Thrive Themes Best of 2018

Author 
Bradley Stevens   20

Updated on December 30, 2019

In 2018, we published 118 blog posts to the Thrive Themes blog, ranging from feature updates to marketing training to website reviews.

That’s a lot!

We work hard to bring you content that makes you a better marketer and website developer. But how do you know you haven’t missed the good bits?

Don’t worry, we’ve got your back!

In this post, we’ll review our best and most noteworthy articles published in 2018, and point you in the right direction.

We’ll start with our 7 must-see posts, then our 5 favorite new features, and we’ll finish with a list of the best stuff to check out depending on your goals.

Ok, let’s juice the goodness out of 2018.

More...

The 7 Must-See Articles of 2018

These are the posts that made a unique observation, taught a powerful new skill or really offered something to lift your online marketing game.

Our most-shared article of 2018 was this epic piece by Shane about Personal Branding Homepages. This type of homepage is used by large authority marketers such as Tim Ferriss, Marie Forleo and Gary Vaynerchuk.

In this piece, Shane looks at how personal branding homepages have changed over time, what makes them work and how you can use a new homepage Template we’ve built that puts that power in your hands. Dive in to this Homepage History post here.

In 2017, Hanne pulled apart the many different opt-in forms that Ramit Sethi uses throughout his website. In 2018, we continued the study by writing about how Ramit sells his products on autopilot to his mailing list subscribers.

This article looks at the journey of a new lead after signing up to Ramit’s mailing list, what emails they start to receive, and then how they are automatically driven into an evergreen sales funnel.

But we don’t leave it there: We show you how to use the evergreen features in Thrive Ultimatum so you can do the same! Pour a cup of coffee and read Learn From The Master- Part 2: How To Sell Your Products On Autopilot Like Ramit Sethi

Do you remember it? The great GDPR panic of 2018?

For a few months leading up to May, GDPR (the enforcement of new online privacy laws) was all the internet could talk about, and the pandemonium is something we’re looking forward to forgetting.

But amidst all the misinformation, confusion and panic, Shane published one of the most logical and sensible explanations of GDPR that you’ll find on the web.

If you’re a bit lost on what GDPR is or what it means for your website, check out the article here to get great advice that isn’t wedged in a paranoia-sandwich.

4) Lead Opt-In Form Week

Our busiest week of 2018, we released new Thrive Leads opt-in template sets every day for 7 days. That was a total of 225 beautiful new forms! If you missed it, then here’s the links to video posts introducing each new set:

  • Day 1 - Round images: Surprise your visitors with an original, out-of-the-box design.
  • Day 2 - Corporate: If you're looking for a slick, modern design this set is what you need.
  • Day 3 - Personal Brand: These 2 sets of opt-in forms are perfect for a personal brand or professional service website.
  • Day 4 - Eccentric Lines: This is the most original design you've ever seen on an opt-in form. If you want to impress your visitors with edgy forms, this is the design to pick.
  • Day 5 - Overlay Patterns: This design is bold, dynamic and perfect for a fitness brand.
  • Day 6 - Typography: Fonts are stealing the show here. These two sets use original fonts to grab attention and work perfectly for coupon opt-in bribes.
  • Day 7 - Vertical Split: Nature inspired design to use on travel or outdoors websites.

Shane took some time to examine a blog post he found which he considers the near-perfect blog post. It’s effortless to read, but by pulling it apart you can see how great writing, structure, images and design come together to create exceptional content.

If you want to learn to write and publish content that stands out, then check out Write Content Like a Boss: What We Can Learn from the (Almost) Perfect Article

Early in 2018, we released Thrive Optimize, the A/B Split Testing extension for Thrive Architect. Before Thrive Optimize, split testing a page on your website was incredibly complicated. Now with this feature, you can create tests in under a minute to rapidly improve your website.

But we noticed there was a lot of confusion about A/B testing: Does it work on low-traffic websites? Will it really make a difference? What should I test?

Well we decided to show you how to start A/B testing and why it’s the key to becoming a kick-ass marketer, right here: Stealing Google’s Fire: Powerful A/B Testing for the Solopreneur.

An Ultimate Guide is... exactly what the name implies: An epic piece of content, usually 10,000+ words, that gets loads of shares and mailing list subscribers. Yes, it’s more work to prepare than an average blog post, but if done right it will keep bringing in traffic!

