Among many other things, Confucius was the one to pen the famous words, “don’t use a cannon to kill a mosquito.”
I’m a huge believer in using the right tool for the job at hand. That’s why I use or recommend different website builders for projects which means that WordPress sometimes isn’t always the best tool for the job.
But as a blogging platform, WordPress has been my writing instrument of choice for my blogs. However, the one thing that always changed on the few blogs that I owned is the themes.
I have tested, used, changed, and changed back to more themes than I can count trying to find one what fit my needs and made branding simple. But as I’m sure you’re aware, this isn’t as easy as it sounds.
As soon as I heard that Elegant Themes was going to be releasing the newest Divi version, I knew it would be one I was going to test out.
After the release of the team’s flagship theme and a lot of time testing out the platform, I switched my freelancing blog over to Divi.
My Blog Had A New Direction and Needed a New Look
Back in 2014 when I first started my blog, Freelance Freedom Fighter, I used it mainly as a way to let people get in touch with me for more writing work.
But fast forward to 2017, and a lot has changed. My blog now had an audience of other freelancers, and I wasn’t just doing writing anymore.
Now that my business had grown and evolved, the overall direction and plan for this blog had also changed.
That change also meant that my blog would need a new look. But it was hard to find a theme that gave me versatility in layouts and that didn’t look like every other site out there.
But here’s what won me over with Divi.
5 Reasons Why I Chose The Divi Theme For My Blog
1. Visual Designing
Being able to design my site visually instead of being stuck in the back-end and dabbling with code was a pretty big deal for me.
When newest update to Divi came out, the visual editor was the first thing that struck me. Being able to go right to my site’s pages and design them to look the way that I wanted was easier than I expected and gave a lot of flexibility in layouts.
I found that I could find pages of other themes that I liked and quickly recreate them in my own blog.
The drag-and-drop abilities also meant that if I ever needed a new style or look to my various pages, I could move things around or completely redesign a page a look the way I wanted.
2. Split Testing via Divi Leads
When you’re marketing anything online, the one question you should be asking often is how well you’re converting your traffic. The best way to figure this out is to do A/B testing or split testing.
In most cases, you need a different tool that does this and to pay separately for it which can get costly.
However, the Divi Theme comes with an A/B testing system built right into the theme. It’s called Divi Leads. Instead of guessing if my pages and landing pages are converting well, I can simply split test these and measure the stats to figure out which version works best on my site.
This isn’t a small thing for marketing, and that it’s included is a pretty decent bonus.
3. Great for Expanding As The Need Arises
While I don’t currently sell physical projects, I do sell my time and some digital projects. So I knew that I would need a theme that allowed me to utilize WooCommerce.
Thankfully, the Divi theme is compatible with that plugin. So as my blog grows and the need for an online store emerges, I can expand into that without much of a fuss.
4. The Community Offers A Lot (Including 3rd Party Products!)
Community is a pretty big deal in the WP space, and the community of Elegant Themes is one I’ve been acquainted with for some time now.
Knowing the community, the help, the ideas and the products available around Divi isn’t something you come by with every theme out there.
Between the comments on the blog, the other Divi developers, and the Facebook community, plus the support directly from the team at Elegant Themes, there is a lot of help out there when help is needed.
5. Perfect for Branding and Will Help My Blog Stand Out
Finally, the biggest reason for my personally switching to Divi had to do with branding.
Nailing down a brand isn’t easy with WordPress if you’re not a developer. I’m not.
I don’t like coding. I don’t have the time to hassle with that. Or as the famous saying goes, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
With Divi, branding was much easier. Colors are easy to set, fonts can be picked and set to defaults and the overall feel of my blog brand was easy to nail down.
It was a real time saver for me and one thing I don’t take lightly.
Wrapping It Up
These are 5 reasons why I personally chose Divi for my blog. I have a lot of plans for my blog and I’m excited to see how Divi fits into everything as time goes on.
Have you tried the Divi theme? Is your story similar to mine?
Article Thumbnail by Author Bplanet via Shutterstock
I would love to switch my theme (currently using pipdig) because I want to have more creativity and more ways to present some products but switching does not seem so easy…Some tips would be great 🙂
Curious how you would move existing posts from an existing like blogger.com to the divi platform.
