Today I'm a leeeeetle bit excited about Elegant Themes as another option for your WordPress site. These themes are paid-for DIY, but I think many of you will really like them. I'm already a tad smitten.
I realize I'm a bit late to throw this in, but I just bought the Developer package yesterday (after several people have mentioned them to me and I've seen them around the web–thank you all for the heads-up). I spent some time today poking around the site and even installed a theme on my demo site.
So far, I'm impressed.
I think these will be a great option for many of you. They are pretty budget-friendly, PLUS there's a super user-friendly customization and configuration panel within your Dashboard. AND ALSO, I love the designs (super clean and classy). Seriously, check 'em out…
OK. So, you know me, I get all excited about things like this so I had to make a video. I show you around and point out the features, how to install them, pricing options, some super cool plugins (that come with the Developer package only), support options and more (and I didn't even cover everything). Check it out (I'm sorry it's a bit loud!):
Can't see the video? Watch it here.
SO FUN, no?
Note that both Genesis and Elegant Themes have a 30-day money back guarantee. So, if you decide to go with a paid-for DIY theme, you can give one or both of them a whirl at no risk. Love that.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which means I get a percentage of the sale if you decide to purchase. I'm much obliged if you use my link as it goes to fueling my chocolate/peanut butter addiction which is critical to keeping Blogging with Amy alive. 
Other posts in this series
- How to Start a Blog or Website: Intro & FAQ
- How to Start a Blog or Website: Cheat Sheet
- How to Find (or Refind) Your Passion
- How to Decide What to Blog About: What Works for Readers?
- How to Decide What to Blog About: What Works for You?
- Understand Branding: 4 Tips
- Understand Keywords: Increase the Odds of Getting Found
- Writing Great Content: 3 Tips
- How to Write a Killer About Page
- 12 Blog Organization Tips
- How to Choose a Domain Name: 12 Tips
- How to Register a Domain Name
- How to Set Up Hosting and WordPress
- How to Change Your Nameservers
- How to Add a New User in WordPress
- How to Optimize Your WordPress Settings
- How to Install a Plugin
- My Favorite Plugins
- How to Get & Optimize a Feedburner Feed
- How to Choose a WordPress Theme
- How to Install a WordPress Theme
- Elegant Themes for WordPress
- How to Install Google Analytics
- How to Use WordPress: Tips & Tricks
- How to Start a Blog or Website: 10 Tips for New Bloggers
I love Elegant Themes! I use Aggregate and still haven't tapped its full abilities.
Looks great, Natalie!
I told you Amy! They're amazing – I'm so glad you listen to me – stick with me babe, I'll make you rich with awesome ideas…
You are cracking me up. I'd definitely say your suggestion was one of the last straws that broke the camel's back and made me cave, lol!
And I'll be waiting for that rich part to work out too–I'm countin' on ya.
Hi Amy,
I have been eying Elegant Themes for awhile…..do you know if they can be used if you blog on a wordpress.com site, or can you only use them if you self-host?
Thanks,
Shaunna
Amy,
Sorry, but we had a meeting and decided you were hereby banned from sharing cool new themes with us because now we get all distracted at the eye candy, and it makes us think of changing our theme! : )
Ha! You need to talk to my husband. LOL. Pretty soon he will have to physically restrain me from tweaking my theme…or changing it completely. I have an illness. Sorry to drag you into it too.
Amy,
Are any of these Elegant themes good to use on a wordpress adsense site? If not, can you recommend a theme for adsense?
Thanks
Ron
Hi Ron, it depends on what type of AdSense site you want to create, but I'd make sure you have the ability to add ad blocks wherever you want them to appear on your page. You might do a search in the WordPress Themes directory using the search term "adsense."
I've used elegant themes since I started my blog in February this year. I chose them because their features were great for a new blogger. For customer service, it sometimes takes a couple days to resolve an issue but when I contacted the owner for a particular problem with my slider he was very prompt to respond back. I use the Aggregate theme as well. I'd like if they come up with a one time pay for the theme because it takes so much time to refine one theme that I don't plan on using other ones. Overall I'm very happy with their service.
Thanks for sharing your experience Tabitha! I'm encouraged to know you have been happy with them.
Tabitha, your blog is beautiful! I have a food blog too and was looking for a new theme. Is the background standard with the aggregate theme? Did you have to do a lot of customization? If so, how difficult was it? I am definitely not great with coding or design things.
Thank you Jamie for your sweet complement! It actually is very easy. I tried multiple themes and found that you did need to know a lot of HTML. With elegant themes if you want to do HTML you can, otherwise everything in the epanel is click and save! Which is great! The only problem I had was getting my slider to work but that was a software bug that once I contacted them I changed something in Editor and it worked. Feel free to email me if you have any questions Jamie! Everything on my blog is just the setting options they have provided.