Fortunately, Thrive Architect is loaded with features that allow you to make high-converting ultimate guides, and in this blog post we show you exactly how. Check out How to Create Ultimate Guides that Convert Like Crazy

5 New Features You May Have Missed (+ runners up)

Throughout 2018, we’ve added loads of new features to Thrive Architect, and perhaps you missed some of them! Well, here’s a quick recap:

Named after a web development convention, a ‘Symbol’ is a saved template that can be changed site-wide. By reusing a Symbol (such as a set of podcast subscribe icons), you can make changes to it on one page knowing that every instance site-wide will reflect the same changes.

Ditch the irritating Contact Form 7 plugin and use our new Contact Form element in Thrive Architect! With different design templates, it’s now super easy to drag-and-drop a contact form onto any page and it will send you an email whenever a visitor leaves a message.

Oh yes, our brilliant new Pricing Table element is a game-changer. Now it’s so easy to create beautiful, high-converting pricing tables that are editable, mobile responsive and have an instance switch! That means you can dynamically change the pricing table content if a visitor chooses a monthly or yearly option.

Now it’s so easy to create custom Headers and Footers that load on any of your Thrive Architect landing pages. You can load different headers on different pages, make them sticky and customize them site-wide. This feature will also work with our upcoming Theme Builder, so don’t be afraid to try it out in anticipation!

It’s been highly requested and certainly makes your website look slick. The new Scroll Behavior feature means you can customise what certain page elements do when the visitor scrolls. Want a sticky button or a chapter-box that stays fixed next to your content? Easy!

Runners-Up: Global Features! 

​Although a little less exciting, we added Global Colors, Global Gradients and Global Button Styles to Thrive Architect. This now means you can link and change many style elements of your website all at once, saving you loads of time.

(Psst! We also added thousands of premium font-awesome icons, our new fancy dividers that allow you to add some flare to your pages, new hover animations, and an easy way to connect custom fonts to your website. Phew... What a year!)

What Are Your Goals For 2019?

Have you established any business goals yet? What are you hoping to achieve this year?

We’d love to know what hurdles you are facing and goals you’ve set so we can publish more content and more features that will help you get where you want to be. Let us know in a comment below!

by Bradley Stevens  January 8, 2019

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Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. We only recommend products that we believe will add value to our readers.

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Leave a Comment

  • Thrive Themes gets better and better every year 🙂

    I’m eagerly awaiting the new thrive theme builder!

  • Thanks to the Thrive Themes team. Please do not stop posting and definitely continue the recap. Both make us appreciate the platform, tools, and chances we have to improve our skills and businesses. Thanks for a great year.

  • How do I add several beautiful looking banners to a landing page? Do I have to first create them in canva or can Thrive architect create them? Thanks for the summary…I’ve got some catching up to do.

    • I need a little more information to point you in the right direction, Herman. When you say a ‘banner’, what are you trying to do? Do you mean a sticky ribbon that stretches screen width at the top and stays at the top when the visitor scrolls? Or do you want it to disappear when the visitor scrolls down?

      • it will be a links page to place in the bio of my instagram account or in an instagram post. Each banner will say something like..”My recent instagram post” my recent video” etc so my most important links will all be in one place.

      • Right. For something like that, you might want to create each banner image in something like Canva first and then load them as images on your landing page in Thrive Architect. You can make each image clickable, so it directs people to your instagram, etc.

        You could also do this rapid-implementation style just with Thrive Architect, though: a series of content boxes made in Architect, with information or pictures inside. You can make the entire content box clickable to take people to your instagram, social media, etc.

        Hope that helps!

  • Having switched to Thrive Theme has been my best 2018 business decision. And your post contents have helped me so much. Thank you to make this experience so easy and fun for me. Your post is a very good idea because I’ve missed some of your contents. So thank you!

    My 2019 goal is to build my first online course with Thrive Apprentice. The more stuff I learn about creating an online course and using Apprentice, the better it is.

    I wish you and your team a wonderful year 2019!

    • This is so great to hear, Annie. I’m pleased to hear our software has been a great choice for you. Great goals for 2019! We’ve still got some more content to publish on the topic of online course creation, so keep an eye out!

  • I’d like to see a bit more on quiz builder personally, it’s a bit intimidating 🙂 I love my membership!

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