We have a tutorial for this!
https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/migrating-blogger-to-wordpress-a-step-by-step-guide
Most of the builders and premium themes when unistalled leave leave a bunch of shortcodes behind or worst some of them delete your content. For long term blog for possibility to change theme is the beaver builder and genesis framework. I am thinking about a food blog and this is my findings so far…
If someone has found something else please share…
Why hasn’t the builder plugin been updated yet so you could do this with whatever theme you choose? It’s been so long since the release of Divi and Extra that I really don’t understand what the holdup is. It almost feels like you are delaying the release in order to boost sales and advertising by using your theme instead.
They expect builder 2.0 to be released by the end of this month (February 2017). At least, that’s what they told me in a support ticket.
Divi theme is truly awesome since i have changed the look and feel of my own blogs and also my business websites twice. Its nice to use a different tool but not always especially when you are happy with the one you have as latest.
Really enjoyed this article thank you for sharing. I’m getting more used to Divi and I truly love the flexibility it has to offer. Divi is a game changer for industry and it’s great for the developer, designer, and DIYer. Certainly, the blog feature isn’t as robust compared to other platforms, but it still works. If that’s the only downside and I can create a beautiful, custom built site that I can hand off to a client and empower them to manage on their own or easily create landing pages, sales pages and thank you pages without having to use other software – I’m sold.
Ultimately it comes down to your business objectives around your website, and what are the features that you need to support those goals.
My site is currently on Genesis, but I’m planning a major overhaul and will be switching to Divi in the next few months.
I don’t like the blog module! Maybe there will be improvements!
I really like Divi.. it’s the best among others.. I’ve already used it for 3 projects so far.. Many thanks to developers..
To those people asking if Divi and Extra are OK for blogs: Divi and Extra are great themes to use for your blogs, just don’t use the Divi Builder for your blog posts. Use the Divi Builder for your pages. The thinking behind that suggestion is that you might have hundreds or thousands of blog posts but a smaller number of pages. If you switch themes the pages that used the Divi Builder won’t look good anymore and will have to be fixed. If it is a small number then it is not a big deal.
Of course, Elegant Themes has the Divi Builder plugin, so you can use that if you change themes to keep your pages looking good. It is just something to be aware of.
I’ve been using Divi for a short time now and learning on the job. First impression; great theme!
Thanks for the article.
I wish Divi would have an adjustable featured image size option built in if possible.
Meaning, each blog (if using the divi builder of course) would have an adjustable featured image like the image module.
Just a thought…
I switched out my website to Divi and it has been extremely useful in doing quick edits to the overall design. I’m learning as I go but it certainly beats having to switch between “edit theme” with a previous wp theme and going back and forth to make it look the way I want it to!
I also use Divi for my freelance profile and hiring page. it’s cool lovely and superb.
I so much love Divi.
I’m new to WordPress and Divi, but loving Divi so far. If I build my blog pages using the default WordPress editor will they then be easier to move if I decide to change themes in the future than if I were to build them in Divi?
You can style your blog posts anyway you want with Divi, use the Divi Builder or use the Default WordPress Editor.
It is not true to suggest that with the Divi Theme your Blog just disappears. My Blog is alive and well and has been working just fine with Divi.
The Blog module has some limitations, it’s more for pulling in the blog posts on the main blog page and not on the Home page. Would like to see the blog module have the option to select the excerpt or not select the excerpt when using the blog module.
I’ve been using the Divi theme since it first came out and have never had one bit of trouble using it.
Lately, I’ve seen a lot of criticism for the Divi Theme which is about right when people just can’t face the fact Divi has proven to be one of the best WordPress Themes on the Market. Everyone can use it, the designer, developer, and the ordinary user.
I tend to agree. If your focus is to blog, and you are serious about it, you will soons have hundred of posts, and I would also stay away from Divi. You will have soon thousands of heavily customised content with snippets and proprietary code into your post content inside the database. You are just calling for a disaster along the line. I also wish that significant improvement will be made sooner than later by ET… Until then…
To Patrick Finney,
What do you recommend for blog sites, Elegant Themes Extra Theme?
