I am a WordPress theme designer and I respect premium themes as I keep designing child themes for them. I have developed some child themes that are mostly used for corporate/Portfolio websites. Swift theme is a great theme and we have used it here on Techbu.com as well as many of my blogs that are niche based. I have experienced a great change after I start using Swift theme. First thing I would mention is that my Google Page Speed increased to 90+ when swift theme was used with caching plugin. This increased my SERP so my blogs rapidly increased page-views per day and it almost tripled in a week. Swift theme has an integrated ad management system with which you can place ads in the best recommended places that has high CTR. So I suggest Swift theme to any blogger who do not have much knowledge of designing and want to write better posts than rather concentrating on blog design. Swift theme is pre-build with Newspaper and blog layout, you can use as per your need. Other features like Breadcrumb navigation, easy menu management, optimized scripts and codes to make your website fast and SEO friendly. There is also a free version of Swift theme which has many nice features and is very competitive to other themes like Freshlife etc.
Thesis/Genesis is cool for bloggers who really experiment with design. The only things that are a barrier are that it is hard to achieve basic design goals with this premium framework in a time limit. If you start with thesis now and you do not know much about designing, it will take your around a week to learn all tutorials over internet and give good design to your blog. But with Swift theme you can easily create a blog or newspaper layout and start working on content. You can also keep designing your own child theme in the background and update it anytime, you will just need to make minor changes to the blog. Also, you can achieve different design patterns and style with inbuilt Swift control panel that has options to control colors, styles and many other design elements of the theme.
About Swift theme framework and my experience
I would consider Swift as very hybrid theme framework. One side it provide the best control panel option to change your website look and feel. The theme is really well coded and already voted in top 5 WordPress premium theme framework of 2011-2012. This was with other competitors like Genesis, Thesis and Headway. Swift theme has impressed me the first time when I downloaded it. I was very much surprised when I downloaded the Swift theme after purchasing, it was only few hundred KBs, I was thinking that a premium theme should be like 1-2MB. Developer has worked hard to squash a powerful theme in the best coding and size. Swift theme when installed on my blog that was on 78 on Google page speed, instantly turned to 90+ after installing Swift that too with Newspaper layout which has too many thumbnails. I checked Gtmetrix and I got 90+ page speed grade and almost same with Yslow grade. This further confirmed that Swift was very speedy WordPress theme. I set up the Swift theme news paper layout and other color option and customize some widgets to get good feel. This all was done within a day. I started writing content; I was also happy to see better SERP on my blog and got instant traffic within few hours after publishing the post. I was getting like 100-200 visitors per day that increased and almost tripled to 1k visitors daily within a week. I decided to learn further about designing child theme like swift theme where the forum came to my rescue. The forum is very active and you can get your problem short out easily. I just invested $47 to get the premium edition that I know was invested well by this time. For newbies, Swift is a great lower priced option to get a theme like Thesis or Genesis. It is a secure and fast theme that has a build in child themes like blog and newspaper layout. Although, the theme is not vast spread and you will not find options to download child theme now. But soon developers will get attracted and Child themes will start launching.
Review and Download Swift theme Premium here.
I would love to hear your views about Premium WordPress theme framework and their effects on your blog.
This article is written by Jaikee Jaiswal. He is a blogger who continually keep testing new technologies on web as well as gadgets. If you wish to write for us, kindly check this.
good alternative, i use in future
Is this theme responsive ?
Hi,
I’m a newbie in blogging,I tried many themes and fedup.I Wish to buy swift,can I modify it? Pls reply
Yes, feel free to customize it mate. 🙂
specially page speed is awesome of swift theme. As soon as possible i want to move on swift.
Swift theme really nice alternative of thesis and Genesis themes. I have used swift free theme.
Thankyou for the Share , I heared that this Shift theme is the Real alternative of Thesis from my friend In Blogger Launge .Im Sure gonna give a try in my new tech blog 🙂
For those who are not yet ready to spend on a premium theme, download free version of HTML5 Swift here
http://bit.ly/Download-SwiftBasic
For those who are not yet ready for the premium version, download the free version of HTML5 swift here
http://swiftthemes.com/swift-basic-wordpress-theme/
@Pradeep and Jaikee, thanks for the review 🙂
I used both of them. I like more Thesis. I like the front panel, and it's easyer to customize.
I also like thesis so much..
knowing about swift theme is very good actually … it help me in my business …thanks for sharing
I am using Thesis Theme but do doubt that Swift theme is also best theme for wordpress
swift premium theme is really a good alternative for thesis, I can't say for genesis as i never used them I have tried swift for sometime on one of my blogs it was good & simple to customize..
I am using it from almost 8-10 months..it showed great results with SEO.. You will ne given the full control over all the settings of your webpage..But personally i feel the previous versions look is good than the latest version..If you like the look of the theme then you must try this one..
I think you are using the free version, The premium one is much more customizable and stylish.
Yes its really awesome theme. I like it and currently i am using only free version but now means on new year i am planning to buy Premium Version. Thanks for this article which really give me more confident to go with Swift Theme. Thanks Again.
You must go for the premium version, there is lot of features and customization in the full version. with swift premium you get newspaper layout, Blog layout+ speed+ SEO+ Ad ready+ custimizable theme
As i am newbie in blogging so i cant able to decide which theme is best but as i told currently i am using Swift free. So if you have any suggestion for me than please tell me.
thesis and genesis if you like to spend some money ..
Nice, cool and affordable theme, the page speed scores are decent enough to rank in Google.
One of the great theme which fits into budget for people who search for wordpress premium theme at affordable rate.
Cheers.
Robin.
i am using swift free version and it is good form me . Will try to purchase premium version seen .