Standard 3 – Updated Website Theme

I’ve been waiting for this day for some time now. Standard, the premium theme I use on 90% of my websites, has released version 3. Free to support license users and otherwise starting at $49, the theme offers some great improvements.

This week I’ve spent some time getting it up and running at BC Treks.

What do I love most? It’s fast!

The speed your website loads greatly determines how high you show in google’s rankings. #1 is a nice spot to be.

A lot happens behind the scenes to make your site load quickly. The guys at Standard have also incorporated a lot of plugins directly into the theme. You’re probably aware that too many plugins slow down your site so it’s a very good thing.

Another new feature I love is the updated social influence widget. Again, it’s built into the code (you can still remove it) so it loads quickly. Instead of the weird Twitter + Feedburner thing you still see here at Coach Radio, you get clickable links for twitter, facebook, and RSS. You can show one, two, or all of them in a number of different ways, or not at all.

Perhaps the best reason to love Standard 3 is the ability to use a child theme. It used to be a pain in the butt to upgrade the theme, but they use of a child theme makes it super simple. All your customizations are done to a child theme, allowing you to upgrade Standard without losing any of your changes. That’s also why I’ve been waiting to upgrade Coach Radio until now.

You’ll also find the back end pretty snappy. Most of the customizations are done in CSS so you no longer need to know PHP to trick out your site. You’ll find a few built in widgets like activity tabs to easily display what you like in the sidebar.

Pretty nice, huh? Did I mention it’s fast?

I’m an affiliate for Standard because I love it so much. If you’re tired of a slow site you’ll and the inability to customize, you’ll love the elegance of Standard 3.