Video is quickly becoming the most popular type of content. Both the video-sharing platforms and social media platforms are experiencing a rapid boost in video consumption.
If you have always wanted to create a video-focused site, now would be the perfect time to do that.
Since you will create the website in WordPress, you will need a professional theme to get started. But where can you find a high-quality theme that offers all the features you need?
Luckily, I have found just the theme you need. I am talking about
Vlog, a beautiful, video-focused theme that can also be used for creating other types of websites.
Want to know more about Vlog? Continue reading as I take an in-depth look at this highly popular WordPress theme.
Why We Need Vlog?
Vlog is fully optimized for displaying videos, which makes it an excellent choice for creating any video-centric website. The attractive ways to show videos, automatic detection of video thumbnails, and simple ways to import videos from popular sources will make it a lot easier to get started with your website.
Along with video sites, Vlog could also be an interesting choice for creating personal, magazine, or news sites. A large number of post layouts will help you present the content in unique ways.
The fully optimized coding will make sure that your pages have a fast loading speed. This will help you get better search engine ranking and an improved user experience. The superior customization options allow you to decorate your website according to your requirements.
The theme comes with so many options that it is not possible to cover all these options in a single review. Instead, let’s find out how this theme helps you in creating different types of websites.
What Can I Do with Vlog?
Vlog allows you to create different types of video-based, personal, or magazine websites. Let’s take a closer look at how this theme will help in creating these kinds of websites.
Creating a Video-based Website
At its core, Vlog is specially designed to be powered by videos. Therefore, the theme comes with all the necessary options for creating fully functional video-based websites. For instance, you can create video slideshows and show these on the home page.
Adding videos can take a lot of time depending on your internet connection. Vlog makes it easier by allowing you to import videos from popular sources like YouTube and Vimeo. Along with single videos, it is also possible to import whole playlists with a few mouse clicks. As the theme will automatically detect the thumbnails for the videos, you won’t have to upload custom video thumbnails.
The theme package includes a dedicated plugin for creating playlists with your videos. This makes it very simple to create series of videos and show these at once.
Visitors can click the “Watch Later” button to add any video to their watch later list. They can access the list simply by hovering over the top-right icon. The built-in cinema mode allows them to view the video in full-screen, without any distraction.
Creating a Personal Website
Vlog comes with 200+ post layout combinations, making it an attractive choice for creating personal websites. The home page slider allows you to feature the latest or most popular posts. Below, you can show a grid of the featured topics, followed by the most recent posts. Thanks to the built-in infinity scrolling, your visitors will never run out of content.
Flexible image sizing is another notable feature of Vlog. This feature allows you to choose any of the default aspect ratios, or choose a custom size and make the most out of your attractive images. Multiple header styles will help you decide the most appropriate type of header for your blog.
Most blog owners want to earn some money from their website. Vlog will certainly be a treat for them. There are dedicated advertisement spots on various strategic locations like the header, above the post, on the sidebar, etc.
Creating a Magazine Website
Magazine websites are all about content, and that’s where Vlog shines the most. It offers an attractive layout for displaying all the latest, featured, most viewed, most commented posts, along with different categories and topics on the home page.
Unlimited sidebar allows you to create as many sidebars as you want. You can assign those sidebars to any or all posts, pages, or category. It is also possible to make the sidebars sticky, so that they remain fixed in their position.
When you have a lot of content, you have to use pagination to divide all the content into several pages. Vlog comes with four pagination styles that allow the visitors to load the older or newer posts, click on a page number, or click the “Load More” button. Other features like the post view count and related posts will skyrocket your visitor engagement rate.
Vlog Theme Features
As I discussed earlier, Vlog comes with powerful options to add, manage, and display the videos and regular content. Along with these, the theme also comes with an intuitive theme options panel. The theme options allow you to have complete control over the styling of your website.
The theme package includes several custom widgets to show image ads, AdSense ads, Flickr photo stream, author details, social media links, playlists, etc. on the sidebar or footer. There is a unique option to highlight any widget. The highlighted widget will feature a different style, attracting immediate attention from the visitors.
If you are planning to create a website in any other language, Vlog has got you covered. The RTL-supported theme comes with an integrated translation tool. As it has full support with WooCommerce and bbPress, you can use this theme to integrate a fully functional online shop or online forum to your website.
The theme coding follows all the web best practices. That means your website will enjoy a faster page loading speed and work correctly on all modern web browser. The fully responsive theme will ensure that your website looks great on all screen sizes and resolutions.
How to use Vlog?
Once you purchase Vlog, install and activate it on your WordPress site. At this point, you will notice a new menu item titled “Theme Options” on the dashboard. Click on that menu item, and you will be taken to a page like the following –
As you can see, the customization options are divided into different sections. Go through the sections one by one and make the necessary changes. Don’t forget to click the “Save Changes” button before you leave this page.
In case you don’t have the time to create all the necessary content for your website, just go to the “Demo Importer” section. That section allows you to import the demo content for the video-based, personal, or magazine website.
If you have used WordPress before, you will find yourself at home. Vlog integrates its advanced features with the regular WordPress features. For instance, you can add a new post by going to Posts > Add New.
While everything looks almost the same, you will find a new icon titled “Meks Shortcodes” among the usual icons. As you can expect, clicking the icon allows you to use any of the 12 types of shortcodes. These enable you to create column-based layouts, separator, highlights, buttons, tabs, toggles, accordion, and so on.
There are some new sections on the right sidebar as well. These allow you to choose the cover layout, sidebar style, and video thumbnail for your post.
You will find the custom widgets in the Appearance > Widgets page. Vlog supports a couple of widgetized locations including the default sidebar, default sticky sidebar, contact, custom, and the footer widget location. Drag and drop the widgets to your desired location. Highlighting a widget is as simple as checking the “Highlight this widget” box.
Support & Pricing
You can
purchase Vlog for $69. This price includes six months of professional support from the theme developers. As a premium customer, you are also eligible to get lifetime updates.
If you are not entirely ready to make the purchase, you can get a free three-day trial of the theme. This allows you to test various features of the theme and take the final decision.
Conclusion
Now that you know what this theme is capable of, what’s stopping you from getting started with your video site? While you are at it, don’t forget to let me know your opinion about Vlog by leaving a comment below.