Yamidoo Magazine – Premium WordPress Theme Review

As a blogger or business owner whose website uses the WordPress publishing platform, often choosing a theme can drive you crazy.

There are just so many.

For example, there are hundreds of free themes to choose from at the WordPress.org theme directory.

Often you will find these free themes just don’t have the flexibility, features and functionality required by someone who needs a professional look and feel.

That’s where a premium WordPress theme comes in.

Premium WordPress themes have that extra polish required to take your site to a more professional level.

And just like the free themes, there are thousands of premium themes to choose from.

I get quite a few emails by people asking me about the theme The Social Media Guide uses.. so here is a behind-the-scenes look at my theme – Yamidoo Magazine by WPZoom.

Yamidoo Magazine

The team at WPZoom have developed many professional looking WordPress themes.

My theme, Yamidoo Magazine, is a magazine-style theme that is designed for any type of informative website or news portal.

It has a simple layout that can be easily styled to create the perfect look for your blog.

Theme Details

• Threaded Comments
• Support for WordPress 2.9
• Widgetized Sidebar
• Compatible with all modern browsers
• Theme Options Admin Panel
• Featured Posts on Homepage
• Custom templates for categories, archives, authors, search results
• Integrated social bookmarking in posts
• Drop-Down Menu for Categories
• Banner Ads Management System
• Flickr widget
• Support for Google Analytics & Feedburner
• Valid XHTML & CSS Code

What Do You Get?

• A Unique Premium WordPress Theme
• Free & Unlimited Support
• Free updates for future versions
• Theme Guides & Documentation
• PSD layered files (in Developer License)

Unique Features

Built-in Widgets

Contains built-in widgets: Popular, Comments, Popular, Tags

Threaded Comments

Built-in support for threaded comments,

Drop Down Menu

For displaying sub-categories and sub-pages,

Theme Options

From the WordPress dashboard, you can select and configure additional Yamidoo theme options,

Featured Slideshow

The homepage displays a rotating Featured Slideshow,

This is enabled and configured via the WPZoom Theme Options section,

Every new post I publish I assign to a category called Featured.

As you can see from the image above the Slideshow displays posts that are in the Featured category.

So effectively, the slideshow will display my four most recent posts.

Featured Categories

The Featured Categories section, directly under the Featured Slideshow, displays the posts from four categories of  your choosing,

This is enabled and configured via the WPZoom Theme Options section,

Excluding Categories and Pages

You can easily exclude categories or pages from the Main Menu (Header),

As you can see, these categories and pages have been excluded from my Main Menu (Header),

Custom Field

You can use custom fields for photos,

I use a custom field primarily for the main picture of a blog post..  this picture will be shown on the Featured Slider when I publish that post.

Here is how I do this..

(When creating a new post) click on <Add an Image> icon,

Select the picture you want to upload (sized 480 x 280 pixels), then click <Upload>,

You need to get the URL of that file you have just uploaded.

Click on <File URL>,

Now copy the file path (excluding your domain)..

As you can see I am NOT copying my domain thesocialmediaguide.com

I am copying the rest of the file path,

Next click on <Save All Changes>,

Click on Close to close this window,

Now scroll down to the Custom Fields section.. paste in the file path you copied earlier.. select image from the drop-down menu.. then click on <Add Custom Field>,

Done!

This custom field will now display this blog post’s main picture,

This picture will also display in the Featured Slideshow on the homepage.

Logo

You can easily display your blog’s logo,

By specifying its location in the Theme Options section,

Google Analytics

You also have the option of integrating Google Analytics into your blog simply by adding your Tracking Script code,

Feedburner Integration

There is also Google Feedburner integration.

You can specify your Feedburner address,

Your Feedburner ID can also be entered for email subscriptions (in the footer),

Banner Management

You can place your banner or advertisements in the header or sidebar,

This is enabled and configured via the WPZoom Theme Options section,

Support Forum

WPZoom provide a very good support forum as well.

To gain access to the support forum you first need to confirm that you have purchased a theme from WPZoom.

These instructions outline the steps involved to gain access to the forum.

Once this has been validated by WPZoom you will receive an email advising you have been granted access.

This forum is really quite good.

I have used it many times to ask general questions.. also questions regarding how to tweak certain parts of the theme, issues I have encountered, report bugs, etc.

The responses are always very prompt and get resolved very quickly by the developers, which is reassuring.

To make navigation easy it is divided up by theme type,

From there you can report any bugs found and share fixes, showcase your blog using that particular theme and ask any pre-sale questions,

Then you have the main forum section, where you can often find the answer you are looking for,

Conclusion

I have used the Yamidoo Magazine theme on The Social Media Guide since Day 1.. and have been very happy with it.. and would definitely recommend it.

I have seen many defects resolved.. and improvements in the theme’s functionality, over a number of different version releases (these version releases are free for premium customers).

Having a well maintained support forum has definitely added a great deal of confidence in my purchase.

I have customised my theme a great deal thanks to the support forum.

If you are looking for a professional WordPress theme, there is a great selection and plenty to choose from at WPZoom,

Finally..

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Enjoy!

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