WPSN Premium Theme

WPSN by StyleWP is a news portal theme inspired by the popular ESPN sports site.

StyleWP kindly provided me with a copy of the theme to try out, and I was pleased to note WPSN’s impressive capabilities and ease of use.

In addition to the actual theme files, WPSN comes packaged with several optional plugins (Ozh Admin Menu, Semilogic Author Image, WP-Email, WP-Polls, WP-Print and WP Related Posts); Photoshop and font files to enable easy tweaking of the logo, poll area and promotional content; the Last RSS feed parser for the news ticker; and a pdf user’s guide.

The foolproof user’s guide explains how to install the theme, add images to articles with the appropriate custom field, set up the news ticker, build the dropdown menus, add a featured video to the homepage and manage adverts in the theme control panel.

The theme control panel contains 91 settings which control general site settings (like meta keywords and description for search engines, copyright notice, google analytics code), advertisements, and the homepage promotion content, etc. View a screenshot of the WPSN theme control panel to get an idea of the incredible attention to detail demonstrated in the creation of this theme.

The top header menu contains useful links for site members which would be helpful for community sites or blogs with several guest bloggers. The main header provides space for a 728×90 banner ad; to the right is a search bar with suggested search terms which are configured in the theme control panel. The news ticker section features headlines from recent posts. A couple of menus for pages and categories follow; dropdown menus are automatically produced where child pages or categories are found.

The homepage is divided into three main sections: the left section provides thumbnails and post excerpts for the three most recent posts, a list of static links, three smaller post excerpts from categories specified in the control panel and space for a 336×280 ad. The centre column provides a list of recent posts, two promotional blocks and another three ad areas. The right column features a poll (integrated with the WP-Polls plugin), an optional video, and up to five optional ad areas.

The majority of the eleven ad sections only appear on the homepage; however, ad#4 also appears in the sidebar of blog pages, posts and ad#11 doesn’t appear on the homepage at all — it only appears below single blog posts — so it would be ideal for adsense or other contextual ads.

WPSN makes sports blogging easy, fun and profitable. It’s amazing value at only $30

Features:

• Comprehensive theme control panel
• Dynamic drop-down menus
• Integrated RSS news ticker
• Multiple built-in promotional blocks
• Built-in banner management (Adsense optimised)
• PDF User’s Guide
• Major browser compatible
• Full source PSD & font files supplied