Food bloggers often spend a lot of time creating new recipes or giving a twist to an existing one. To be honest, this task is not easy. Once a recipe is ready, a blogger will publish it on his/her blog. A blog can have several posts. A new post will be displayed at the top of the category and the home page. But once you publish 5 to 10 new posts, the old article will shift to the 2nd or 3rd page. To make sure that your latest recipe is not lost on the site and your work gets maximum exposure, you should use a well-designed theme.
StudioPress had launched a beautiful theme called Daily Dish Pro this year. DDP doesn’t have elegant looks. It has a minimal design which helps in increasing the subscriber base. This design also keeps the visitors hooked to the content. It also allows them to discover new recipes. DDP is based on responsive design. Thus, it is mobile-friendly. Here’s my honest review of this StudioPress WordPress theme.
Review
Installation and setup
The first thing you should do after downloading the StudioPress Daily Dish Pro theme is to install the Genesis Framework using the WordPress theme installer tool. Once you install the framework, install the template. You can customize DDP with the WordPress live theme customizer tool.
Header
The header of the Daily Dish Pro WP theme is divided into four sections. At the top, DDP flaunts a dark navigation bar. Below the navbar, DDP has a widget area where you can display a banner or a notice using a text widget. Below this section, the theme displays the site title and sub-title. Finally, at the bottom of this area, there’s a primary navigation bar where you can display your site’s categories and tags. DDP provides an option to upload a logo and change the background color of the two menu bars. It also supports drop-down menus.
The home or the index page of the theme enables users to display a featured post/posts, recent post widget. This page lets users highlight interesting and most popular recipes on your site. The homepage displays the footer and sidebar as well.
The sidebar is the place that you can use to display a rectangular or skyscraper format ad unit, list of posts, newsletter/opt-in form, and social networking icons.
StudioPress Daily Dish Pro theme provides a three column footer area where you can add widgets to display the latest recipes, search box, advertisement, newsletter form, etc. The theme lets users add a copyright notice at the bottom of the footer. Below and above the footer, DDP provides a widget section where you can place a horizontal ad unit or a widget that displays posts on select recipes.
SEO
DDP is a responsive WordPress theme that is powered by the HTML 5 markup, CSS3, and schema code. The pages of this theme have 5 Schema elements. None of the elements throw errors/warnings. Genesis Framework ships with an SEO settings panel which you can configure to make your site search engine friendly. If you don’t want to use the built-in SEO setting of the Framework, you can use your favorite SEO plugin. The theme is fast. You can make it faster by using a WordPress caching plugin of your choice. This is because DDP is compatible with WP-Super cache, W3TC, and several other caching plugins.
E-commerce
Daily Dish Pro allows you to sell a recipe book online with the help of the WooCommerce plugin. The theme supports multi-column layouts which makes it compatible with the WooCommerce WordPress plugin.
Pages and layouts
StudioPress Daily Dish Pro theme allows users to create unlimited landing pages. It also ships with a beautiful author, tag, category page that displays post excerpts, and a thumbnail of an image embedded in a post in a vertical list. Below the list, the theme features a paginator that users can use to discover more posts.
The StudioPress template lets users hide the sidebar by switching to the full-width layout. It lets you put the sidebar to the right or left side of the content area with just a few clicks of the mouse. DDP offers a widget area just below the blog post tags/categories. Below this area, you’ll find a beautiful author box module. Above the footer and below the author box, DDP features a threaded commenting system that visitors can use to leave feedback on the post.
Screenshots
Who can use this theme?
Even though DDP has been developed for Food Bloggers, anyone looking for a clean, lightweight, simple, and SEO friendly theme can use this template.
Pros
- Fast, and lightweight.
- Clean design.
- Supports multiple layouts
Cons
- None.
Pricing
Daily Dish Pro along with the Genesis Framework costs $99.9 on StudioPress.com. Free updates will be offered to the buyers of Daily Dish Pro till they use the theme. Premium support will be offered by the developers of this template for a year. What happens when support expires? You can post your questions/issues related to the Genesis Framework/theme in the StudioPress forum. The users will share a solution with you. Once you buy this theme, you’ll get access to documentation which you can refer to learn various features of the theme.
Update: Daily Dish Pro template has been archived by StudioPress. It is no longer available for purchase.
Daily Dish Pro theme alternatives
Astra: Astra Pro ships with many modules and it supports Beaver/Elementor page builders. You can use the modules to create a beautiful food blogging/recipe sharing site. Astra Pro is priced at $59 per year.
Divi: Divi theme lets you install layout packs designed for a certain use and customize them. You can install the free food layout packs or any other layout pack of your choice and customize it. You can also design your food blog pages with the Divi builder. WP Divi costs $89 per year.
Final thoughts
StudioPress Daily Dish Pro is a simple WordPress theme that is optimized for SEO and great performance. This template has a responsive design. It is search-engine friendly and easy to customize.