Thank you for your sweet comment Jamie. Elegant themes is easy compared to some themes I tried on WordPress. Since blogging has a bit a a learning cure (at least it was for me), learning HTML was a bit of a challenge at first.
Once you pick your theme and have downloaded it to WordPress, in theme options you can add and change item with click and save features verses codes. If you want to change something's with codes you can as well under editor. Although I rarely do.
Everything on my site are the options that came as choices on the Aggragte theme. I've added a few plugging and widgets for the side bar and presentation of recipes but other then that is all standard options.
The video tutorials on Elegate Themes are very helpful first time use. I hope this helps! I know picking out a theme took me a good month to decide what was going to work well for me.
Email me if you have any questions.
I've been using them since May of this year. I used both Modest and Chameleon themes. I have found them both to be very easy to use and I like the style. I needed support twice and found the answer quickly on the forum for one issue and posted a question for the other. I had a response within 48 hours that gave me the info I needed. I can't recommend them enough. Great video Amy, I didn't know about the plugins – will check it out.
So glad to hear your experience, Lisa. I appreciate it! Makes me want to dig into them more.
I love Elegant Themes! I use for a couple of my site and they are easy to use.
Thanks, Jane!
Hi Amy,
Weeeell, I tried to to follow your instructions to install the Elegant Themes onto my wordpress blog, but there is no "Install Theme" button. In fact, a support page states that they do not allow you to upload themes other than their own.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/adding-new-themes/
Am I missing something??
Thanks for your help!
Jennifer
Jennifer, are you on WordPress.com?
Hi Amy,
I am starting a new blog (#3) and was thrilled to get this post from you yesterday. I went to Elegant Themes, joined, downloaded a theme… and now am stuck. Lucid, the theme I downloaded, appears to have a hard coded site title: I have to upload a new logo image in order to get it to change. With my other blogs, changing the title that appeared on the page was as simple as going to the Settings – General menu. Not this time! It's definitely an issue with Lucid because I temporarily switched to another theme and my new title showed up fine.
So, just a note to readers who may be in the same place I am, unless you feel comfortable creating your own title image, Lucid may not be the theme for you.
Thanks for the heads-up Nurya.
This is the EXACT problem I am having. So frustrating. I can get the tag line changed, but not the title. Apparently I need to create my own logo in Photoshop, and then upload it. Which is mildy overwhelming, but I can't find anywhere that tells me what exact size to make it and I get extremely overwhelmed. Also, I started with the Chameleon Theme. I would make changes in the ePanel (which I don't find particularly easy to use), and the changes would never show up on my actual website. I am extremely frustrated with Elegant Themes.
(it's a different site I am trying to create, not the one my name links to. I've had a WP Blog for 3 years and it's bothering me how lost I feel on the Elegant themes.)
Elegant Themes was the first pay-for-theme I've ever used. I've been with them about 10 mos. now. One thing I don't like is that you have totally take off your theme in order to update it and if you have customizations you have manually redo those (unless you have the child-theme things going on I guess?? I'm not that techy to know how to do that). Last I knew they don't have automatic updating. Which… I'm past due to update my theme
Must do that, like yesterday. They ARE worth the money though! Great deal and who wouldn't love that epanel!
Thanks, Tracy. Yes, a child theme should help with that. Did you see my post about creating a child theme?
Do you know if it is possible to install a theme, prepare it and THEN share it with the world? I know how I am with design stuff and it could take me months to get it ready. I would prefer to do it behind the scenes.
Yep! You could use a temporary URL (will automatically happen if you register a domain with GoDaddy or another service but set up hosting with a company like Bluehost. The two will not "talk" to each other until the nameservers are changed). The other options is to set up a demo site by installing WordPress in another folder on your server and putting a Maintenance plugin in place so others can't see it. Although, with Elegant Themes, the $89 version comes with this plugin.
I love Elegant Themes. I've been using Modest for a while and I'm really happy with them.
Glad to hear it, Janet!
I love the look of your blog! I might have to check out the Elegant theme. Did you have to do much customization?
Not really. I changed the fonts and a couple of colors but that's about it. They have alot of options in their settings menu but not so many that you're overwhelmed.
Thank you for this! I definitely want a blog makeover but can't afford a custom design so this might be a good option for me.
I just won a year membership to elegant themes! So excited! After this post I checked their twitter and there were some tweets from blogs giving away year memberships. I won one. Now to choose which theme I want….
Woot!
For the ecommerce themes, what do you recommend for payment options?
Just starting a blog (not up yet) and I read your blog daily for the wonderful info you so graciously give. Thanks! Question: I'm a little confussed. With Elegant Themes do I need a Base like in Genesis? The house foundation, as you put it. If so, what is it called and where do I purchase it? Thanks
You can enable a child theme (custom code) from your ePanel (at least for the themes I did a test run on). I would check the support forums for more and/or to ask for specifics.
