Swift Themes Awesomeness

Faster is better than slow

Speed

Speed is relative, it depends on lot of factors like

  • Hosting ( Server configuration )
  • Type of content on the page
  • Connection speed of the user
  • Functionality added to the blog/site

On a fully loaded blog/site ( After adding all the necessary functionality ), your blog will be faster with Swift than it was with any other theme.

How do we achieve that?

By following the standards and doing everything possible to reduce the page weight and the number of HTTP requests. Here are few things that we do in Swift

  • Delayed loading of gravatars in comments. Gravtars are loaded after all the content of the page is ready making your pages faster and responsive. You can see the demo here. See how the avatars are loaded after the page is laoded.
  • Base64 images are used to reduce the page weight and the number of HTTP requests.
  • Style sheets and the javaScript files are generated dynamically including only the styles and scripts your theme configuration needs.
  • Commonly used plugins that add to the page weight are included in Swift with exclusive styling for the theme. Following plugin functionality is included in Swift
    • Page navigation.
    • Breadcrumbs.
    • Social share buttons.
Swift demo site getting 95+ page speed score after following the optimization guide here.

Test it yourself !

Search Engine Optimization

Keep the search bots happy with HTML5

The new Swift is a HTML5 theme, making full and correct use of the newly introduced semantics. With the new semantics in HTML5 it is easy for search engines to identify the most important content ( The article ) on your page and rank it for the right key word. With Swift you get traffic that’s actually interested in your article, traffic that sticks, and not some useless traffic who is on your page because the search engines couldn’t rank your page correctly.

Confused? Click me for an example

For example… Consider you write about dogs, and a user with alias “Bond007″ is a regular commenter on your blog and on one post he has written over 10 comments. Now the density of the word Bond007 is higher than any other word on that page. If you don’t tell the robots which part of the page has the most important content, they will rank the page higher for the keywords bond, bond007, james bond etc and thus lowering the importance of the actual keyword. The traffic you get for that particular post is uses less, as the user was looking for info on James Bond and seeing the posts about dogs he will leave the site immediately. The new improved semantics will help us help the robots to understand the page better and rank for the right keyword. When you are ranked for the right keyword, you get quality traffic.

Other things in Swift to help you with search rankings

  • HTML of the document remains the same in left sidebar, right sidebar and centered layout.
  • Main content ( The Article/Post ) comes first in the document flow in every layout.
  • H1 tag is used for blog name on home page, and on single page blog name gets H2 and post title gets the H1.
  • If you are using logo, blog name and description are added to logo ALT attribute and link title attribute respectively.
  • Swift does not waste the useful heading tags ( H1,H2….H6 ) on widget section titles, it uses <p> and <span>tags and styles them to look like headings.
  • Last but not the least, THE SPEED

Design

Swift comes with a clean and user friendly design, with hundreds of possible layouts. With Swift you won’t have to hire a designer for his technical skills, you can customize every element of the site to your liking from the options page.
You get

  1. Three different types of layouts ( Fluid width, Hybrid, and Fixed width ), with customizable width for hybrid and fixed layouts.
  2. Two navigation styles.
  3. 2 sliders.
  4. Blog and two magazine formats to list the posts, with option to select the number of columns for magazine layout.
  5. Customize the typography, and colors of every element of the site.
  6. 7 awesome widgets to enhance the usability of your site.
  7. 10+ page templates easily build business sites using WordPress as CMS.
  8. Shortcodes to easily insert buttons, icons, columns, content toggles and tabbed content.

Every single element in Swift is designed with at most care to give your readers the best experience.

News paper layout

Swift comes with a  very well thought and designed NEWS paper template to help you better deliver content to your readers. The news paper template will help you reduce bounce rate and increase page views.

Ad Management

Swift comes with built in ad management with ad’s integrated into 9 prominent locations of the site, giving you highest possible CTR. With swift you will not need a ad manager plugin.

Rocking support

For us support doesn’t end with answering your question, we see your questions as a feedback to improve our product and do the necessary so that there won’t be the same question again in future. Also we included the FAQ’s, inline instructions and a short guide on how to get started with Swift.
These greatly help us in reducing the number of support requests, and thus giving the developer time to answer all support questions.

Plugin integration

Most commonly used plugins are integrated into Swift. This means, your blog wont have to load the style sheets and js files of those plugins as they are bundled with SWIFT.

  • Page navigation.
  • Breadcrumbs.
  • Shortcodes.
  • Social media icons.
  • Ad Managers
  • Support for YARPP.

Attention to detail & focus on users

Every element of the site is designed with at most care and constantly reviewed. We test various options to find the best possible configuration before a feature or design enhancement makes it to the final version.

Here is a list of such things that are immediately visible to you

  • User friendly error pages.
  • Implementation of authorship markup.
  • Default styling for forms.
  • No uneven spacings.
  • 7 well thought widgets.
  • 10+ useful page templates to help you design business sites easily.
  • Option to disable WordPress WYSYWIG editor smartness when designing pages.
  • Custom CSS option for individual pages, again a handy tool to develop business sites.
  • Includes a template for the popular related posts plugin YARRP, to help you create a engaging blog.

Implementing authorship markup in Swift