme styles. Icon X theme10 Icon theme designs are great if you prefer minimal and clean style. There are 10 unique demos available, which basically means you get 10 different minimal website designs. Demos are incredible and once you find design you or your client likes, you can activate it with a click of button, add content, change visuals and you’re done. Icon design is a good choice if you want a white, clean portfolio website design, modern and minimal shop or minimal blog design focused around content.  Renew themes are all about being flat and beautiful. Renew X Theme10 Renew theme designs are built all around a popular flat design style. Use it for your blog, online store, or portfolio website. Lastly, 3 Ethos theme designs are the best for busy news blogs and magazine type websites. One of their demos look extremely well for a photography or video site. No visual for this one, you need to check live demos to appreciate the design and power of visuals anyway! Go do it now, and come back when you are done! Basically all demos showcase everything you can do with the X. Use it as a landing page, one page website, single column, 2-column, animation effects. I keep repeating myself – but with X you can do so much easily! As a conclusion, it was really hard to review 4 main theme designs and their 33 demos because every design is truly unique. One thing about X theme demos is that most designs look great because of the great product images and photographs which can be a downside if you don’t have access to great looking images. Keep that in mind, when looking for a WordPress theme you will use to build website for your client.  How affordable is X? How Much X Theme Cost?Compared to other ThemeForest premium WordPress themes, $63 price may seem expensive but if you look at the included features, functionality, training videos, and customer support, it is a steal. You also don’t just get access to one theme, but you get access to a powerful framework with many professional theme designs, free WordPress plugins and world-class support included for no extra cost! What exactly do you get for $63?
If we would compare Genesis framework and the X theme in terms of price, X theme is 6X cheaper. But there is no option of buying unlimited or multi-site license which means you need to buy a new license for each website you develop. X Theme Refund PolicyX is using Themeforest from the Envato network to sell their theme which means you will need to follow the Envato refund policy. Envato Market will generally only offer refunds if the item you purchased is broken, malfunctioning, or corrupt, or doesn’t work as described.  X is very powerful, you can do so much with it, if you know how to utilize X correctly! X Theme Functionality, customizability and flexibilityNow let’s explore what’s under the X theme hood and explore how easy it is to customize WordPress with X. Search Engine Friendliness (SEO) X theme has been built up using the latest, semantic HTML5 markup allowing search engine spiders to easily read different parts of content starts and ends. It also easily understands what the content is about. X theme doesn’t have built-in SEO options but you should install Yoast WordPress SEO plugin for every WordPress installation anyway. When looking at the themes in terms of SEO, the most important factor is site loading speed. We will explore how fast loading X theme is in the speed section, but keep in mind X has included lots of beautiful visual effects, retina support. If you want to use these features, you need to expect your site will take a bit more to load, for SEO focused sites Icon minimal designs probably will be the best choice. ResponsivenessAll the X designs are fully responsive, 100% fluid, and retina ready ensuring that your website looks amazing even on high resolution displays. There are icon fonts, optimized CSS, retina logo, and favicon support looking sharp on any device. You can also specify within theme settings what elements will be shown or hidden on different size screens. X theme truly looks awesome on all devices and it is following latest web standards meaning it is HTML5 valid. Updates and securityThe biggest danger with security is when you don’t update WordPress version, themes, and plugins. With the X theme, you can choose to enable automatic updates for theme and plugins to ensure you are always up to date and possible bugs that come up are fixed fast. Built-In Customization OptionsThe X theme is packed with customization options allowing you to use it as a fully functional website builder if you choose so. My favorite feature is Demo Content allowing you to pick one of the 33 design demos you like and achieve the same look in a few seconds (without images because of copyright reasons). If you don’t like to start website building process with a blank page, this is an excellent way to start quickly.  Demo content feature in action. Choose demo content, click on few radio buttons and you are done. This is the view I get on Appearance>Customize WordPress section. I did deploy Integrity 1 demo on test site, which you can see in screenshot.  This is how Integrity Stack looks right outside of the box. In the Customizer you can:
Create Custom Posts and PagesYou can create and customize custom pages easily using the Visual Composer page builder. This is great for quickly creating one page layouts, landing pages, or custom home pages. When creating new posts and pages, there is also the X short code button, which allows you to quickly add powerful functionality anywhere you want. There are 40 different functionality short codes you can add in all. Make sure you preview live demos to understand why I am so excited about X built-in short codes.  Skill bar looks so stunning in action! Use it for your own portfolio site to show off your skills! Make Use of Built-in Short Codes in X Theme!Here are just a few examples of what you can add:
 Get access to 15 more plugins for added functionality when you purchase X. Additional Functionality with X extensionsThere are 15 plugins built by X which you can use to add more functionality to your website. Since X is built with marketing in mind, their plugins reflect that. What’s a great thing about X extensions is that each of the plugin is maximally optimized to run as fast as possible within X. For example:
There is more to the extensions than you would guess at the first moment. Plugins:
X theme also has built styling support for popular plugins Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, WooCommerce shopping cart, bbPress forum and BuddyPress social network. This means that these plugins will feel native to each Stack, right after installing them and you don’t need to spend extra time styling them one by one. There aren’t really any third party plugins for the X theme yet but seeing how fast they are growing, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some in future. How Fast And Optimized For Speed X Themes Are?Let’s check how fast the X themes are using Google Pagespeed, Pingdom and GTmetrix tools. What I like about X is that they seem to be doing the best they can with the beautiful visuals, functionality and animation effects they include in their themes. When looking at the test results, remember that X theme demos have included lots of visuals, functionality to show off their theme, which is increasing the number or requests and page size. For example Integrity theme demo has:
Keep these things in mind when previewing performance reports. If you would want to include all of the functionality and visuals, you will need to make trade-offs how fast your site loads. For usual website you would use 1/3 or 1/4 of all the functionality and visuals X has included in the demo.  X full demo page size is 8.5mb, taking site to load in 5 seconds. Integrity Stack Main Demo Results:
Integrity Stack is pretty heavy because of the video preview on the background and large feature images. The request number is high, because of included JS effects, Woocommerce, BuddyPress, bbPress.  JavaScript and images slow site the most, strongly consider yourself how many visuals you will include. Renew Stack Main Demo Results:
The Renew site is much lighter and hence achieves pretty good page load speed time.  Icon is the fastest demo, because of the minimal style. Icon Stack Main Demo Results:
Icon achieved high results in the Google user experience loading pretty fast considering the page size is 1.8mb. And finally here are Ethos Stack Main Demo Results:
If you want to have beautiful retina images, video backgrounds and lots of animated sliding effects, you must consider page load time. It’s a gamble and you should decide how much visual effects you want to add. X designs are amazing and the big reason for that are high quality visuals and animation effects. You can customize within the X theme settings what JavaScript effects to use and which ones to leave out to achieve higher site speed or better user experience. What I suggest is to look past all the animation effects and include just one or two of them in places where it really counts. For example, include animated video header, but then afterwards don’t add any more animation. Or go for simple clean pattern in background and then include some nice loading effects throughout the design. X theme demos are packed because they want to show everything you can do with their theme. But professional web designers will keep in mind that “less is more” and utilize built-in effects only in places where it counts. X theme does a really good job by not adding unnecessary code to your theme for the features you don’t use. Use X with caution and don’t overdo the effects. It is a bit hard, at first I was taken too much with all the beautiful effects, but you cannot overdo them. Don’t include all the shortcodes, sliders, plugins you can – only include ones that counts and then your site will look great, load fast and look professional. Finally, I reached out to X creators and got their feedback and suggestions regarding WordPress theme load speed. Kory Wakefield, X lead developer shared some really good tips in general and explained what they are doing to make X fast: “While these speed tests can be a good indicator of things in general, there are certain aspects of their testing that we as theme authors have no control over. For instance, they might convey that “all scripts should be moved to the bottom of the site” – however, we do not necessarily have control over this for numerous reasons:
Additionally, some of the items listed in these speed tests are not theme related at all, and instead have to do with server-side configuration:
For our X demos, we do not have any extensive caching setup or use any CDNs. This is done to show as “raw” a result as possible without all of this extra setup as many users do not take the time to do these things. However, with a little bit of proper server-side configuration these metrics can increase significantly to ensure things are running as smoothly as possible.” X is beginner friendlyFor total beginners – you can easily build websites using one of the 33 pre-built designs and customize basic looks with the X visual editor and theme options without touching any code. For amateur graphic and web designers – the X has been used a lot by graphical web designers who utilize the X’s functionality and flexibility without being hardcore programmers. We will be having an interview case study soon with a graphic designer who now creates powerful websites for her clients without being expert programmer. For advanced programmers – the X is very extensive and has plenty of action hooks which you can use throughout the theme for making alterations. Heavy modifications are easily possible using “Views”, that break the theme up in smaller pieces. Think of each View as a Lego brick which can be used together with other bricks to build a more complex structure. Learn more about X theme customization best practices and available actions and hooks. To conclude, it will take some time to learn how the X theme works. Right after installing the theme, I was a bit overwhelmed with all the functionality I had access. If you make a commitment, however, to spend time to read their getting started PDF guide and view their training videos, you will have serious superpowers in your hands in just a few days. X is here to disrupt the market and aim for being the theme of 2015. It is an amazing theme, you can get with only $63 investment and use it to quickly build high quality and great looking websites for your clients. We actually did interview with Dana, a professional web designer who scaled her design business by using X theme effectively. Learn how she did it and listen to the interview now! Interview with Dana about using X theme to scale her business. What others are saying about X?:
1stWebDesigner Rating for X theme: X is truly a steal deal for designers. Who Should Use X theme?At the start of article I promised to help you make suggestions so you can choose the right tools, that will be the most effective for you. This review intended to show off X best features and possible challenges, and I hope you already have a good picture if this theme is right for your development style. In a nutshell, X theme intends to be great choice for everybody, not only professionals, but it is also very beginner friendly. Professionals will find lots of helpful functionality, shortcodes and functions built in to improve their site development speed. Beginners will find many helpful training videos, visual editors, where they can achieve results they want by just clicking the buttons. X is basically a visual website builder for beginners, and lets professional go under the hood and utilize X built-in functionality. Who X theme is for:
Who X theme is not for:
Read more about X theme features and view demos on their own ThemeForest page. What has been your experience with ThemeForest themes and more importantly have you tried X theme? Would love to hear your experience in comments section!     |
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