I love everything about Divi and think it is near perfect except the Blog Module. That has been my only complaint of Divi since Day 1 and it seems like everything gets better around Divi except the Blog Module. This is not criticizing Elegant Themes as they put out more valuable content and freebie goodness than any company I know of and I very much appreciate it, but the Blog in Divi just does not have that pop and power of a pro blog theme in my opinion. Now, I do think you can style individual blog articles better than any theme out there and Elegant Themes gives lots of free blog article templates, but the curb appeal on the Blog HomePage is what I wish would get some more love. I’d like to see more ‘Extra’ in Divi is all.
My two 1/2 cents-
mike
Indeed! I thought I was the only one! I love the theme but everything you wrote about the blogging part is right.
Thank you for the post. I am a little confused though. I already use Divi, but now I want to create a new website for myself which needs to include a blog. So I started to look at the Extra theme and found that, in addition to the Divi builder, it has some great features for blogs.
So now I wonder, why did you still choose Divi over the Extra theme?
The Split Testing is one of the most unique features that makes Divi stand apart. I may have some issues with Divi (that I hope are corrected soon), Divi pretty much gives you the ability to duplicate most any style and layout that other themes present. And the community and amount of resources online help to round that out.
What ET needs to do though is take some of the more longstanding modifications and incorporate them into Divi as a standard. There are far too many code snippets being used to correct very basic functions that should be included as a standard. Now that the Visual Builder is out, ET needs to spend time making sure v.3.1 addresses those issues.
Geekcheck,
Mostly, I have NO problem with support.
But . . .
Having an ET support person create CSS or code to correct a problem that I’m having in Divi — and giving it to me to “fix” my problem — is a big irritant to me. And I get the sense that these fixes and problems do not get passed along by the support person for one of the ET developers to create a REAL fix in the way Divi works.
It makes me think of the paper towel dispensers in public rest rooms that have printed instructions on them on how to get the towel to come out when the machine stops working correctly. Why not fix the design of the machine instead of telling me how to work around its failure?
We are big believers in the Divi theme, but do not recommend to clients that they use the Divi builder for blogs. This is simply to do the best job of “future proofing” the client site.
If the Divi theme were to change drastically, if there was a significant release that didn’t play well with WP or standard plug-ins, or if–God forbid–Elegant Themes went away, blogs designed on Divi would be a significant liability.
While it would be a pain to convert the design of the site’s static pages to a new theme, the prospect of doing that to potentially hundreds of blog posts is daunting at best.
We appreciate the flexibility that Divi offers us in design, but for this reason are unable to recommend it for blog posts.
what would you recommend it for. I have the lifetime membership and the idea in my head was to use this for all client web design projects. I run a small business web design co. I see alot of people talking about how it can be a liability for the future especially if the client wants to change themes. do you even recommend using this at all for clients?
Yes! I agree and I really struggle doing the blog for clients. Do I set it out and make it look amazing – give my clients instructions on how to create a new blog post with a pre-made layout i have created or just keep the blog simple but have it lacking in something design wise.
I actually really wish that Divi would create some posts on how Divi designers are approaching their blog layouts, their reasoning, etc. I feel even if just the sidebar could be more customisable in line with the divi theme (within the widgets section rather than the divi builder).
Patrick – So what themes do you recommend for blogging? Is the ‘Extra’ theme a better alternative?
Hi Patrick,
I think that’s an awesome point to make and I agree – not to use the Builder for blog posts for exactly that reason – will we still be using the builder in 10 years ? That’s a long time in terms of the web, but potentially there may be 100s if not 1000s of posts and if for any reason we had to uninstall the Builder that would just be way too much to re-put together.
Unless Elegant Themes re-configure the Builder someway so that when it is un-installed it removes all the shortcodes too and can leave a page layout looking OK?
I tend to agree, but that is the truth for practically any premium theme that allows you to custom a blog post so heavily. I think it boils down to the user deciding whether or not they want to create customized blog posts or just use the standard WordPress editor for that. In any case, it all comes down to what the user is comfortable with.
Hello Ariel,
I can relate to the constant changing of themes.
With a little research and know-how you can essentially turn divi into anything you want. It’s the only “theme” I use for myself and clients. It’s really a platform in my honest opinion.
The flexibility and room for customizations it offers is what makes it so great.