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Headway Review: Premium WordPress Theme, Is it Worth it?
Headway Theme Review:
It’s really getting competitive in the Premium WordPress ThemesMarket.I’m actually happy about that… because it means that we… the consumer win. With fierce competition, developers have to offer more and more value.
I don’t know about you… but I’ve had major headaches in the past with WordPress Themes. They have been horribly coded, very buggy, and would completely break down if I just wanted to make the smallest of changes.
Headway being a very flexible Premium WordPress Theme, has gotten a lot of market appeal over the powerhouses from DIYThemes and Woo Themes.
So when I purchased the Headway Theme I was really excited to jump right in headfirst and see what the hype was about. Let’s take a look at what Headway can do for you.
Headway is looking to be the new king of WordPress Themes… and it’s making some good noise in the process. It kinda looks like they have Thesis in their crosshairs.
Let’s see if they can deliver.
Video Overview
Complete Customization Control
While this video is good, it doesn’t quite do Headway justice as to how much customization can be done. If you’ve have ever spent hours online looking for a workaround to a problem that you are having with your theme.You’ll love how instantly flexible Headway is a a WordPress Theme. It’s ridiculous when I think about how much time I’ve wasted trying to find a bandaid solution.
You literally have control over every part of your website. Headway has the ability to drag and drop custom content anywhere on the page. You can design your site in any layout that you like… since it’s all done visually. You don’t waste time tweaking code.
Headway is not about code… it’s about control!
Let’s say that you needed to add a slideshow gallery or a twitter feed to your sidebar… all you do is just drag and drop it where you want it… Amazing!
How about showcasing a post or an announcement… again drag and drop it anywhere. It’s really that easy, simplicity at its finest.
With the control factor being so tight… some people may be overwhelmed a bit. However once you get the hang of it, you really have complete control of your site.
Who should use Headway:
- Are you looking to upgrade your WordPress Theme to some thing more flexable and robust than you can find with a Free WordPress Theme? If so then Headway might be for you.
- Do you struggle with making changes to PHP code or customizing your WordPress blog via CSS? If so then Headway might be for you.
- Do you want complete control over every element of your theme, without knowing any code? If so then Headway might be for you.
Get Headway:
Let’s talk about SEO. Headway has built-in SEO controls… so what does that mean?Well, you don’t have to drive yourself nuts researching the latest WordPress SEO plugin. It’s beautifully SEO optimized right out of the box.
The bottom line is that more customers are going to find you… right from day one. Since Headway has free lifetime updates, you can rest assure that your SEO advantage will stay that way.
If you are serious about blogging and rather spend time creating value with your blog. Instead of worrying if your site is going to breakdown at a moments notice. Then do yourself a favor and get Headway.
I really want this post to start a discussion on Headway… so let’s use the comment section below for that.
Our last review of the Headway Theme was written some time ago with version 2.x. With new improvements that have been released in version 3.4, it’s about time Headway receives an updated review.
There are several features in Headway 3.4 that I’d like to cover: Grid Editor, Design Editor, Responsiveness, and Blocks.
For this review, I’ll cover each of these features to give you an overview of Headway themes. Then I will give you my overall opinion at the end of the review.
The Grid Editor – Drag and Drop Design
This feature is the bread and butter of the Headway theme. Drag and drop is what makes Headway such an attractive theme, and I’ve got to say that they make this feature fairly intuitive and simple. When you navigate to the grid editor, you will see a screen that looks much like this below:
You’ll notice that there is a grid that you can drag and drop boxes on to. You can then resize those boxes. I was really glad to see this grid, because it will make the drag and drop process cleaner. Trust me, you do not want to have to worry about being pixel perfect when dragging to resize.
By default, Headway let’s you resize in 40 px increments, due to the 20px column width and 20px gutter width. This can, of course, be changed.
Once you’ve placed a few boxes on your canvas, you can then decide what those boxes do by selecting the block type. This makes creating things such as a widget or a Gravity Forms box insanely easy.
All in all, I believe the grid editor to be a very simple tool to use to build layouts. Kudos to the Headway team for that.
Design Editor – Design Without Code
For those of you that hate to touch code, you may fall in love with the design editor for Headway themes because it will allow you to easily change any part of the design with a graphical interface.
Once you decide that you want to change something, you just click that element on the page, and change the design settings for it in nifty drop down boxes like these below:
I must warn you in advance that the design editor is going to have a bit of a learning curve because there are a ton of options. Headway does do a good job of organization on this though.
Responsiveness – Take Advantage of the Huge Surge in Mobile
I have read reports that put the total amount of mobile web traffic between 15% and 20%. Having a website that is optimized for mobile browsers will allow you to create a better user experience for your readers which could lead to more page views and less bounce.
Headway makes it super easy to create a responsive website. All you have to do is click one button in the grid editor. Once you have done that, your entire website will be optimized for mobile visitors. Even for templates that you create yourself.
Possibly the best feature of Headway’s responsiveness is that readers are given the option to opt out of the mobile version of your website via a link in the footer. I can’t tell you how many websites I have been to where the mobile version made it hard for me to get content and all I wanted to do was see the desktop version of the site.
Headway’s combination of responsiveness and the grid editor make it, in my opinion, one of the best responsive WordPress themes on the market!
Blocks – Easily Extend Your Website
Headway is a good theme for people that do not know how to code. A large part of what makes Headway easy to use is blocks. Blocks allow you to quickly add functionality to your Headway theme. Blocks for Headway are very much like plugins are for WordPress.
When you combine the ease of blocks with the power of the skin editor, you can easily create powerful websites.
Overall Thoughts
Headway is a powerful drag and drop WordPress theme that will be most suited for people that don’t have much experience with programming. I will warn you though that if you plan on doing something special, you will likely still need to do some custom programming, whether that is CSS, Js, or PHP.
In regards to the blocks, I think they are a brilliant idea and easy to use. But, I believe that some of the blocks are overpriced considering there are existing code tutorials for things such as tabbed content, Facebook comments and likes, etc. But, for those that do not want to muck around with code, a $25 block is probably well worth it ;)
All in all, I think Headway is a solid theme that can be used for beginner and intermediate WordPress users.
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