I originally posted this on Hektechnologies in 2020.
If you have been looking for a WordPress theme, then the one you should be looking at is Divi. (Que Mic Drop)
Ok, I know a little dramatic, but if you have been looking for a versatile WordPress theme that is both clean and powerful. Divi would be the right fit for that. If you want a WordPress theme to do split testing and other advanced things, look no further than Divi. If you want mobile responsiveness or want to take it further and have separate layouts for computers, tablets, and mobile again, Divi has your back.
The things that I mentioned are only the start of what Divi has to offer because you can get all of these features and, if you so choose, can continue using your current theme… (dun dun duuuun) Yeah, I know, right!
Before you think I am crazy, leave in disgust, saying, “what is this guy talking about?”
Let me start with the basics. If you are a web designer this will be gold for you.
If you read my review and like Divi, you can use my referral link, and I will make a little money for my effort; it will cost you nothing extra to do so and would be very appreciated by me.
What are Divi and Elegant Themes, and Why Should I Care?
Elegant Themes is the company behind Divi. In me, they have found a 100% convert. After working with and using their product for 5 years, everything I have seen is fantastic. They work hard to support issues.
They have not made any terrible negative changes to their overall offering and have worked to improve the product year-over-year. They constantly surprise me with newer and better features.
What I Used to Do Before Divi
As a web development company owner, I spent upwards of $1,000 /yr on different themes and the required customizations of those themes. This also discounts the wasted time and effort in learning the ins and outs of a new theme, its development problems, etc.
Rather than subject you to a long story, I took what I originally wrote and made another blog post about it: Click Here To Check Out How Divi Saved My Marriage (JK, but I think I will write that post.)
You know the term work smarter, not harder. Well, this applies in spades here. When you spend money on most themes, you get the small set of designs they provide, and then you are limited to their choice of tools and procedures to edit that theme.
Outside of that, you are left hiring a developer or making code changes yourself. You get what you get and have to work within that frame. Not always bad, depending on your needs, but sometimes this can be a devastating problem for your profitability.
For some, this is more than ok and represents a healthy challenge in creativity, but it was always a sore point for me. I feel like you need to be able to make changes quickly and then own those changes.
With WordPress, everything is GPL, and you DO own those changes; however, Divi takes it a step further and provides an abstraction layer between the technology and the design that leads to something elegant (no pun intended).
Divi theme was originally the only way to use the Divi builder plugin. My first run-in with a builder plugin was WP-Bakery’s Visual Builder (I think they changed that name). It was cool you could make edits and pretty much see them live.
Then you could manipulate a page to your heart’s content and a level of perfection typically reserved for coders by adjusting sliding size bars or typing in parents etc. Some people have recently been excited about beaver builder; I mention this one because it reminds me so much of what Visual Builder used to be or what it wanted to be.
Back to About Divi
But Divi… Divi takes things to the next level. The smoothness of operation, the powerfulness of option, and ease for a non-developer are all things that set it far apart in my mind. And for the developer types, you have an API!
https://www.elegantthemes.com/documentation/developers/
I won’t get into details about the API and its uses in this review post, but it is awesome! I have made some very cool automation and have been working on a deployment app that might never get finished, but I have learned a lot in the process that will be useful later.
Other Cool Features of Divi: A/B Testing
I have a few things on the back burner related to A/B testing. But yeah, for you marketing nuts out there that want to test every aspect of a page, from the color to the button shape. You can do that easily.
If You Are Selling Design Services
Back to the discussion. Besides making my websites look better, have a quicker turnaround, and sell easier, Divi was just fun. You get that immediate feedback even when you can do it right on the post or page in the visual editor.
(Video on how to write a blog post using Divi visual builder) <— I have to remake this video, but I promise to update this soon.
The other big thing I love is that clients can edit things easily. It used to be so complicated to explain to clients how they could log in to WordPress, find the post or page they want to edit, and do it from the backend.
It seemed easy to me, but no matter how often I showed people, I always got the same questions. The fantastic thing is when I started using Divi, these questions stopped.
My YouTube used to have many more videos about editing Posts and Pages on WordPress; many are unlisted videos made for specific clients. However, I can point people to 1 video with Divi and know they will “get it” every time.
For me, this means websites can be a more passive form of income. Now we can charge a yearly maintenance fee and sell blocks of support hours or make other similar offers. Before Divi, I spent 2-10 hrs a week or month per client updating and changing things because they couldn’t figure it out.
It pays; however, it is not what I want to spend my time doing.
Who Can Use Divi?
The secret message I am telling you right now is that complete beginners who are NOT “web people” can easily use Divi. After logging in, they land on the page they want to edit, hit “edit with the visual builder,” and start making changes!
If you’re a beginner, here are some of the problems you will avoid
- Sizing images – Divi makes that easy for you, similar to what most people are used to when using Word
- Responsive design – Divi is fully responsive, and you are given the tools to confirm that right in the editor
- Minifying CSS – Divi does that for you
- Editing CSS – again done for you, but you can customize anything by adding your own
- Embeds are made easy
- Making things pretty will feel very familiar
To give you some insight here, I have web clients that are in their 80s and find Divi easy to use. The general concept being if someone can operate Outlook or Thunderbird to make an email look pretty, then they can use Divi to make their website look like they want or say what they need it to say.
I’m going to make another version of this review. I’m also going to review the other products you get included in your Elegant themes account, including Extra theme, Bloom (email signups), and Monarch social media integration.
If you found my review helpful and decide to purchase Divi, you can use my link, and I will get credit for your purchase. It will not cost you any extra, and it helps me out a ton! Click Here To Buy Divi