One of the most powerful themes I have seen from any theme company is Divi, by Elegant Themes.
This theme is responsive and combines an easy-to-use, powerful page builder with some great theme functionality. Between my own sites, partners, students and clients, I have multiple sites running on this theme.
Divi is a premium theme that is the flagship of the Elegant Themes package. Elegant Themes provides a package of premium WordPress themes all for one low price. Unlike some theme companies and marketplaces, you cannot purchase a single theme, but you will find that the package price is less than you would pay for a single theme in many marketplaces.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Please note that if you purchase the Elegant Themes package and Divi theme using links from this website, I do receive a commission. Thank you for supporting my content.
5 Top Reasons Divi is One of the Best WordPress Themes for Beginners
- Great Flexibility and Customization Options that are Easy to Use
- Fantastic Technical Support
- Easy to Keep Updated
- Google Mobile Friendly
- Easy to create sales pages without requiring a plugin
Divi’s One Downside
Before Exploring the 5 reasons it’s one of the best WordPress themes, let’s quickly point out one downside to using Divi. The same powerful page builder that allows a beginner to create an awesome looking website, locks you in to using this theme or making significant changes if you decide to change themes. (Note: Elegant Themes has recently released the Divi Page Builder functionality as a plugin. This may alleviate the challenges when changing themes. For my purposes, it needs more testing.)
While Divi has been criticized for using proprietary shortcodes to manage their sophisticated layouts, it has been pointed out that most themes providing advanced layout options have similar challenges. For example, many themes use widgetized pages to provide flexible layouts. These too require extra work when changing themes.
For many, only the home page and possibly a few other specialty pages like sales pages require special layouts, so page rework during a theme change is minimal, and most sites commit to a specific theme for significant amounts of time. Now, let’s get to the highlights.
Great Flexibility and Customization Options that are Easy to Use
Divi includes a powerful page builder along with several pre-configured templates for complex layouts. You can use the templates, configure as desired, or start from scratch to create the page you want to see.
The following video provides a quick overview of the Divi theme functionality.
Fantastic Technical Support
Elegant Themes support is excellent. Just as you don’t access premium themes from the WordPress repository, you will need to get support from the Elegant Themes site not from WordPress.org because support for premium plugins and themes is not provided at WordPress.org.
The team at Elegant Themes is quick to respond to support issues. Note that while they don’t support “customization” and there are theme changes that go beyond the help they can provide, if you have basic customization changes, they are usually able to help. This is specifically true when it is a matter of a quick CSS change.
Easy to Keep Updated
Elegant themes provides a theme updater to allow you to keep Divi up-to-date from the Dashboard. It is a plugin that you may download from the Elegant Themes site and install it as you would any other plugin. You will need to configure the plugin with your Elegant Themes username and API key. You’ll find your API key in your user account. Once configured, when you see that an update is available, you’ll be able to update from within your WordPress installation the same way you do with free themes and plugins.
Remember to create a child theme if you have made changes to the underlying theme files.
Google Mobile Friendly
Out of the box, this theme is very mobile friendly. As you work on the site and before you take it live, I recommend running your site through the Google Mobile Friendly test. This is particularly true if you have added large images or created a larger header than the default. This is something you should do no matter what theme you use. While a theme may be mobile friendly, changes and additions made while building the site can break that friendliness.
In a personal experience, I used the Lucid theme from Elegant Themes for a site. When testing for Google Mobile Friendliness, the main theme tested friendly, but the site did not. I found that I had manually set the header image to be too large. Adjusting this, allowed the site to pass the Mobile Friendly test.
Purchasing the Elegant Themes package gives you the option of using any or all of their themes. Note that some of these are not responsive. If you opt to use other themes from the package, select those that are responsive and run them through the Google Mobile test before use.
To Test if Your Site is Mobile Friendly – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
For More Information on the importance of being Google Mobile Friendly Site:
https://whiteglovewebtraining.com/is-your-wordpress-site-google-mobile-friendly/
Easy to Create Sales Pages without Requiring a Plugin
Many business owners want the ability to create traditional sales pages that do not display the regular site title and/or menu. This allows you to provide targeted information to the visitor without the distraction of 
other links to click on.
For many themes, the only way to accomplish this is to use a plugin like OptimizePress or a service like LeadPages.
In Elegant Themes, it’s easy to create a sales page and the builder actually includes a few templates to help you get started.
If you want to create a sales page that doesn’t display the normal theme’s header with the logo and menu items, it’s as easy as selecting “Blank Page” in the Page Attributes instead of “Default Template.”
The following video demonstrates how to turn any Divi page into a Sales Page without the header (logo and menu).
For more information including watching a site buildout using the Divi theme, join me for a Live Webinar Tuesday November 1st, 2015. Visit HowtoBuildaWebsitein8HoursorLess.com for more information and to register.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Please note that if you purchase the Elegant Themes package and Divi theme using links from this website, I do receive a commission. Thank you.
