I just updated my site to Pagelines Framework – what a joy! I have for a year now used WordPress themes from Pagelines and having recently purchased the drag & drop Platform Pro theme I was a bit reluctant to pay for the expensive upgrade to get me the brand new Framework. Here is my Pagelines Review!

I did it! I used a good offer to get 40% off – that is quite a lot considering the price of $397 for a developer version. Well I payed it yesterday and must say I had nice surprise when installing it and updating this site. Confused initially that I had to start by enabling things in the store (free stuff for the theme to function) but it soon became clear how intuitive and responsive the new Framework is. Anyway here goes my Pagelines Framework review!

Pagelines Review

In Platform Pro I’ve made some editing in the function.php file and the library.templates.php files but they were all to find in the Framework file structure as before so it only took a few minutes to make the edit. Now I can just enjoy the rest of the day and playing a bit more with the Framework theme on another website Im working on. Beside I have a few other sites on Platform Pro I want to upgrade to the new Framework.

A great function is that Pagelines let you sign up for a free account on their home page right here: http://demo.pagelines.com/

Pagelines Framework

But why would you pay out that amount of money when WordPress and thousands of theme are available for free?  First of all the PageLines Framework simply works right out of the box – it easy to install, easy to configure and easy to customize – that is my main reason for jumping into this an paying for a professional WordPress theme even in the current economic climate!

Another great point is that if you run into problems or want to do something under the polished user interdace you will get great support from the fantastic support forum.

Secondly I used to use different free themes and then customized them to suit my needs. That’s not a problem but as time passes by the themes might be outdated unless it get updated once in a while also you have to keep updating it when WordPress is getting updated and that break something in your theme.

Finally you should read this story about why you should take care when getting a Free WordPress Themes — there could be a few unseen bugs.

I’m very satisfied with the Framework theme – after af few minor upgrade problems in the beginning it have worked great for all the sites I have med with WordPress and Pagelines.

Personally I think there should be more emphasis on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – I prefer using WordPress SEO Plugin from Yoast to optimize my WordPress sites for search engine ranking. For speed I use  WP Super Cache combined with a CDN setup. WordPress and large images can be a bit drag to speedup but hey – have a look at my WordPress for photography setup guide.

For more information about how to get started and how to customise the Pagelines Framework – there is lots of information on the Pagelines Website.

Well, this was my Pagelines review now give it a try your self: — Pagelines Framework!

Martin Bay