OptimizePress Review
The OptimizePress theme is built for Internet Marketers in mind, and contains a varied number of options to create your sites. Now first off this theme isn’t well suited for Amazon affiliates and the like, it is more for driving sales of products via Squeeze pages, Sales Lettes, Product Launches etc. So if you have an Ebook or singular service or product (yours or someone else’s) that you need to really target your prospective visitors with then read on.
Optimize Press consists of various sections, so that you can create either a singular page with the focus that you need, or multiple pages with different styles to target different cross sections of the market and/or keywords.
Squeeze Pages
There are 11 Squeeze page templates included with the theme (and a handy template viewer to help pick one). Each one comes with a slightly different layout with various features such as video capability, sidebar/no sidebar, optin boxes, navigation/ no navigation and more. All of which you can use to garner your visitors email addresses.
The Options that are available to you for creating squeeze pages is staggering, giving you the ability to change the colour scheme, logo headlines, video, e-cover settings, the list goes on. And this is the first minor issue I have with the theme, its a steep learning curve. Now that doesn’t mean that the theme isn’t good and that the options system is laid out well, they are, but it’s a bit overwhelming at first.
Launch Pages
Ideal for product launches, i.e. your new plugin or software, OptimizePress gives you 8 template options for these, which all seem to focus heavily on video (and why not? Videos convert).
Once more, the options available to you to tweak these pages is crazy, pretty much the same as the Squeeze pages but with more focused settings such as the Call To Action buttons (read the Custom pages section below for more on these).
Sales Pages
The sales pages are for your sales letters and there are 12 templates thrown in. The settings are the same as the Launch pages, and I thought there would be some variation, but they looked very similar to each other and the Launch pages templates.
Membership Pages
I was really excited when I saw that this theme had membership options, thinking that there was a built in functionality for a membership site. Unfortunately, the theme only goes as far as providing the style and structure for the sites, you will need to get a plugin or web developer to create the actual functionality of a membership site.
Blog
OptimizePress also ships with a Blog theme template, only one, but lets face it you dont need a million template options for a basic blog.
Instant pages
Within the options, you can create pages with a few clicks, the theme simply uses the templates and creates a page ready for your copy. They even have essential pages such as Privacy, Disclaimer etc.
Integrated SEO
Most people use an SEO plugin in order to optimize their on page SEO, but OptimizePress comes with a built in SEO system, which you can either use and disable your plugin or disable this option within the theme (in order to reduce a possible conflict with your plugin)
Custom Pages
The real power behind this theme, and what I love the most about it, is the power you have when creating your own sales pages. The theme provides you with three new buttons on your options bar:
- Add Custom Shortcode (text)
- Add Button Shortcode
- Add Custom Shortcode (image)
So really it should be two as the two Add Custom Shortcodes are the same, but ones a text list of options and the other has some visual clues to what the shortcodes do which is handy. The button shortcode is also visual.
Using these shortcodes is a breeze, simply select the one you want and the customize the text/image and voila you have a Call to Action button, or a testimonial section, or a guarantee section or 4 columns of text. So many different options, so many different combinations!
The number of shortcodes will keep you busy in both learning what’s there and using them in your site, and allow for a completely customisable page without having to dig into the code or create your own images.
Autoresponder Integration
Putting your autoresponder details into a site can be a pain, but this theme does make it really easy to do, simply copy and paste the code provided by your autoresponder service, check some settings and your away! It did however take me a while to actually find the setting for this, as its buried in the Squeeze Page > Optin options on the actual page options.
Quick and Easy Sales Pages
I’ve probably missed some of the features that OptimizePress actually has, as it is really feature packed, and I would recommend this theme for anyone that needs to create sales pages, funnels and launch pages quickly and efficiently, once you have learned where everything is. And that’s the only real downside, there are so many different options to tweak the site, it does mean you are on a learning curve to figure out where something is that you need. However, once you know it, its so easy to get pages up and running.
01/31/2012 @ 5:33 am
Haven’t tried any paid WordPress theme yet but this looks really great! I might invest some money for this one soon..
01/31/2012 @ 10:35 am
It is, I had great fun playing around with it, and when I’m looking to do sales letters and the like I’m definitely going to be using this.
01/31/2012 @ 6:36 am
Good information. I had not heard of this theme, but it looks perfect for Internet marketers. Thanks for letting me know about it.
01/31/2012 @ 10:35 am
You’re welcome Steve
01/31/2012 @ 3:23 pm
a very informative article there Dean. Thank you. I might have to try this out.
02/01/2012 @ 11:51 am
This looks like a cool theme to use! Thanks for the info! 🙂
02/02/2012 @ 4:42 am
Excellent and informative article, I have a future website build I will be using this for
05/21/2012 @ 6:29 pm
Good looking theme. May try it!
08/04/2012 @ 5:43 am
1. Can the custom buttons be used for the squeeze pages as well?
2. Can I use the squeeze page templates to build PPC landing pages without opt in form? For a example a bridge type page for a CPA offer?
08/04/2012 @ 12:38 pm
Hi Ahmed,
The custom shortcodes and buttons can be used no matter what you create as they are become part of the Tiny MCE editor whilst the theme is active.
Yeah you should be able to use the templates in that way, if not out of the box, then certainly with a little CSS.
Dean
08/04/2012 @ 8:02 pm
Thank you Dean for the reply.
Do you recommend OptimizePress or Unbounce.com for creating landing pages?
08/04/2012 @ 8:29 pm
Well I have never used the unbounce site, honestly never heard of it until now. Cheapest option is $50 per month, which to me seems steep. Im sure the options and features are decent (they better be at that price) but seems weird to buy that when you can pay a one off fee for a quality theme.
08/08/2012 @ 8:26 pm
im sad its not good for amazon or cj products. he says its not good for them. does anybody out there try to use it for amazon etc? if so can i see examples, since i bought this and want to do more than just simple squeezepages…
09/24/2012 @ 9:19 am
Hello,
I am using optimizedpress theme for my video sales letter and visualwebsiteoptimizer.com to track conversion rate. I have 3 videos to test and I want the add to cart button appear 3 different times. Is there any body knows how to customized the add to cart button? or is there a shortcode or script for this to happen?
I really need to your help.
ALL THE BEST,
CHITOCHAT
09/28/2012 @ 7:24 pm
I haven’t seen any information anywhere about using a child theme with OptimizePress, but it’s my standard practice to use child themes. Is there a problem with using child themes with OptimizePress?
02/03/2014 @ 11:47 am
I have not used this theme till now but I consider to use this theme in next website releases. Thanks for the review.