I've been having some issues with my wordpress theme and would love to use one of these. Am I good to go with the $39 basic or do I really need to spend $89? This is a new blog I am just getting going so nothing fancy. Just need some flexibility and user friendiness!!! Thanks so much for your help!!
I'd start with $39.
Just purchased the package!!! I love it!!
Awesome, Angie! Happy designing!
Hi Amy,
Thanks to your great tutorials, I made the decision to start a WordPress blog to promote my professional work.
The problem is that while I'm building the blog, I want the blog to remain "private" – even if someone has my domain name, I don't want them to be able to view my "under construction" blog.
I can't figure out how to do that. I came across this Help Info Sheet by WordPress (http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/), but the options have since changed.
Under "Reading" there is only the "Search Engine Visibility" option. "Site Visibility" is not listed there.
Any suggestions?
Hi Faye, it sounds like you might want to install a Maintenance Mode plugin. It will hide your site while you work. You can see it on my demo site here. The one I use is WP Maintenance Mode. (Here's a tutorial if you need it.) Hope that helps!
Thanks so much!
Hey Amy, I'm not sure how often you check comments on such an old post, but I'm getting ready to set up my first Word Press Site (I know I'm late to the party) I plan to have a static homepage with a video and an invitation to subscribe to the blog to get a free eBook. Do you think Genesis or elegant themes would be better suited for a complete Newbie like me?
Great info. Thank you! I'm still struggling with deciding what theme/how to do a theme – DIY or pay for it, but this is a great resource!!
Debi
This has been such a frustrating journey for me! I started with twenty-eleven, tried another one that I don't remember and now I have elegant themes and was trying the daily journal theme. I've asked a couple of questions on the elegant themes sight but not getting much feedback or help. I really need some moral support that I can do this! I'm not sure why I'm having so much trouble. I look at all of the blogs and think if this many people can do this SO CAN I! I'm 48 years old so I try to blame it on my age. I'm really pretty smart but just not catching on to this. Maybe I need to prepare more before jumping into this. Any suggestions? Thanks so much for letting me vent!
I'm so sorry, Peggy. There's definitely a learning curve so I understand the frustration for sure. I've been there! What is it you're trying to do that isn't working as you'd like?
I think the themes need more customization than I'm able to do. I'm trying to start off as simple as possible so I don't have to do a lot of customization to the site. I'm just not sure where to go at this point. Is it possible to keep it simple starting off or am I just going to have to pay to get my site up and running correctly?
I think you should be able to go simple without outside help for sure. So when you install a theme, does it not work for you right away, out of the box?
It does to a certain point. It's the customizing I'm having trouble with. Maybe I'm making it too difficult. One thing I'm frustrated with is the feedburner. I went through all of the steps but I can't seem to figure out how to get the box on my website for individuals to enter their email address and then how it connects for the feed.
Did you work through this post, Peggy?
I somehow totally missed that post! Thank you soooooo much!! That really helped!
I just want to say thank you! I honestly think my brain has gotten bigger since I started reading your blog and following your tutorials! Thank you for making all of this so easy to understand – You totally make me feel smarter! I am using the elegant boutique theme – and I seriously love it! I LOVE my website now! My hubby might have some competition LOL! Thank you so much Amy, I would never have been brave enough to do all this on my own!
That is awesome. I love hearing stories like this. Way to go! (And I think you are smart.) So glad I could help too. Nice job on your site!
Hi Amy,
I am starting a new blog on WordPress.org. My current blog is on blogger. My question is do you have a recommendation for a very simple, clean, easy to customize theme from Elegant Themes? I LOVE your blog. It is really helping me understand WordPress blogs.
Thanks!
Jann
I'm not using any of them actively, but I would choose from the list of responsive themes.
Thanks Amy! I will check them out.
Jann
Hi Amy! I *just* signed up for Elegant Themes using your link. So far, it's going well. I'm a complete novice, so I appreciate it being so user-friendly. Thank you for all of your wonderful tutorials. -Katie
You're welcome, Katie! I hope it continues to go well.
Great post! It was very helpful
Amy, i have had a WP.org website for almost a year, but I want to change the look and title of the site. Your post on Elegant Themes was very helpful. My question is: if I download a new theme through Elegant Themes, will I have to manually add all my widgets, email signups, etc., or do they automatically get transferred to the new theme? Just wondering how hard changing a theme is going to be.
Thanks for any advice. Your website is so helpful!
Yes, you can expect to have to put those widgets in again. (Don't forget the section at the bottom of the widgets section that allows you to save widgets for later use though!) I hope that helps.
Thanks, Amy!